The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, by Roger Williams, Edited by Edward Bean Underhill

THE
HANSERD KNOLLYS SOCIETY,
FOR THE
PUBLICATION OF THE WORKS OF EARLY ENGLISH AND OTHER BAPTIST WRITERS.

Treasurer.

• CHARLES JONES, Esq.

Honorary Secretaries.

• EDWARD B. UNDERHILL, Esq.
• Rev. WILLIAM JONES.

Secretary.

• Mr. GEORGE OFFOR, Jun.

Council.

• Rev. J. ACWORTH, LL.D.
• — JOSEPH ANGUS, M.A.
• — C. M. BIRRELL.
• — CALEB EVANS BIRT, M.A.
• — WILLIAM HENRY BLACK.
• — WILLIAM BROCK.
• — THOMAS BURDITT.
• — JABEZ BURNS, D.D.
• — F. A. COX, D.D., LL.D.
• — T. S. CRISP.
• — B. DAVIES, Ph. D.
• — B. EVANS.
• — B. GODWIN, D.D.
• — F. W. GOTCH, M.A.
• — W. GROSER.
• — J. H. HINTON, M.A.
• — J. HOBY, D.D.
• CHARLES THEODORE JONES, Esq.
• G. F. KEMP, Esq.
• GEORGE LOWE, Esq. F.R.S.
• Rev. W. H. MURCH, D.D.
• — J. P. MURSELL.
• — THOMAS FOX NEWMAN.
• GEORGE OFFOR, Esq.
• Rev. G. H. ORCHARD.
• — J. J. OWEN.
• — T. POTTENGER.
• — THOMAS PRICE, D.D.
• J. READ, Esq.
• Rev. ROBERT ROFF
• — JOSHUA RUSSELL.
• — J. SPRIGG, M.A.
• — EDWARD STEANE, D.D.
• — CHARLES STOVEL.
• — THOMAS THOMAS.
• — FREDERICK TRESTRAIL.

It has been a matter of regret with many, that the writings of the early members and ministers of the Baptist churches of this country should be comparatively so little known. The present appears to be a favourable time to reprint such of them as may be deemed worthy of perpetuation, from their historical or theological importance.

These writings are confined to no peculiarity of sentiment, but embrace every topic of divine truth, which the word of God presents for the salvation of the believer, as well as for the regulation of the church of Christ.

To the Baptists, belongs the honour of first asserting in this land, and of establishing on the immutable basis of just argument and scripture rule, the right of every man to worship God as conscience dictates, in submission only to divine command.

Rejecting the authority of men in matters of faith, they wrote with great simplicity and directness of purpose. Scripture alone was their authority, and excepting some of their polemical works, their productions are remarkably free from that parade of learning which was the fault of their age.

They were not, however, destitute of learning. Most of the early Baptists had had an university education: and if this privilege was not enjoyed by their successors, it was because the national seats of learning denied it to them. The names of Bampfield, Canne, Cornwell, Danvers, Delaune, Du Veil, Denne, Grantham, Jessey, Knollys, Smyth, and Tombes, are sufficient to prove that the Baptist churches were not destitute of able and learned expounders of their sentiments, eminent for their attainments in both classical and divine knowledge.

The historical value of the works which it is proposed to reproduce, is very great. Their authors exercised no mean influence on the course of national affairs during the period of Cromwell’s protectorate, and they became in subsequent reigns, as they had been in times preceding the Commonwealth, the especial objects of ecclesiastical and political persecution. Some of the works which it is desired to publish will also embrace the period of the Reformation, and illustrate the sufferings endured, by the baptists of that eventful period, for conscience sake.

As theological writers they are characterized by fervour of spirit; deep study of the word of God; great facility of application of divine truths to passing events; a holy attachment to “the truth as it is in Jesus;” clear and pungent exhibitions of the word of life; an uncompromising adherence to the scriptures as the rule of doctrine, practice, and ecclesiastical organization and discipline; and finally, a fearless following of their convictions, derived from the divine oracles.

Works of this kind are also wanting for our congregational and family libraries. It is to be feared that too many of us are ignorant of our own history, and of the great and good men who lost all in the maintenance of our principles.

The series of proposed volumes will include the works of both General and Particular Baptists; Records and Manuscripts relating to the rise and progress of Baptist churches; Translations of such works as may illustrate the sufferings of the Baptists and the extension of their principles, together with such Documents as are to be found only in large historical collections, or may not yet have appeared in an accessible form. On the Baptismal controversy only those treatises will be given, which are of acknowledged worth or historic value. The whole will be accompanied with biographical notices of the authors, and with such notes and illustrations as may be essential to their completeness.

The publications will consist of works produced before the close of the seventeenth century. The following list comprises the names of some of the authors whose works are intended to form part of the series;—Bampfield, Blackwood, Bunyan, Canne, Collier, Collins, Cornwall, Danvers, Delaune, Denne, Du Veil, Drapes, Grantham, Griffith, Helwys, How, Jeffrey, Jessey, Keach, Kiffin, King, Knollys, Lawrence, Palmer, Powell, Pendarves, Smyth, Stennett, Tombes, Roger Williams, &c.

Terms of Subscription.

1. Every subscriber of ten shillings and sixpence annually will be entitled to one copy of every work issued during the year of his subscription. Two volumes at least will be published for the 10s. 6d.

2. Subscriptions will be considered due, in advance on the first of January of every year.

3. Ministers and Sunday Schools obtaining each ten subscribers annually, will be entitled to one copy of every work published in the year for which such subscriptions are paid.

4. Books will be delivered, free of expense, in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, from which places they will be sent at the cost of the subscriber by any channel he may appoint.

Subscriptions will be received by the Treasurer, at Vassall Road, Kennington; by the Honorary Secretaries, Mr. Underhill, of Newmarket House, Nailsworth; Rev. W. Jones, at Stepney College; or by any member of the Council; also by Mr. G. Offor, jun., Secretary, Baptist Mission House, Moorgate Street, London, to whom all communications for the Society should be addressed, or at the Depository, B. L. Green’s, 68, Paternoster Row.

THE
BLOUDY TENENT
OF
PERSECUTION.

THE
BLOUDY TENENT
OF
PERSECUTION
FOR
CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE DISCUSSED:
AND
MR. COTTON’S LETTER
EXAMINED AND ANSWERED.

BY ROGER WILLIAMS.

EDITED FOR
The Hanserd Knollys Society,
BY
EDWARD BEAN UNDERHILL.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY,
BY J. HADDON, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY.
1848.

A
BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.

It was on the 1st day of December, in the year 1630, that Mr. Roger Williams, with his wife, embarked at Bristol for America, in the ship Lyon, Captain William Pierce.

Two years and a half before, a number of eminent and enthusiastic men had gone forth, animated by religious principles and purposes, to seek a home and a refuge from persecution on the wild and untenanted shores of Massachusetts Bay. Charles I. had announced his design of ruling the English people by arbitrary power, only a few days before a patent for the Company of Massachusetts Bay passed the seals.[1] No provision was made in this document for the exercise of religious liberty. The emigrants were puritans, and although they had suffered long for conscience’ sake, on this subject their views were as contracted as those of their brethren who in Elizabeth’s reign sought the overthrow of England’s hierarchy.[2] The patent secured to them, however, to a great extent, a legislative independence of the mother country; but they soon employed that power to persecute differing consciences.

The emigrants landed at Salem at the end of June, 1629. A few mud hovels alone marked the place of their future abode. On their passage they arranged the order of their government, and bound themselves by solemn covenant to each other and the Lord. As religion was the cause of their abandonment of their native land, so was its establishment their first care. At their request a few of the settlers at Plymouth, where in 1620 a colony had been established by the members of Mr. John Robinson’s church, came over to assist and advise on the arrangement of their church polity. After several conferences, the order determined on was the congregational, and measures were immediately taken for the choice of elders and deacons. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed, and thirty persons covenanted together to walk in the ways of God. Mr. Skelton was chosen pastor, Mr. Higginson teacher, both puritan clergymen of celebrity, and Mr. Houghton ruling elder. They agreed with the church at Plymouth, “That the children of the faithful are church members with their parents, and that their baptism is a seal of their being so.”[3]

The church was thus self-constituted. It owned no allegiance to bishop, priest, or king. It recognized but one authority—the King of saints: but one rule—the word of God. The new system did not, however, meet with the approbation of all this little company. Some still fondly clung to the episcopacy of their native land, and to the more imposing rites of their mother church. The main body of the emigrants did not altogether refuse to have communion with the church which had so unnaturally driven them away; but, as they said, they separated from her corruptions, and rejected the human inventions in worship which they discovered in her fold. Not so all. Liberty of worship they desired indeed, but not a new form of polity. Two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, the one a lawyer, the other a merchant, were the leaders of this little band. They wished the continuance of the Common Prayer, of the ceremonies usually observed in the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and a wider door for the entrance of members into a church state. Dissatisfied with the new order of things, they set up a separate assembly. This was a mutiny against the state, as well as against the church; and proving incorrigible, the brothers were sent home in “the Lyon’s Whelp.”[4]

In the year 1630, a large addition was made to the pilgrim band, on the arrival of Governor Winthrop. Not less than 1500 persons accompanied him, to escape the bigotry and persecuting spirit of Laud. Several new settlements were formed, and the seat of the colonial government was fixed at Boston. Though sincere in their attachment to true religion, and desirous of practising its duties unmolested by episcopal tyranny, they thought not of toleration for others. No such idea had dawned upon them. They were prepared to practise over other consciences the like tyranny to that from which they had fled.

With nobler views than these did Mr. Williams disembark at Boston, after a very tempestuous voyage, on the 5th of February in the year 1631. The infant colony had suffered very much during the winter from the severity of the weather, and the scarcity of provisions. The arrival of the Lyon was welcomed with gratitude, as the friendly interposition of the hand of God.[5]

Roger Williams was at this time little more than thirty years of age—“a young minister, godly and zealous, having precious gifts.”[6] Tradition tells us, that he was born in Wales: that he was in some way related to Cromwell: that his parents were in humble life: and that he owed his education to Sir Edward Coke, who, accidentally observing his attention at public worship, and ascertaining the accuracy of the notes he took of the sermon, sent him to the University of Oxford. All this may or may not be true; but it is evident that his education was liberal, and that he had a good acquaintance with the classics and the original languages of the scriptures.

He himself informs us, that in his early years his heart was imbued with spiritual life. “From my childhood, the Father of lights and mercies touched my soul with a love to himself, to his only begotten, the true Lord Jesus, to his holy scriptures.”[7] At this time he must have been about twelve years old. His first studies were directed to the law, probably at the suggestion of his patron. He became early attached to those democratic principles which are so ably stated in the “Bloudy Tenent,” and to those rights of liberty which found so able a defender in the aged Coke. Subsequently, however, he turned his attention to theology, and assumed the charge of a parish. It was during this period that he became acquainted with the leading emigrants to America; and he appears to have been the most decided amongst them in their opposition to the liturgy, ceremonies, and hierarchy of the English church.[8] It is probable that it was upon the subject of the grievances they endured, he had the interview with King James of which he speaks in a letter written late in life.[9]

It was a notable year, both in Old and in New England, in which Williams sought a refuge for conscience amid the wilds of America. Autocratic rule was decided upon by the infatuated Charles, and the utterance of the most arbitrary principles from the pulpits of the court clergy was encouraged. Doctrines subversive of popular rights were taught, and the sermons containing them published at the king’s special command. Laud assumed a similar authority in ecclesiastical affairs. With unscrupulous zeal and severity he sought to extirpate puritanism from the church. The Calvinistic interpretation of the articles was condemned, and Bishop Davenant was rebuked for a sermon which he preached upon the 17th. The puritans were to a man Calvinists, the Laudean party were Arminians. And as if to give the former practical proof of the lengths to which Laud was prepared to go, and to shut them up either to silence or to voluntary banishment, Leighton, for his “Plea against Prelacy,” was this year committed to prison for life, fined £10,000, degraded from his ministry, whipped, pilloried, his ears cut off, his nose slit, and his face branded with a hot iron. From this tyranny over thought and conscience Williams fled, only to bear his testimony against similar outrages upon conscience and human rights in the New World—to find the same principles in active operation among the very men who like him had suffered, and who like him sought relief on that distant shore.

No sooner had Mr. Williams landed at Boston, than we find him declaring his opinion, that “the magistrate might not punish a breach of the sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table.”[10] Moreover, so impure did he deem the communion of the church of England, that he hesitated to hold communion with any church that continued in any manner favourable to it. This was, however, the case with the church at Boston. It refused to regard the hierarchy and parishional assemblies of the English church as portions of the abominations of anti-christ. It permitted its members, when in England, to commune with it, in hearing the word and in the private administration of the sacraments.[11] Thus while separating from its corruptions, the emigrants clave to it with a fond pertinacity. This was displeasing to the free soul of Williams. He refused to join the congregation at Boston. It would have been a weak and sinful compliance with evil. He could not regard the cruelties and severities, and oppression, exercised by the church of England, with any feelings but those of indignation. That could not be the true church of Christ on whose skirts was found sprinkled the blood of saints and martyrs. He therefore gladly accepted the invitation of the church at Salem, and a few weeks after his arrival he left Boston to enter upon the pastorate there.

But on the very same day on which he commenced his ministry at Salem (April 12), the General Court of the Colony expressed its disapprobation of the step, and required the church to forbear any further proceeding. This was an arbitrary and unjust interference with the rights of the Salem church. As a congregational and independent community, it had a perfect right to select Mr. Williams for its pastor. The choice of its ministry is one of the church’s most sacred privileges, to be exercised only in subordination to the laws and to the will of its great Head. This right the General Court most flagrantly violated, and thus laid the foundation for that course of resistance which eventually led to the banishment of Mr. Williams.[12]

To the civil government of the colony Mr. Williams was prepared to give all due submission. Very soon after his arrival, he entered his name upon the list of those who desired to be made freemen, and on the 12th of May took the customary oaths. Yet as if to bring into conflict at the earliest moment, and to excite the expression of those generous sentiments on religious and civil liberty which animated the soul of Mr. Williams, on that very day the court “ordered and agreed, that for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same.” Thus a theocracy was established. The government belonged to the saints. They alone could rule in the commonwealth, or be capable of the exercise of civil rights. “Not only was the door of calling to magistracy shut against natural and unregenerate men, though excellently fitted for civil offices, but also against the best and ablest servants of God, except they be entered into church estate.”[13] This was to follow, according to Williams’ idea, “Moses’ church constitution,” “to pluck up the roots and foundations of all common society in the world, to turn the garden and paradise of the church and saints into the field of the civil state of the world, and to reduce the world to the first chaos or confusion.” Our readers will find his reasons at large, against this perilous course, in the subsequent pages of this volume.[14]

As peace could not be enjoyed at Salem, before the end of the summer Mr. Williams withdrew to Plymouth; “where,” says Governor Bradford, “he was freely entertained, according to our poor ability, and exercised his gifts among us; and after some time was admitted a member of the church, and his teaching well approved.”[15] Two years he laboured in the ministry of the word among the pilgrim fathers; but it would seem not without proclaiming those principles of freedom which had already made him an object of jealousy. For on requesting his dismissal thence to Salem, in the autumn of 1635, we find the elder, Mr. Brewster, persuading the church at Plymouth to relinquish communion with him, lest he should “run the same course of rigid separation and anabaptistry which Mr. John Smith, the se-baptist, at Amsterdam, had done.”[16] It was during his residence at Plymouth that he acquired that knowledge of the Indian language, and that acquaintance with the chiefs of the Narragansetts, which became so serviceable to him in his banishment.

His acceptance of their invitation afforded sincere and great pleasure to the church at Salem. His former ministry amongst them had resulted in a warm attachment, and not a few left Plymouth to place themselves under his spiritual care. Two or three weeks only could have passed after his return, when, on the 3rd of September, Mr. Cotton, his destined antagonist in the strife on liberty of conscience, landed at Boston, in company with Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone; which “glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor people in the wilderness to say, That the God of heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities: Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building.”[17]

John Cotton was the son of a puritan lawyer. Educated at Cambridge, he had acquired a large amount of learning; and by his study of the schoolmen sharpened the natural acuteness and subtilty of his mind. In theology he was a thorough Calvinist, and adopted in all their extent the theocratic principles of the great Genevan reformer. On his arrival in New England, he was immediately called upon to advise and arrange the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the colony. By his personal influence the churches were settled in a regular and permanent form, and their laws of discipline were finally determined by the platform adopted at Cambridge in 1648. The civil laws were adjusted to the polity of the church, and while nominally distinct, they supported and assisted each other.[18]

Matter for complaint was soon discovered against Mr. Williams. At Plymouth he had already urged objections relative to the royal patent, under which the colonists held their lands. A manuscript treatise concerning it now became the subject of consideration by the General Court. In this work, Mr. Williams appears to have questioned the King’s right to grant the possession of lands which did not belong to him, but to the natives who hunted over them. Equity required that they should be fairly purchased of the Indian possessors. Mr. Williams was “convented” before the Court. Subsequently, he gave satisfaction to his judges of his “intentions and loyalty,” and the matter was passed by. It will be seen, however, that this accusation was revived, and declared to be one of the causes of his banishment.[19]

For a few months, during the sickness of Mr. Skelton, Mr. Williams continued his ministry without interruption, and with great acceptance. On the 2nd of August, 1634, Mr. Skelton died, and the Salem church shortly thereafter chose him to be their settled teacher. To this the magistrates and ministers objected. His principles were obnoxious to them. They sent a request to the church, that they would not ordain him. But in the exercise of their undoubted right the church persisted, and Mr. Williams was regularly inducted to the office of teacher.[20]

Occasion was soon found to punish the church and its refractory minister. On November the 17th, he was summoned to appear before the Court, for again teaching publicly “against the king’s patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country: and for terming the churches of England anti-christian.” A new accusation was made on the 30th of the following April, 1635. He had taught publicly, it was said, “that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and very clearly confuted.”[21] In the month of July he was again summoned to Boston, and some other dangerous opinions were now laid to his charge. He was accused of maintaining:—That the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace:—That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though wife or child—That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat. But the aggravation of his offences was that, notwithstanding these crimes were charged upon him, the church at Salem, in spite of the magisterial admonitions, and the exhortations of the pastors, had called him to the office of teacher. To mark their sense of this recusancy, the Salem people were refused, three days after, the possession of a piece of land for which they had applied, and to which they had a just claim.[22]

This flagrant wrong induced Mr. Williams and his church to write admonitory letters to the churches of which these magistrates were members, requesting them to admonish the magistrates of the criminality of their conduct, it being a “breach of the rule of justice.” The letters were thus addressed because the members of the churches were the only freemen, and the only parties interested in the civil government of the colony. They were without effect. His own people began to waver under the pressure of ministerial power and influence. Mr. Williams’s health too gave way, “by his excessive labours, preaching thrice a week, by labours night and day in the field; and by travels night and day to go and come from the Court.” Even his wife added to his affliction by her reproaches, “till at length he drew her to partake with him in the error of his way.”[23] He now declared his intention to withdraw communion from all the churches in the Bay, and from Salem also if they would not separate with him. His friend Endicot was imprisoned for justifying the letter of admonition, and Mr. Sharpe was summoned to appear to answer for the same. In October he was called before the Court for the last time. All the ministers were present. They had already decided “that any one was worthy of banishment who should obstinately assert, that the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy and heresy.”[24] His letters were read, which he justified; he maintained all his opinions. After a disputation with Mr. Hooker, who could not “reduce him from any of his errors,” he was sentenced to banishment in six weeks, all the ministers, save one, approving of the deed.[25]

Before proceeding to detail the subsequent events of his history, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the topics of accusation brought against Mr. Williams, and especially since they are often referred to in the pages of the works now in the reader’s hands.

The causes of his banishment are given by Mr. Williams in p. 375 of this volume, with which agrees Governor Winthrop’s testimony cited above. Mr. Cotton, however, does not concur in this statement: the two last causes he denies, giving as his reason, “that many are known to hold both those opinions, and are yet tolerated not only to live in the commonwealth, but also in the fellowship of the churches.” The other two points, he likewise asserts, were held by some, who yet were permitted to enjoy both civil and church liberties.[26] What then were the grounds of this harsh proceeding according to Mr. Cotton? They were as follows:—“Two things there were, which to my best observation, and remembrance, caused the sentence of his banishment: and two other fell in, that hastened it. 1. His violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent.... 2. The magistrates, and other members of the general Court upon intelligence of some episcopal and malignant practices against the country, they made an order of Court to take trial of the fidelity of the people, not by imposing upon them, but by offering to them, an oath of fidelity. This oath when it came abroad, he vehemently withstood it, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as he said, Christ’s prerogative to have his office established by oath: partly because an oath was a part of God’s worship, and God’s worship was not to be put upon carnal persons, as he conceived many of the people to be.” The two concurring causes were:—1. That notwithstanding his “heady and turbulent spirit,” which induced the magistrates to advise the church at Salem not to call him to the office of teacher, yet the major part of the church made choice of him. And when for this the Court refused Salem the parcel of land, Mr. Williams stirred up the church to unite with him in letters of admonition to the churches “whereof those magistrates were members, to admonish them of their open transgression of the rule of justice.” 2. That when by letters from the ministers the Salem church was inclined to abandon their teacher, Mr. Williams renounced communion with Salem and all the churches in the Bay, refused to resort to public worship, and preached to “sundry who began to resort to his family,” on the Lord’s day.[27]

On examination, it is evident that the two statements do not materially differ. Mr. Williams held the patents to be sinful “wherein Christian kings, so called, are invested with right by virtue of their Christianity, to take and give away the lands and countries of other men.”[28] It were easy to represent opposition to the patent of New England as overthrowing the foundation on which colonial laws were framed, and as a denial of the power claimed by the ministers and the General Court “to erect such a government of the church as is most agreeable to the word.” Such was Mr. Cotton’s view, and which he succeeded in impressing on the minds of the magistrates. Mr. Williams may perhaps have acquired somewhat of his jealousy concerning these patents from the instructions of Sir Edward Coke, who so nobly withstood the indiscriminate granting of monopolies in the parliament of his native land.[29] There can be no question that Williams was substantially right. His own practice, when subsequently laying the basis for the state of Rhode Island, evinces the equity, uprightness, and generosity of his motives. Perhaps too his views upon the origin of all governmental power may have had some influence in producing his opposition. He held that the sovereignty lay in the hands of the people. No patent or royal rights could therefore be alleged as against the popular will. That must make rulers, confirm the laws, and control the acts of the executive. Before it patents, privileges, and monopolies, the exclusive rights of a few, must sink away.

Moreover, it is clear, from Cotton’s own statement, that this question of the patent involved that of religious liberty. The colony claimed under it the right of erecting a church, of framing an ecclesiastical polity: and it exercised it. Ecclesiastical laws were made every whit as stringent as the canons of the establishment of the mother country. Already we have seen that church members alone could be freemen. Every adult person was compelled to be present at public congregational worship, and to support both ministry and church with payment of dues enforced by magisterial power.[30] “Three months was, by the law, the time of patience to the excommunicate, before the secular power was to deal with him:” then the obstinate person might be fined, imprisoned, or banished. Several persons were banished for noncompliance with the state religion.[31] In 1644, a law was promulgated against the baptists, by which “it is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants,” or seduce others, or leave the congregation during the administration of the rite, they “shall be sentenced to banishment.” The same year we accordingly find that a poor man was tied up and whipped for refusing to have his child sprinkled.[32] Heresy, blasphemy, and some other the like crimes, exposed the culprit to expatriation. It was against this course that Mr. Williams afterwards wrote his “Bloudy Tenent;” and through the “sad evil” “of the civil magistrates dealing in matters of conscience and religion, as also of persecuting and hunting any for any matter merely spiritual and religious,” which he opposed, was he banished.[33]

The question of the patent could not therefore be discussed in the General Court without involving a discussion upon religious liberty. Mr. Cotton has chosen to make most prominent, in his articles of accusation, the question of the origin of the patent; the magistrate, whose statement is adduced by Mr. Williams, places in the forefront that of the magistrate’s power over conscience. As the matter stood, these two subjects were allied. To doubt the one was to doubt the other. But Mr. Williams was decided as to the iniquity of both.

On the subject of the denial of the oath of fidelity, it is evident, from Mr. Cotton’s statement, that the oath owed its origin to intolerance. Episcopacy should have no place under congregational rule, no more than independency could be suffered to exist under the domination of the English hierarchy. But Mr. Williams appears to have objected to the oath chiefly on other grounds: it was allowed by all parties that oath-taking was a religious act. If so, it was concluded by Mr. Williams, in entire consistency with his other views, that, 1, It ought not to be forced on any, so far as it was religious; nor, 2, could an unregenerate man take part in what was thought to be an act of religious worship. Whether an oath be a religious act, we shall not discuss; but on the admitted principles of the parties engaged in this strife, Mr. Williams’s argument seems to us irrefragable.

On the concurring causes referred to by Mr. Cotton, it will be unnecessary to make extended comment. The first of these is treated of at length in the second piece of this volume. Mr. Cotton and Mr. Williams were representatives of the two great bodies of dissentients from the law-established church of England. One party deemed it to be an anti-christian church, its rites to be avoided, its ministry forsaken, its communion abjured: these were the Separatists, or true Nonconformists, to whom Mr. Williams belonged.[34] The other party, although declaiming against the supposed corruptions of the church, loved its stately service, its governmental patronage, its common prayer, and its parishional assemblies:[35] these were the puritans who, in New England, became Independents, or Congregationalists[36]—in Old England, during the Commonwealth, chiefly Presbyterians, and some Independents: to these Mr. Cotton belonged.

Mr. Williams thought it his duty to renounce all connection with the oppressor of the Lord’s people, and also with those who still held communion with her.[37] Let us not deem him too rigid in these principles of separation. There can be no fellowship between Christ and Belial. And if, as was indeed the case, the Anglican church too largely exhibited those principles which were subversive of man’s inalienable rights, exercised a tyrannous and intolerable sway over the bodies and consciences of the people, and drove from her fold, as outcasts, many of her best and holiest children,—it is no wonder that they should in return regard her touch as polluting, her ecclesiastical frame as the work of anti-christ. The Congregationalists introduced her spirit and practice into the legislation of the New World, and it behoved every lover of true liberty to stand aloof and separate from the evil. This did Mr. Williams. He was right in regarding the relation of the Congregational polity to the civil state in New England as implicitly a national church state, although that relation was denied to be explicitly national by Mr. Cotton and his brethren. “I affirm,” said Williams, “that that church estate, that religion and worship which is commanded, or permitted to be but one in a country, nation, or province, that church is not in the nature of the particular churches of Christ, but in the nature of a national or state church.”[38]

It is, however, to this controversy that we are indebted for the second of the pieces reprinted in this volume. While wandering among the uncivilized tribes of Indians, Mr. Cotton’s letter came into Mr. Williams’s hands.[39] It seems to have been a part of a somewhat extended correspondence between them, and to have originated in Mr. Cotton’s twofold desire to correct the aberrations, as he deemed them, of his old friend, and to shield himself from the charge of being not only an accessory, but to some degree the instigator of the sentence of banishment decreed against him. His defence of himself is unworthy of his candour, and betrays, by its subtle distinctions and passionate language, by his cruel insinuations and ready seizure of the most trifling inaccuracies, a mind ill at ease and painfully conscious that he had dealt both unjustly and unkindly with his former companion in tribulation. By some means, but without his knowledge, Mr. Cotton’s letter got into print, to him most “unwelcome;” and while in England, in 1644, Mr. Williams printed his reply. It will be seen that Mr. Williams has given the whole of it: and with scrupulous fidelity, adding thereto his remarks and reasonings. Mr. Cotton, however, did not hesitate to aver the righteousness of the persecution and banishment which Williams endured.[40]

In the Colonial Records, the date of Mr. Williams’s sentence is November 3, (1635). He immediately withdrew from all church communion with the authors of his sufferings. A few attached friends assembled around him, and preparations were made for departure.[41] It would seem that he had, for some time, contemplated the formation of a settlement where liberty, both civil and religious, should be enjoyed. This reached the ears of his adversaries. His Lord’s day addresses were attractive to many, and withdrew them from the congregations of the dominant sect. Provoked at “the increase of concourse of people to him on the Lord’s days in private,” and fearing the further extension of principles so subversive of their state-church proceedings, they resolved on Mr. Williams’s immediate deportation. Two or three months had to elapse, of the additional time granted for his departure, before their sentence could take effect. Delay was dangerous: therefore the Court met at Boston on the 11th of January, 1636, and resolved that he should immediately be shipped for England, in a vessel then riding at anchor in the bay. A warrant was despatched summoning him to Boston. He returned answer that his life was in hazard; and came not. A pinnace was sent to fetch him; “but when they came at his house, they found he had been gone three days before; but whither they could not learn.”[42]

His wife and two children, the youngest less than three months old, were left behind. By a mortgage on his property at Salem he had raised money to supply his wants. He then plunged into the untrodden wilds; being “denied the common air to breathe in, and a civil cohabitation upon the same common earth; yea, and also without mercy and human compassion, exposed to winter miseries in a howling wilderness.”[43]

After fourteen weeks’ exposure to frost and snow, “not knowing what bread or bed did mean,” he arrived at Seekonk,[44] on the east bank of Pawtucket river. Here he began to build and plant. In the following expressive lines he seems to refer to the kind support afforded him by the Indians:—

“God’s providence is rich to his,

Let none distrustful be;

In wilderness, in great distress,

These ravens have fed me.”[45]

Their hospitality he requited throughout his long life by acts of benevolence, and by unceasing efforts to benefit and befriend them. He taught them Christianity; and was the first of the American pilgrims to convey to these savage tribes the message of salvation.

Before his crops were ripe for harvest, he received intimation from the governor of Plymouth, that he had “fallen into the edge of their bounds,” and as they were loath to offend the people of the Bay, he was requested to remove beyond their jurisdiction. With five companions he embarked in his canoe, descending the river, till arriving at a little cove on the opposite side, they were hailed by the Indians with the cry of “What cheer?”[46] Cheered with this friendly salutation they went ashore. Again embarking, and descending the stream, they reached a spot at the mouth of the Mohassuck river, where they landed, near to a spring—remaining to this day as an emblem of those vital blessings which flow to society from true liberty. That spot is “holy ground,” where sprung up the first civil polity in the world permitting freedom to the human soul in things of God. There Roger Williams founded the town of Providence. It was, and has ever been, the “refuge of distressed consciences.” Persecution has never sullied its annals. Freedom to worship God was the desire of its founder—for himself and for all, and he nobly endured till it was accomplished.

It has been generally held that the fourteen weeks above referred to were spent by Mr. Williams in traversing the wilderness, and in penetrating the vast forests which separated Salem from Seekonk by land. Some doubts have of late, however, been thrown upon this view.

It can scarcely be supposed that so long a time could have been occupied in the land journey from Salem to Seekonk. The distance is about fifty miles. Even if we allow a considerable addition to this, occasioned by the detour rendered necessary to avoid the settlements on the Bay, the time consumed cannot be accounted for. He himself has given us no details of this eventful journey. Only passing references to it occur in his various works. Yet these are of such a kind as to render it more probable that his journey was made by sea, coasting from place to place, holding intercourse with the native tribes, whose language he had previously acquired.[47] His route by sea would be not less than 200 miles, to accomplish which by his own unaided arm, together with the interviews he undoubtedly held with the aborigines, and the time necessarily allotted for repose, or spent in waiting for favourable weather, might well fill the fourteen weeks he tells us his journey lasted. His language supports this view, “Mr. Winthrop, he says, privately wrote me to steer my course to the Narraganset Bay. I took his prudent motion, and waiving all other thoughts and emotions I steered my course from Salem, though in winter snow, into these parts.” Again, “It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this bay;” which words would seem only applicable to a voyage by water. “I was sorely tossed for one fourteen weeks.” This language is evidently such as would be most natural in referring to a passage by sea.[48] But there is one paragraph in the present volume which would seem to decide the question. It is found at page 386. “Had his soul [Cotton’s] been in my soul’s case, exposed to the miseries, poverties, necessities, wants, debts, hardships of sea and land, in a banished condition, he would, I presume, reach forth a more merciful cordial to the afflicted.” Here distinct reference is made to the sea as the scene of some of those hardships he endured. It is moreover known that travelling at that time was chiefly by water, that Williams was a skilful boatman, and that he possessed a boat of his own soon after his settlement at Providence. In the view of these particulars, we are constrained to the conclusion that Mr. Williams journeyed by sea, often landing to seek for food, and to hold intercourse with the natives as to his final settlement.[49]

On reaching Providence, the first object of Mr. Williams would be to obtain possession of some land. This he acquired from the Narragansett Indians, the owners of the soil surrounding the bay into which he had steered his course. By a deed dated the 24th March, 1638, certain lands and meadows were made over to him by the Indian chiefs which he had purchased of them two years before, that is, at the time of his settlement amongst them. He shortly after reconveyed these lands, to his companions. In a deed dated 1661, he says, “I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. I then considering the condition of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends [whom he names], who then desired to take shelter here with me.”[50] This worthy conception of his noble mind was realized, and he lived to see a settled community formed wherein liberty of conscience was a primary and fundamental law. Thirty-five years afterward he could say, “Here, all over this colony, a great number of weak and distressed souls, scattered, are flying hither from Old and New England, the Most High and Only Wise hath, in his infinite wisdom, provided this country and this corner as a shelter for the poor and persecuted, according to their several persuasions.”[51]

The year 1638 witnessed the settlement of Rhode Island, from which the state subsequently took its name, by some other parties, driven from Massachusetts by the persecution of the ruling clerical power. So great was the hatred or the envy felt towards the new colony, that Massachusetts framed a law prohibiting the inhabitants of Providence from coming within its bounds.[52] This was a cruel law, for thus trading was hindered with the English vessels frequenting Boston, from whence came the chief supplies of foreign goods. So great was the scarcity of paper from this cause among the Rhode Islanders, that “the first of their writings that are to be found, appear on small scraps of paper, wrote as thick, and crowded as close as possible.” “God knows,” says Williams, “that many thousand pounds cannot repay the very temporary losses I have sustained,” by being debarred from Boston.[53]

In March 1639, Mr. Williams became a baptist, together with several more of his companions in exile. As none in the colony had been baptized, a Mr. Holliman was selected to baptize Mr. Williams, who then baptized Mr. Holliman and ten others. Thus was founded the first baptist church in America.[54] On the 1st of the following July, Mr. Williams and his wife, with eight others, were excommunicated by the church at Salem, then under the pastoral care of the celebrated Hugh Peters. Thus was destroyed the last link which bound these exiles to the congregational churches of New England, where infant baptism and persecution abode, as in other churches, in sisterly embrace together.[55]

Mr. Williams appears to have remained pastor of the newly formed church but a few months. For, while retaining all his original sentiments upon the doctrines of God’s word, and the ordinances of the church, he conceived a true ministry must derive its authority from direct apostolic succession or endowment: that, therefore, without such a commission he had no authority to assume the office of pastor, or be a teacher in the house of God, or proclaim to the impenitent the saving mercies of redemption. It is, however, by no means clear that he regarded the latter as wrong, for we find him in after days desiring to print several discourses which he had delivered amongst the Indians.[56] He seems rather to have conceived that the church of Christ had so fallen into apostacy, as to have lost both its right form and the due administration of the ordinances, which could only be restored by some new apostolic, or specially commissioned messenger from above. Various passages in the present volume will be met with which favour this view:[57] the following is from his “Hireling Ministry:” “In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a diligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged, in city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches, in Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God, bring in the result of a satisfying discovery, that either the begetting ministry of the apostles or messengers to the nations, or the feeding and nourishing ministry of pastors and teachers, according to the first institution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored and extant.”[58] From this passage it would seem that his objections were rather owing to the imperfection of the church in its revived condition, than to the want of a right succession in the ministry. These imperfections could be removed by a new apostolic ministry alone. He therefore was opposed to “the office of any ministry, but such as the Lord Jesus appointeth.” Perhaps in the following assertion of Mr. Cotton we have the true expression of Mr. Williams’s views. He conceived “that the apostacy of anti-christ hath so far corrupted all, that there can be no recovery out of that apostacy till Christ shall send forth new apostles to plant churches anew.”[59]

The constantly increasing number of settlers in the new colony rendered a form of civil government necessary. A model was drawn up, of which the essential principles were democratic. The power was invested in the freemen, orderly assembled, or a major part of them. None were to be accounted delinquents for doctrine, “provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established.” And a few months later this was further confirmed by a special act, “that that law concerning liberty of conscience in point of doctrine, be perpetuated.” Thus liberty of conscience was the basis of the legislation of the colony of Rhode Island, and its annals have remained to this day unsullied by the blot of persecution.[60] But many were the examples of an opposite course occurring in the neighbouring colony of Boston. Not satisfied with having driven Williams and many more from their borders by their oppressive measures against conscience, the General Court laid claim to jurisdiction over the young and rapidly increasing settlements of the sons of liberty. This, concurring with other causes, led the inhabitants of Rhode Island and Providence to request Mr. Williams to take passage to England; and there, if possible, obtain a charter defining their rights, and giving them independent authority, freed from the intrusive interference of the Massachusetts Bay.

In the month of June 1643, Mr. Williams set sail from New York for England, for he was not permitted to enter the territories of Massachusetts, and to ship from the more convenient port of Boston, although his services in allaying Indian ferocity, and preventing by his influence the attacks of the native tribes upon their settlements, were of the highest value and of the most important kind.[61]

At the time of his arrival in England, the country was involved in the horrors of civil war. By an ordinance dated Nov. 3, 1643, the affairs of the colonies were intrusted to a board of commissioners, of which Lord Warwick was the head. Aided by the influence of his friend, Sir Henry Vane, Mr. Williams quickly obtained the charter he sought, dated March 14, 1644, giving to the “Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay,” full power to rule themselves, by any form of government they preferred.[62]

With this charter Mr. Williams, in the summer of the same year, returned to New England, and landed at Boston, Sept. 17th, emboldened to tread this forbidden ground by a commendatory letter to the Governor and Assistants of the Bay, from several noblemen and members of parliament. The first elections under this charter were held at Portsmouth in May 1641, when the General Assembly then constituted, proceeded to frame a code of laws, and to commence the structure of their civil government. It was declared in the act then passed, “that the form of government established in Providence Plantations is democratical, that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of the free inhabitants.” The conclusion of this Magna Charta of Rhode Island is in these memorable words: “These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the penalties for the transgression thereof, which, by common consent, are ratified and established throughout the whole colony. And otherwise than thus, what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever.”[63] Mr. Roger Williams was chosen assistant, and in subsequent years governor. Thus under the auspices of this noble-minded man was sown the germ of modern democratic institutions, combining therewith the yet more precious seed of religious liberty.

We here trace no further the history of Roger Williams in relation to the state of which he was the honoured founder. To the period at which we have arrived, their story is indissolubly allied together. Others, imbued with his principles, henceforth took part in working out the great and then unsolved problem—how liberty, civil and religious, could exist in harmony with dutiful obedience to rightful laws. Posterity is witness to the result. The great communities of the Old World are daily approximating to that example, and recognizing the truth and power of those principles which throw around the name of Roger Williams a halo of imperishable glory and renown.

The work of this eminent man, reprinted in the following pages, owes its origin to the events we have detailed, and to some other very interesting circumstances. In the first volume of the publications of the Hanserd Knollys Society, will be found a piece, entitled “An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty, as it was presented, 1620.” This was a baptist production. It is a well arranged, clear, and concise argument against persecution, and for liberty of conscience. Mr. Williams informs us that this treatise was written by a prisoner in Newgate for conscience’ sake. So rigid was his confinement that paper, pens, and ink were denied him. He had recourse to sheets of paper sent, by a friend in London, as stoppers to the bottle containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts in milk on the paper thus provided, and returned them to his friend in the same way. “In such paper, written with milk, nothing will appear; but the way of reading it by fire being known to this friend who received the papers, he transcribed and kept together the papers, although the author himself could not correct, nor view what himself had written.”[64]

From this treatise was taken those arguments against persecution,[65] which being replied to by Mr. Cotton, gave rise to the work of Mr. Williams, and which he has so significantly called “The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution Discussed.” Mr. Cotton tells us that this excerpt was sent to him about the year 1635, by Mr. Williams, and that Mr. Williams, against the “royal law of the love of the gospel, and without his knowledge, published it, with his reply, adding thereto a refutation.”[66] A contradictory and more particular account is, however, given of the affair by Mr. Williams. No such letter or intercourse, he tells us, passed between him and Mr. Cotton on this subject. The prisoner’s arguments against persecution were presented to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Hall, a congregational minister at Roxbury, to whom also Mr. Cotton’s answer was addressed. Mr. Hall not being satisfied, sent the papers to Mr. Williams already printed, who, therefore, conceiving that being printed they were no longer private papers, felt at liberty to publish his discussion of Mr. Cotton’s principles.[67] At the time when Mr. Cotton wrote the letter to Mr. Hall, he tells us that Mr. Williams “did keep communion with all his brethren, and held loving acquaintance with myself.” It must therefore have been written some time before the banishment of Mr. Williams, and soon after the arrival of Mr. Cotton in New England.

At the close of Mr. Cotton’s letter is found a reference to “a treatise sent to some of the brethren late of Salem, who doubted as you do.” This treatise is the “Model of Church and Civil Power,” the examination of which forms the second part of the “Bloudy Tenent.”[68] The authorship of it is attributed to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Williams. This Mr. Cotton denies. He charges Mr. Williams with a “double falsehood:” First, in saying that he wrote it; second, that the ministers who did write it sent it to Salem.[69] This “blustering charge” Mr. Williams repudiates. He refers to the closing paragraph of Cotton’s own letter, and avers, “to my knowledge it was reported, according to this hint of Mr. Cotton’s, that from the ministers of the churches such a model composed by them was sent to Salem.” He then adds, that hearing of it he wrote to “his worthy friend Mr. Sharp, elder of the church at Salem, for the sight of it, who accordingly sent it to him.” Moreover, Mr. Cotton approved of it, promoted it, and directed others to repair to it for satisfactory information:[70] it was therefore unworthy of him to pass so “deep censures for none or innocent mistakes.” The real author of it was probably Mr. Richard Mather, of whom we are told that “when the platform of Church Discipline was agreed—in the year 1647, Mr. Mather’s model was that out of which it was chiefly taken.”[71] Or perhaps it may preferably be regarded as the result of an act passed by the General Court in the year 1634, wherein the elders of every church were entreated to “consult and advise of one uniform order of discipline in the churches ... and to consider how far the magistrates are bound to interpose for the preservation of that uniformity and peace of the churches.”[72] Certain it is, that the principles of this document pervade all the subsequent legislation of the colony, and many of its conclusions were embodied in the ecclesiastical and civil laws. Mr. Williams did well in selecting these two pieces for discussion. They broadly state those views which are antagonist to intellectual and religious freedom. Other treatises were published to defend New England practices against the observations of friends in Old England, which are occasionally referred to by Mr. Williams; but in none of them were developed to the same extent, that persecuting spirit and theocratic legislation which Mr. Williams so ably, so patiently, and so thoroughly confronts and confutes in the following pages.

The “Bloudy Tenent” was published in England in the year 1644, and without the name either of the author or publisher. It was written while he was occupied in obtaining the charter for Rhode Island. In many parts it bears evident tokens of haste, and occasional obscurities show that he had found no time to amend his work. Indeed he tells us, “that when these discussions were prepared for public in London, his time was eaten up in attendance upon the service of the parliament and city, for the supply of the poor of the city with wood, during the stop of coal from Newcastle, and the mutinies of the poor for firing.”[73] Nevertheless, his style is generally animated, the discussion acutely managed, and frequent images of great beauty adorn his page.

Although not the first in England among the baptist advocates for the great principle of liberty of conscience, Roger Williams holds a preeminent place. Previous to the Bloudy Tenent, several pieces had been published, of great interest and value. Some of these have been reprinted;[74] and we have already seen how one of them gave rise to the present work of Williams. In 1642 we find a baptist asserting as one of the results of infant baptism, that “hence also collaterally have been brought the power of the civil magistrate into the church ... being willingly ignorant that the state and church of the Jews is to be considered in a twofold respect, one as it was a civil state and commonwealth and kingdom, in respect whereof it was common to other civil states and kingdoms in the world; the other as it was the church of God, and in relation thereto had worship, commandments, a kingly office, and government, which no other state and kingdom had or ought to have: for herein it was altogether typical. This state (the church) being spiritual admits of none but Him, their spiritual Head, Lawgiver, James iv. 12.”[75]

In 1643 another most able piece appeared, entitled, “Liberty of Conscience; or the sole means to obtain peace and truth.” The author expresses his opinion that the distractions and troubles of the nation were owing in great measure to the general obstinacy and averseness of most men of all ranks and qualities to tolerate and bear with tender consciences, and different opinions of their brethren.

The same year in which the “Bloudy Tenent” was published, there issued from the press “The Compassionate Samaritan, Unbinding the Conscience, and pouring oil into the wounds which have been made upon the separation.” This piece likewise asserts the rights of conscience with great clearness and power.

Until now the baptists stood alone in this conflict, they were the only known advocates for perfect liberty; but in this year Mr. John Goodwin also came forth to aid them,[76] and by his powerful writings did much to disseminate right views on this great subject.

The activity of Mr. Williams, and his deep interest in whatever concerned the well-being of his fellow countrymen, are still more illustrated by the publications which he put forth while in England. For he not only published his “Key into the Language of America,” composed while on his voyage to this country, and the two treatises reprinted in this volume; but also an anonymous piece, entitled “Queries of Highest Consideration proposed to Mr. Thomas Goodwin—presented to the High Court of Parliament,”[77] containing clear and accurate observations on the respective provinces of civil and ecclesiastical authority.

The publication of the “Bloudy Tenent” was most offensive to the various parties into which the ruling powers of the State were divided. The presbyterians exclaimed against it as full of heresy and blasphemy. If we may believe Mr. Richardson, they even proceeded so far as to burn it.[78] To this we are inclined to attach some confidence, as thereby we may account for the extreme rarity of the book, and for what is in fact a second edition, published in the same year. The existing copies of the work do not quite agree. While they are page for page and line for line the same, they differ in the fact of a table of errata being found in some, which errata are corrected in others. There is also a slight difference in the type and orthography of the title page.[79]

Baillie informs us that Williams’s work did not meet with the approbation of the English Independents. Its toleration was too unlimited for their taste. They were willing to grant liberty only to those sound in fundamentals—the identical views of their brother Congregationalists of America.[80] Yet we are informed in a subsequent work by Mr. Williams, that it operated most beneficially on the public mind. “These images and clouts it hath pleased God to make use of to stop no small leaks of persecution, that lately began to flow in upon dissenting consciences, and to Master Cotton’s own, and to the peace and quietness of the Independents, which they have so long and so wonderfully enjoyed.”[81]

In the year 1647, Mr. Cotton attempted a reply to Mr. Williams. He entitled his work, “The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltinesse by just Defence, &c. Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr. Williams’s Answer to Mr. Cotton’s Letter. By John Cotton, Batchelor in Divinity, and Teacher of the Church of Christ at Boston in New England. London. 1647.” 4to. pp. 195 and 144. In the notes of the present volume,[82] various examples are given of the character of this reply, and of the tortuous constructions adopted to escape the home thrusts of Mr. Williams. As compared with Williams’s work it displays great unfairness, and a most lamentable want of Christian temper and spirit—it is “wormwood and gall,” to use Mr. Williams’s own words.

A rejoinder appeared in the year 1652. It is entitled “The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton’s endevour to wash it white in the blood of the Lambe, &c. By R. Williams, of Providence in New-England. London, 1652.” 4to. pp. 373. It is characterized by the kindest tone, the most affectionate spirit, and a considerate treatment of Mr. Cotton’s perversions, errors, and mistakes, which he did not deserve. It is proposed to reprint this volume as necessary to the completeness of the present.

The work it is now the editor’s great pleasure and satisfaction to place in the hands of the subscribers is of great rarity. But six copies are at present known to exist of the original editions. Three of these are in America; two in the Library of Brown University, Rhode Island, and one in the library of Harvard College. Three are in this country; one in the library of the present American Consul, Colonel Aspinall; one in the British Museum; and one in the Bodleian Library. From the latter the present reprint is made by the kind permission of the Librarian. It is a volume of two hundred and forty-seven pages, in small quarto. The original table of Contents is given with the pagination only altered. Mr. Williams’s Reply to Mr. Cotton’s Letter, is of still greater rarity. Two copies are in America; one in Yale College which is much mutilated, and one in the possession of the family of the late Moses Brown, Esq., of Providence. Two are in this country; one in the British Museum, and one in the Bodleian Library, which is also somewhat mutilated. This reprint is from the latter. The proof sheets have been compared with the very fine copy in the British Museum, by my kind friend George Offor, Esq.

E. B. U.

Newmarket House, August 9th, 1848.

A TABLE
OF THE PRINCIPAL
CONTENTS OF THE BOOK.

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.

Thirdly. Satisfactory answers are given to scriptures and objections produced by Mr. Calvin, Beza, Mr. Cotton, and the ministers of the New English churches, and others former and later, tending to prove the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience.

Fourthly. The doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar.

Fifthly. All civil states, with their officers of justice, in their respective constitutions and administrations, are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual, or Christian, state and worship.

Sixthly. It is the will and command of God that, since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-christian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all nations and countries: and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only, in soul matters, able to conquer: to wit, the sword of God’s Spirit, the word of God.

Seventhly. The state of the land of Israel, the kings and people thereof, in peace and war, is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor precedent for any kingdom or civil state in the world to follow.

Eighthly. God requireth not an uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity, sooner or later, is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

Ninthly. In holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jews’ conversion to Christ.

Tenthly. An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.

Eleventhly. The permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth, only can, according to God, procure a firm and lasting peace; good assurance being taken, according to the wisdom of the civil state, for uniformity of civil obedience from all sorts.

Twelfthly. Lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile.

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
BOTH
HOUSES OF THE HIGH COURT OF PARLIAMENT.

Right honourable and renowned Patriots,

Next to the saving of your own souls in the lamentable shipwreck of mankind, your task as Christians is to save the souls, but as magistrates the bodies and goods, of others.

Many excellent discourses have been presented to your fathers’ hands and yours, in former and present parliaments. I shall be humbly bold to say, that, in what concerns your duties as magistrates towards others, a more necessary and seasonable debate was never yet presented.

Two things your honours here may please to view, in this controversy of persecution for cause of conscience, beyond what is extant.

First. The whole body of this controversy formed and pitched in true battalia.

Secondly. Although in respect of myself it be impar congressus, yet, in the power of that God who is Maximus in Minimis, your Honours shall see the controversy is discussed with men as able as most, eminent for ability and piety—Mr. Cotton, and the New English ministers.

When the prophets in scripture have given their coats of arms and escutcheons to great men, your Honours know the Babylonian monarch hath the lion, the Persian the bear, the Grecian the leopard, the Roman a compound of the former three, most strange and dreadful, Dan. vii.

Their oppressing, plundering, ravishing, murdering, not only the bodies, but the souls of men, are large explaining commentaries of such similitudes.

Your Honours have been famous to the end of the world for your unparalleled wisdom, courage, justice, mercy, in the vindicating your civil laws, liberties, &c. Yet let it not be grievous to your Honours’ thoughts to ponder a little, why all the prayers, and tears, and fastings, in this nation, have not pierced the heavens, and quenched these flames; which yet who knows how far they will spread, and when they will out!

Your Honours have broke the jaws of the oppressor, and taken the prey out of his teeth, Job xxix. 17. For which act, I believe, it hath pleased the Most High God to set a guard, not only of trained men, but of mighty angels, to secure your sitting, and the city.

I fear we are not pardoned, though reprieved. Oh! that there may be a lengthening of London’s tranquillity, of the parliament’s safety, by [shewing] mercy to the poor! Dan. iv. [27.]

Right Honourable, soul yoke, soul oppressions, plunderings, ravishings, &c., are of a crimson and deepest dye, and I believe the chief of England’s sins—unstopping the vials of England’s present sorrows.

This glass presents your Honours with arguments from religion, reason, experience: all proving that the greatest yokes yet lying upon English necks, the people’s and your own, are of a spiritual and foul nature.

All former parliaments have changed these yokes according to their consciences, popish or protestant. It is now your Honour’s turn at helm, and as [is] your task so I hope [is] your resolution—not to change: for that is but to turn the wheel, which another parliament, and the very next, may turn again; but to ease the subjects and yourselves from a yoke (as was once spoke in a case not unlike, Acts xv. [10]) which neither you nor your fathers were ever able to bear.

Most noble senators; your fathers, whose seats you fill, are mouldered, and mouldering their brains, their tongues, &c., to ashes in the pit of rottenness: they and you must shortly, together with two worlds of men, appear at the great bar. It shall then be no grief of heart that you have now attended to the cries of souls, thousands oppressed, millions ravished, by the acts and statutes concerning souls not yet repealed—of bodies impoverished, imprisoned, &c., for their souls’ belief: yea, slaughtered on heaps for religious controversies, in the wars of present and former ages.

The famous saying of a late king of Bohemia.

“Notwithstanding the success of later times, wherein sundry opinions have been hatched about the subject of religion, a man may clearly discern with his eye, and as it were touch with his finger, that according to the verity of holy scripture, &c., men’s consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained. And whensoever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue hath been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries,” &c.[83]

It cannot be denied to be a pious and prudential act for your Honours, according to your conscience, to call for the advice of faithful counsellors in the high debates concerning your own, and the souls of others.

Yet, let it not be imputed as a crime for any suppliant to the God of heaven for you, if, the humble sense of what their souls believe, they pour forth, amongst others, these three requests at the throne of grace:

First. That neither your Honours, nor those excellent and worthy persons whose advice you seek, limit the Holy One of Israel to their apprehensions, debates, conclusions, rejecting or neglecting the humble and faithful suggestions of any, though as base as spittle and clay, with which sometimes Christ Jesus opens the eyes of them that are born blind.

Secondly. That the present and future generations of the sons of men may never have cause to say that such a parliament, as England never enjoyed the like, should model the worship of the living, eternal, and invisible God, after the bias of any earthly interest, though of the highest concernment under the sun. And yet saith the learned Sir Francis Bacon[84] (however otherwise persuaded, yet thus he confesseth), “Such as hold pressure of conscience, are guided therein by some private interests of their own.”

Thirdly. [That] whatever way of worshipping God your own consciences are persuaded to walk in, yet, from any bloody act of violence to the consciences of others, it may never be told at Rome nor Oxford, that the parliament of England hath committed a greater rape than if they had forced or ravished the bodies of all the women in the world.

And that England’s parliament, so famous throughout all Europe and the world, should at last turn papists, prelatists, Presbyterians, Independents, Socinians, Familists, Antinomians, &c., by confirming all these sorts of consciences by civil force and violence to their consciences.[85]

TO EVERY COURTEOUS READER.

While I plead the cause of truth and innocency against the bloody doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience, I judge it not unfit to give alarm to myself, and to [all] men, to prepare to be persecuted or hunted for cause of conscience.

Whether thou standest charged with ten or but two talents, if thou huntest any for cause of conscience, how canst thou say thou followest the Lamb of God, who so abhorred that practice?

If Paul, if Jesus Christ, were present here at London, and the question were proposed, what religion would they approve of—the papists, prelatists, Presbyterians, Independents, &c., would each say, Of mine, Of mine?

But put the second question: if one of the several sorts should by major vote attain the sword of steel, what weapons doth Christ Jesus authorize them to fight with in his cause? Do not all men hate the persecutor, and every conscience, true or false, complain of cruelty, tyranny, &c.?

Two mountains of crying guilt lie heavy upon the backs of all men that name the name of Christ, in the eyes of Jews, Turks, and Pagans.

First. The blasphemies of their idolatrous inventions, superstitions, and most unchristian conversations.

Secondly. The bloody, irreligious, and inhuman oppressions and destructions under the mask or veil of the name of Christ, &c.

Oh! how likely is the jealous Jehovah, the consuming fire, to end these present slaughters of the holy witnesses in a greater slaughter! Rev. v.

Six years preaching of so much truth of Christ as that time afforded in K. Edward’s days, kindles the flames of Q. Mary’s bloody persecutions.

Who can now but expect that after so many scores of years preaching and professing of more truth, and amongst so many great contentions amongst the very best of protestants, a fiery furnace should be heat, and who sees not now the fires kindling?

I confess I have little hopes, till those flames are over, that this discourse against the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience should pass current, I say not amongst the wolves and lions, but even amongst the sheep of Christ themselves. Yet, liberavi animam meam, I have not hid within my breast my soul’s belief. And, although sleeping on the bed either of the pleasures or profits of sin, thinkest thou thy conscience bound to smite at him that dares to waken thee? Yet in the midst of all these civil and spiritual wars, I hope we shall agree in these particulars,

First. However the proud (upon the advantage of a higher earth or ground) overlook the poor, and cry out schismatics, heretics, &c., shall blasphemers and seducers escape unpunished? Yet there is a sorer punishment in the gospel for despising of Christ than Moses, even when the despiser of Moses was put to death without mercy, Heb. x. 28, 29. He that believeth shall not be damned, Mark xvi. 16.

Secondly. Whatever worship, ministry, ministration, the best and purest, are practised without faith and true persuasion that they are the true institutions of God, they are sin, sinful worships, ministries, &c. And however in civil things we may be servants unto men, yet in divine and spiritual things the poorest peasant must disdain the service of the highest prince. Be ye not the servants of men, 1 Cor. vii. [23].

Thirdly. Without search and trial no man attains this faith and right persuasion. 1 Thes. v. [21], Try all things.

In vain have English parliaments permitted English bibles in the poorest English houses, and the simplest man or woman to search the scriptures, if yet against their souls persuasion from the scripture, they should be forced, as if they lived in Spain or Rome itself without the sight of a bible, to believe as the church believes.

Fourthly. Having tried, we must hold fast, 1 Thes. v. [21], upon the loss of a crown, Rev. iii. [11]; we must not let go for all the fleabitings of the present afflictions, &c. Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world; no, not for the saving of souls, though our own most precious; least of all for the bitter sweetening of a little vanishing pleasure:—For a little puff of credit and reputation from the changeable breath of uncertain sons of men: for the broken bags of riches on eagles’ wings: for a dream of these—any or all of these, which on our death-bed vanish and leave tormenting stings behind them. Oh! how much better is it from the love of truth, from the love of the Father of lights from whence it comes, from the love of the Son of God, who is the way and the truth, to say as he, John xviii. 37: For this end was I born, and for this end came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth.

SCRIPTURES AND REASONS,
WRITTEN LONG SINCE BY A WITNESS OF JESUS CHRIST,
CLOSE PRISONER IN NEWGATE,
AGAINST PERSECUTION IN CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE;
AND SENT SOME WHILE SINCE TO MR. COTTON, BY A FRIEND,
WHO THUS WROTE:

“In the multitude of counsellours there is safety;” it is therefore humbly desired to be instructed in this point, viz.:—

Whether persecution for cause of conscience be not against the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the King of kings. The scriptures and reasons are these.[86]

1. Because Christ commandeth, that the tares and wheat, which some understand are those that walk in the truth, and those that walk in lies, should be let alone in the world, and not plucked up until the harvest, which is the end of the world. Matt. xiii. 30, 38, &c.

2. The same commandeth, Matt. xv. 14, that they that are blind (as some interpret, led on in false religion, and are offended with him for teaching true religion) should be let alone, referring their punishment unto their falling into the ditch.

3. Again, Luke ix. 54, 55, he reproved his disciples who would have had fire come down from heaven and devour those Samaritans who would not receive Him, in these words: “Ye know not of what Spirit ye are; the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”

4. Paul, the apostle of our Lord, teacheth, 2 Tim. ii. 24, that the servant of the Lord must not strive, but must be gentle toward all men; suffering the evil men, instructing them with meekness that are contrary minded, proving if God at any time will give them repentance, that they may acknowledge the truth, and come to amendment out of that snare of the devil, &c.

5. According to these blessed commandments, the holy prophets foretold, that when the law of Moses concerning worship should cease, and Christ’s kingdom be established, Isa. ii. 4; Mic. iv. 3, 4, They shall break their swords into mattocks, and their spears into scythes. And Isa. xi. 9, Then shall none hurt nor destroy in all the mountain of my holiness, &c. And when he came, the same he taught and practised, as before. So did his disciples after him, for the weapons of his warfare are not carnal (saith the apostle), 2 Cor. x. 4.

But he chargeth straitly, that his disciples should be so far from persecuting those that would not be of their religion, that when they were persecuted they should pray, Matt. v. 44; when they were cursed, they should bless, &c.

And the reason seems to be, because they who now are tares, may hereafter become wheat; they who are now blind, may hereafter see; they that now resist him, may hereafter receive him; they that are now in the devil’s snare, in adverseness to the truth, may hereafter come to repentance; they that are now blasphemers and persecutors, as Paul was, may in time become faithful as he; they that are now idolaters, as the Corinthians once were, 1 Cor. vi. 9, may hereafter become true worshippers as they; they that are now no people of God, nor under mercy, as the saints sometimes were, 1 Pet. ii. 10, may hereafter become the people of God, and obtain mercy, as they.

Some come not till the eleventh hour, Matt. xx. 6: if those that come not till the last hour should be destroyed, because they come not at the first, then should they never come, but be prevented.

All which promises are in all humility referred to your godly wise consideration.

II. Because this persecution for cause of conscience is against the profession and practice of famous princes.

First, you may please to consider the speech of King James, in his majesty’s speech in parliament, 1609. He saith, “It is a sure rule in divinity, that God never loves to plant his church by violence and bloodshed.”

And in his highness’ Apology, p. 4, speaking of such papists that took the oath, thus:

“I gave good proof that I intended no persecution against them for conscience’ cause, but only desired to be secured for civil obedience, which for conscience’ cause they are bound to perform.”

And, p. 60, speaking of Blackwell, the archpriest, his majesty saith, “It was never my intention to lay any thing to the said archpriest’s charge, as I have never done to any, for cause of conscience.”

And in his highness’ exposition on Rev. xx. printed 1588, and after in 1603, his majesty writeth thus: “Sixthly, the compassing of the saints, and the besieging of the beloved city, declareth unto us a certain note of a false church to be persecution; for they come to seek the faithful, the faithful are them that are sought: the wicked are the besiegers, the faithful are the besieged.”

Secondly, the saying of Stephen, king of Poland: “I am a king of men, not of consciences; a commander of bodies, not of souls.”

Thirdly, the king of Bohemia hath thus written:

“And, notwithstanding, the success of the later times, wherein sundry opinions have been hatched about the subject of religion, may make one clearly discern with his eye, and (as it were) to touch with his finger, that according to the verity of holy scriptures, and a maxim heretofore told and maintained by the ancient doctors of the church; that men’s consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained; and whensoever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue hath been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries of all Christendom.”

And further, his majesty saith: “So that once more we do profess, before God and the whole world, that from this time forward we are firmly resolved not to persecute, or molest, or suffer to be persecuted or molested, any person whosoever for matter of religion; no, not they that profess themselves to be of the Romish church, neither to trouble or disturb them in the exercise of their religion, so they live conformable to the laws of the states,” &c.

And for the practice of this, where is persecution for cause of conscience, except in England and where popery reigns? and there neither in all places, as appeareth by France, Poland, and other places.

Nay, it is not practised amongst the heathen, that acknowledge not the true God, as the Turk, Persian, and others.

3. Reas.

Thirdly, because persecution for cause of conscience is condemned by ancient and later writers; yea, and the papists themselves.

Hilary against Auxentius, saith thus: “The Christian church doth not persecute, but is persecuted. And lamentable it is to see the great folly of these times, and to sigh at the foolish opinion of this world, in that men think by human aid to help God, and with worldly pomp and power to undertake to defend the Christian church. I ask of you bishops, what help used the apostles in the publishing of the gospel? With the aid of what power did they preach Christ, and converted the heathen from their idolatry to God? When they were in prisons, and lay in chains, did they praise and give thanks to God for any dignities, graces, and favours received from the court? Or do you think that Paul went about with regal mandates, or kingly authority, to gather and establish the church of Christ? Sought he protection from Nero, Vespasian? The apostles wrought with their hands for their own maintenance, travelling by land and water, from town to city, to preach Christ; yea, the more they were forbidden, the more they taught and preached Christ. But now, alas! human help must assist and protect the faith, and give the same countenance. To and by vain and worldly honours do men seek to defend the church of Christ, as if he by his power were unable to perform it.”

The same, against the Arians:

“The church now, which formerly by enduring misery and imprisonment, was known to be a true church, doth now terrify others by imprisonment, banishment, and misery, and boasteth that she is highly esteemed of the world; when as the true church cannot but be hated of the same.”

Tertull. ad Scapulam: “It agreeth both with human reason, and natural equity, that every man worship God uncompelled, and believe what he will; for another man’s religion and belief neither hurteth nor profiteth any one: neither beseemeth it any religion to compel another to be of their religion, which willingly and freely should be embraced, and not by constraint: forasmuch as the offerings were required of those that freely and with good will offered, and not from the contrary.”

Jerome in Proem. lib. 4. in Jeremiam. “Heresy must be cut off with the sword of the Spirit; let us strike through with the arrows of the Spirit all sons and disciples of misled heretics, that is, with testimonies of holy scriptures. The slaughter of heretics is by the word of God.”

Brentius upon 1 Cor. iii. “No man hath power to make or give laws to Christians, whereby to bind their consciences; for willingly, freely, and uncompelled, with a ready desire and cheerful mind, must those that come, run unto Christ.”

Luther, in his book of the civil magistrate, saith: “The laws of the civil magistrate’s government extend no further than over the body or goods, and to that which is external: for over the soul God will not suffer any man to rule; only he himself will rule there. Wherefore, whosoever doth undertake to give laws unto the souls and consciences of men, he usurpeth that government himself which appertaineth unto God,” &c.

Therefore, upon 1 Kings vi. “In the building of the temple there was no sound of iron heard, to signify that Christ will have in his church a free and a willing people, not compelled and constrained by laws and statutes.”

Again, he saith upon Luke xxii. “It is not the true catholic church which is defended by the secular arm or human power, but the false and feigned church; which although it carries the name of a church, yet it denies the power thereof.”

And upon Psalm xvii. he saith: “For the true church of Christ knoweth not brachium seculare, which the bishops now-a-days chiefly use.”

Again, in Postil. Dom. 1. post. Epiphan., he saith: “Let not Christians be commanded, but exhorted; for he that willingly will not do that whereunto he is friendly exhorted, he is no Christian: whereof they that do compel those that are not willing, show thereby that they are not Christian preachers, but worldly beadles.”

Again, upon 1 Pet. iii. he saith: “If the civil magistrate shall command me to believe thus and thus, I should answer him after this manner: Lord, or sir, look you to your civil or worldly government, your power extends not so far as to command any thing in God’s kingdom; therefore herein I may not hear you. For if you cannot bear it, that any should usurp authority where you have to command, how do you think that God should suffer you to thrust him from his seat, and to seat yourself therein?”

Lastly, the papists, the inventors of persecution, in a wicked book of theirs, set forth in King James’s reign, thus:

“Moreover, the means which Almighty God appointed his officers to use in the conversion of kingdoms, and nations, and people, was humility, patience, charity: saying, Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves, Matt. x. 16. He did not say, ‘Behold, I send you as wolves among sheep, to kill, imprison, spoil, and devour those unto whom they were sent.’”

“Again, ver. 17, he saith: They to whom I send you will deliver you up into councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; and to presidents and to kings shall you be led for my sake. He doth not say, ‘You, whom I send, shall deliver the people, whom you ought to convert, unto councils, and put them in prisons, and lead them to Presidents, and tribunal seats, and make their religion felony and treason.’

“Again he saith, ver. 32: When ye enter into an house, salute it, saying, Peace be unto this house. He doth not say, ‘You shall send pursuivants to ransack or spoil the house.’

“Again he saith, John x. The good pastor giveth his life for his sheep; the thief cometh not but to steal, kill, and destroy. He doth not say, ‘The thief giveth his life for his sheep, and the good pastor cometh not but to steal, kill, and destroy.’”

So that we holding our peace, our adversaries themselves speak for us, or rather for the truth.

TO ANSWER SOME MAIN OBJECTIONS.

And first, that it is no prejudice to the commonwealth if liberty of conscience were suffered to such as do fear God indeed, as is or will be manifest in such men’s lives and conversations.

Abraham abode among the Canaanites a long time, yet contrary to them in religion, Gen. xiii. 7, and xvi. 13. Again: he sojourned in Gerar, and king Abimelech gave him leave to abide in his land, Gen. xx. 21, 23, 24.

Isaac also dwelt in the same land, yet contrary in religion, Gen. xxvi.

Jacob lived twenty years in one house with his uncle Laban, yet differed in religion, Gen. xxxi.

The people of Israel were about 430 years in that infamous land of Egypt, and afterwards seventy years in Babylon, all which time they differed in religion from those States, Exod. xii. and 2 Chron. xxxvi.

Come to the time of Christ, where Israel was under the Romans, where lived divers sects of religions, as Herodians, Scribes and Pharisees, Sadducees and Libertines, Theudæans and Samaritans, beside the common religion of the Jews, Christ, and his apostles. All which differed from the common religion of the state, which is like the worship of Diana, which almost the whole world then worshipped, Acts xix. 20.

All these lived under the government of Cæsar, being nothing hurtful unto the commonwealth, giving unto Cæsar that which was his. And for their religion and consciences towards God he left them to themselves, as having no dominion over their souls and consciences. And when the enemies of the truth raised up any tumults, the wisdom of the magistrate most widely appeased them, Acts xviii. 14, and xix. 35.

THE ANSWER OF MR. JOHN COTTON,
OF BOSTON, IN NEW ENGLAND,
TO THE AFORESAID ARGUMENTS AGAINST PERSECUTION FOR CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE,
PROFESSEDLY MAINTAINING
PERSECUTION FOR CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE.

The question which you put is, whether persecution for cause of conscience be not against the doctrine of Jesus Christ, the King of kings?

Now, by persecution for cause of conscience, I conceive you mean, either for professing some point of doctrine which you believe in conscience to be the truth, or for practising some work which in conscience you believe to be a religious duty.

Now in points of doctrine some are fundamental, without right belief whereof a man cannot be saved; others are circumstantial, or less principal, wherein men may differ in judgment without prejudice of salvation on either part.

In like sort, in points of practice, some concern the weightier duties of the law, as, what God we worship, and with what kind of worship; whether such as, if it be right, fellowship with God is held; if corrupt, fellowship with him is lost.

Again, in points of doctrine and worship less principal, either they are held forth in a meek and peaceable way, though the things be erroneous or unlawful: or they are held forth with such arrogance and impetuousness, as tendeth and reacheth (even of itself) to the disturbance of civil peace.

Finally, let me add this one distinction more: when we are persecuted for conscience’ sake, it is either for conscience rightly informed, or for erroneous and blind conscience.

These things premised, I would lay down mine answer to the question in certain conclusions.

1.

First, it is not lawful to persecute any for conscience’ sake rightly informed; for in persecuting such, Christ himself is persecuted in them, Acts ix. 4.

2.

Secondly, for an erroneous and blind conscience, (even in fundamental and weighty points) it is not lawful to persecute any, till after admonition once or twice; and so the apostle directeth, Tit. iii. 10, and giveth the reason, that in fundamental and principal points of doctrine or worship, the word of God in such things is so clear, that he cannot but be convinced in conscience of the dangerous error of his way after once or twice admonition, wisely and faithfully dispensed. And then, if any one persist, it is not out of conscience, but against his conscience, as the apostle saith, ver. 11, He is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself; that is, of his own conscience. So 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 own conscience.

3.

Thirdly. In things of lesser moment, whether points of doctrine or worship, if a man hold them forth in a spirit of Christian meekness and love, though with zeal and constancy, he is not to be persecuted, but tolerated, till God may be pleased to manifest his truth to him, Phil. iii. 17; Rom. xiv. 1-4.

4.

But if a man hold forth, or profess, any error or false way, with a boisterous and arrogant spirit, to the disturbance of civil peace, he may justly be punished according to the quality and measure of the disturbance caused by him.

Now let us consider of your reasons or objections to the contrary.

Your first head of objections is taken from the scripture.

Object. 1. Because Christ commandeth to let alone the tares and wheat to grow together unto the harvest, Matt. xiii. 30, 38.

Answ. Tares are not briars and thorns, but partly hypocrites, like unto the godly, but indeed carnal, as the tares are like to wheat, but are not wheat; or partly such corrupt doctrines or practices as are indeed unsound, but yet such as come very near the truth (as tares do to the wheat), and so near, that good men may be taken with them; and so the persons in whom they grow cannot be rooted out but good will be rooted up with them. And in such a case Christ calleth for toleration, not for penal prosecution, according to the third conclusion.

Object. 2. In Matt. xv. 14, Christ commandeth his disciples to let the blind alone till they fall into the ditch; therefore he would have their punishment deferred till their final destruction.

Answ. He there speaketh not to public officers, whether in church or commonweal, but to his private disciples, concerning the Pharisees, over whom they had no power. And the command he giveth to let them alone, is spoken in regard of troubling themselves, or regarding the offence which they took at the wholesome doctrine of the gospel. As who should say, Though they be offended at this saying of mine, yet do not you fear their fear, nor be troubled at their offence, which they take at my doctrine, not out of sound judgment, but out of their blindness. But this maketh nothing to the cause in hand.

Object. 3. In Luke ix. 54, 55, Christ reproveth his disciples, who would have had fire come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans, who refused to receive Him.

Object. 4. And Paul teacheth Timothy, not to strive, but to be gentle towards all men, suffering evil patiently.

Answ. Both these are directions to ministers of the gospel, how to deal, not with obstinate offenders in the church that sin against conscience, but either with men without, as the Samaritans were, and many unconverted Christians in Crete, whom Titus, as an evangelist, was to seek to convert: or at best with some Jews or Gentiles in the church, who, though carnal, yet were not convinced of the error of their way. And it is true, it became not the spirit of the gospel to convert aliens to the faith of Christ, such as the Samaritans were, by fire and brimstone; nor to deal harshly in public ministry, or private conference, with all such contrary-minded men, as either had not yet entered into church-fellowship, or if they had, yet did hitherto sin of ignorance, not against conscience.

But neither of both these texts do hinder the ministers of the gospel to proceed in a church-way against church-members, when they become scandalous offenders either in life or doctrine; much less do they speak at all to civil magistrates.

Object. 5. From the prediction of the prophets, who foretold that carnal weapons should cease in the days of the gospel, Isa. ii. 4, and xi. 9; Mic. iv. 3, 4. And the apostle professeth, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, 2 Cor. x. 4. And Christ is so far from persecuting those that would not be of his religion, that he chargeth them, when they are persecuted themselves they should pray, and when they are cursed they should bless. The reason whereof seemeth to be, that they who are now persecutors and wicked persons, may become true disciples and converts.

1.

Answ. Those predictions in the prophets do only show, first, with what kind of weapons he will subdue the nations to the obedience of the faith of the gospel, not by fire and sword, and weapons of war, but by the power of his word and Spirit, which no man doubteth of.

2.

Secondly. Those predictions of the prophets show what the meek and peaceable temper will be of all the true converts to Christianity, not lions or leopards, &c., not cruel oppressors, nor malignant opposers, nor biters of one another. But [they] do not forbid them to drive ravenous wolves from the sheepfold, and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ.

And when Paul saith, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, he denieth not civil weapons of justice to the civil magistrate, Rom. xiii., but only to church officers. And yet the weapons of such officers he acknowledgeth to be such, as though they be spiritual, yet are ready to take vengeance of all disobedience, 2 Cor. x. 6; which hath reference, amongst other ordinances, to the censure of the church against scandalous offenders.

3.

When Christ commandeth his disciples to bless them that curse them and persecute them, he giveth not therein a rule to public officers, whether in church or commonweal, to suffer notorious sinners, either in life or doctrine, to pass away with a blessing; but to private Christians to suffer persecution patiently, yea, and to pray for their persecutors.

Again, it is true Christ would have his disciples to be far from persecuting, for that is a sinful oppression of men, for righteousness’ sake; but that hindereth not but that he would have them execute upon all disobedience the judgment and vengeance required in the word, 2 Cor. x. 6; Rom. xiii. 4.

4.

Though it be true that wicked persons now may by the grace of God become true disciples and converts, yet we may not do evil that good may come thereof. And evil it would be to tolerate notorious evil doers, whether seducing teachers, or scandalous livers. Christ had something against the angel of the church of Pergamos for tolerating them that held the doctrine of Balaam, and against the church of Thyatira for tolerating Jezebel to teach and seduce, Rev. ii. 14, 20.

Your second head of reasons is taken from the profession and practice of famous princes, king James, Stephen of Poland, king of Bohemia.

Whereunto a treble answer may briefly be returned.

First, we willingly acknowledge that none is to be persecuted at all, no more than they may be oppressed for righteousness’ sake.

Again, we acknowledge that none is to be punished for his conscience, though misinformed, as hath been said, unless his error be fundamental, or seditiously and turbulently promoted, and that after due conviction of his conscience, that it may appear he is not punished for his conscience, but for sinning against his conscience.

Furthermore, we acknowledge, none is to be constrained to believe or profess the true religion till he be convinced in judgment of the truth of it; but yet restrained he may [be] from blaspheming the truth, and from seducing any unto pernicious errors.

2. We answer, what princes profess or practise, is not a rule of conscience. They many times tolerate that in point of state policy, which cannot justly be tolerated in point of true Christianity.

Again, princes many times tolerate offenders out of very necessity, when the offenders are either too many, or too mighty for them to punish; in which respect David tolerated Joab and his murders: but against his will.

3. We answer further, that for those three princes named by you, who tolerated religion, we can name you more and greater who have not tolerated heretics and schismatics, notwithstanding their pretence of conscience, and arrogating the crown of martyrdom to their sufferings.

Constantine the Great, at the request of the General Council of Nice, banished Arius, with some of his fellows.[87] The same Constantine made a severe law against the Donatists. And the like proceedings against them were used by Valentinian, Gratian, and Theodosius, as Augustine reporteth.[88] Only Julian the Apostate granted liberty to heretics as well as to pagans, that he might, by tolerating all weeds to grow, choke the vitals of Christianity; which was also the practice and sin of Valens the Arian.

Queen Elizabeth, as famous for her government as any of the former, it is well known what laws she made and executed against papists. Yea, and king James, one of your own witnesses, though he was slow in proceeding against papists, as you say, for conscience’ sake, yet you are not ignorant how sharply and severely he punished those whom the malignant world calleth Puritans, men of more conscience and better faith than he tolerated.

I come now to your third and last argument, taken from the judgment of ancient and later writers, yea, even of papists themselves, who have condemned persecution for conscience’ sake.

You begin with Hilary, whose testimony we might admit without any prejudice to the truth; for it is true, the Christian church doth not persecute, but is persecuted. But to excommunicate an heretic, is not to persecute; that is, it is not to punish an innocent, but a culpable and damnable person, and that not for conscience, but for persisting in error against light of conscience, whereof it hath been convinced.

It is true also what he saith, that neither the apostles did, nor may we, propagate [the] Christian religion by the sword; but if pagans cannot be won by the word, they are not to be compelled by the sword. Nevertheless, this hindereth not but if they or any others should blaspheme the true God, and his true religion, they ought to be severely punished; and no less do they deserve, if they seduce from the truth to damnable heresy or idolatry.

Your next writer, which is Tertullian, speaketh to the same purpose in the place alleged by you. His intent is only to restrain Scapula, the Roman governor of Africa, from the persecution of Christians, for not offering sacrifice to their gods: and for that end fetcheth an argument from the law of natural equity, not to compel any to any religion, but to permit them either to believe willingly, or not to believe at all. Which we acknowledge, and accordingly permit the Indians to continue in their unbelief. Nevertheless, it will not therefore be lawful openly to tolerate the worship of devils, or idols, or the seduction of any from the truth.

When Tertullian saith, “Another man’s religion neither hurteth nor profiteth any,” it must be understood of private worship, and religion professed in private: otherwise a false religion professed by the members of a church, or by such as have given their names to Christ, will be the ruin and desolation of the church, as appeareth by the threats of Christ to the churches of Asia, Rev. ii.

Your next author, Hierom, crosseth not the truth, nor advantageth your cause; for we grant what he saith, that heresy must be cut off with the sword of the Spirit. But this hindereth not, but that being so cut down, if the heretic still persist in his heresy to the seduction of others, he may be cut off by the civil sword to prevent the perdition of others. And that to be Hierom’s meaning, appeareth by his note upon that of the apostle, A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump; “therefore,” saith he, “a spark, as soon as it appeareth, is to be extinguished, and the leaven to be removed from the rest of the dough, rotten pieces of flesh are to be cut off, and a scabbed beast is to be driven from the sheepfold, lest the whole house, mass of dough, body, and flock, be set on fire with the spark, be soured with the leaven, be putrified with the rotten flesh, perish by the scabbed beast.”[89]

Brentius, whom you next quote, speaketh not to your cause. We willingly grant him and you, that man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience. But this hindereth not, but that men may see the laws of God observed which do bind conscience.

The like answer may be returned to Luther, whom you next allege. First, that the government of the civil magistrate extendeth no further than over the bodies and goods of their subjects, not over their souls; and therefore they may not undertake to give laws to the souls and consciences of men.

Secondly, that the church of Christ doth not use the arm of secular power to compel men to the faith or profession of the truth, for this is to be done by spiritual weapons, whereby Christians are to be exhorted, not compelled.

But this hindereth not that Christians sinning against light of faith and conscience, may justly be censured by the church with excommunication, and by the civil sword also, in case they shall corrupt others to the perdition of their souls.

As for the testimony of the popish book, we weigh it not, as knowing whatsoever they speak for toleration of religion where themselves are under hatches, when they come to sit at stern, they judge and practise quite contrary: as both their writings and judicial proceedings have testified to the world these many years.

To shut up this argument from testimony of writers. It is well known Augustine retracted this opinion of yours, which in his younger times he had held, but in after riper age reversed and refuted, as appeareth in the second book of his Retractations, chap. 5, and in his Epistles, 48, 50. And in his first book against Parmenianus, chap. 7, he showeth, that if the Donatists were punished with death, they were justly punished. And in his eleventh Tractate upon John, “They murder,” saith he, “souls, and themselves are afflicted in body: they put men to everlasting death, and yet they complain when themselves are put to suffer temporal death.”[90]

Optatus, in his third book,[91] justifieth Macarius, who had put some heretics to death; that he had done no more herein than what Moses, Phineas, and Elias had done before him.

Bernard, in his sixty-sixth Sermon in Cantica:[92] “Out of doubt,” saith he, “it is better that they should be restrained by the sword of him, who beareth not the sword in vain, than that they should be suffered to draw many others into their error. For he is the minister of God for wrath to every evil doer.”

Calvin’s judgment is well known, who procured the death of Michael Servetus for pertinacity in heresy, and defended his fact by a book written of that argument.[93]

Beza also wrote a book, De Hæreticis Morte Plectendis, that heretics are to be punished with death.[94] Aretius likewise took the like course about the death of Valentinus Gentilis; and justified the magistrate’s proceeding against him, in a history written of that argument.[95]

Finally, you come to answer some main objections, as you call them, which yet are but one, and that one objecteth nothing against what we hold. It is, say you, no prejudice to the commonwealth, if liberty of conscience were suffered to such as fear God indeed, which you prove by the examples of the patriarchs and others.

But we readily grant you, liberty of conscience is to be granted to men that fear God indeed, as knowing they will not persist in heresy, or turbulent schism, when they are convinced in conscience of the sinfulness thereof.

But the question, is, whether an heretic, after once or twice admonition, and so after conviction, or any other scandalous and heinous offender, may be tolerated, either in the church without excommunication, or in the commonwealth without such punishment as may preserve others from dangerous and damnable infection.

Thus much I thought needful to be spoken, for avoiding the grounds of your error.

I forbear adding reasons to justify the truth, because you may find that done to your hand, in a treatise sent to some of the brethren late of Salem, who doubted as you do.

The Lord Jesus lead you by a Spirit of truth into all truth, through Jesus Christ.

A REPLY
TO THE
AFORESAID ANSWER OF MR. COTTON,
IN A CONFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND PEACE.

CHAP. I.

Truth. In what dark corner of the world, sweet Peace, are we two met? How hath this present evil world banished me from all the coasts and quarters of it? And how hath the righteous God in judgment taken thee from the earth? Rev. vi. 4.

Truth and Peace rarely and seldom meet.

Peace. It is lamentably true, blessed Truth, the foundations of the world have long been out of course: the gates of earth and hell have conspired together to intercept our joyful meeting and our holy kisses. With what a wearied, tired wing have I flown over nations, kingdoms, cities, towns, to find out precious Truth!

Truth. The like inquiries in my flights and travels have I made for Peace, and still am told she hath left the earth, and fled to heaven.

Peace. Dear Truth, what is the earth but a dungeon of darkness, where Truth is not?

Truth. And what is the Peace thereof but a fleeting dream, thine ape and counterfeit?

Peace. Oh! where is the promise of the God of heaven, that Righteousness and Peace shall kiss each other?

Truth. Patience, sweet Peace, these heavens and earth are growing old, and shall be changed like a garment, Psal. cii. [26.] They shall melt away, and be burnt up with all the works that are therein; and the Most High Eternal Creator shall gloriously create new heavens and new earth, wherein dwells righteousness, 2 Pet. iii. [13.] Our kisses then shall have their endless date of pure and sweetest joys. Till then both thou and I must hope, and wait, and bear the fury of the dragon’s wrath, whose monstrous lies and furies shall with himself be cast into the lake of fire, the second death, Rev. xx. [10, 14.]

Peace. Most precious Truth, thou knowest we are both pursued and laid [in wait] for. Mine heart is full of sighs, mine eyes with tears. Where can I better vent my full, oppressed bosom than into thine, whose faithful lips may for these few hours revive my drooping, wandering spirits, and here begin to wipe tears from mine eyes, and the eyes of my dearest children?

Truth. Sweet daughter of the God of peace, begin. Pour out thy sorrows, vent thy complaints. How joyful am I to improve these precious minutes to revive our hearts, both thine and mine, and the hearts of all that love the truth and peace, Zach. viii. [19.]

Peace. Dear Truth, I know thy birth, thy nature, thy delight. They that know thee will prize thee far above themselves and lives, and sell themselves to buy thee. Well spake that famous Elizabeth to her famous attorney, Sir Edward Coke; “Mr. Attorney, go on as thou hast begun, and still plead, not pro Domina Regina, but pro Domina Veritate.”

Truth. It is true, my crown is high; my sceptre is strong to break down strongest holds, to throw down highest crowns of all that plead, though but in thought, against me. Some few there are, but oh! how few are valiant for the truth, and dare to plead my cause, as my witnesses in sackcloth, Rev. xi. [3]; while all men’s tongues are bent like bows to shoot out lying words against me!

Peace. Oh! how could I spend eternal days and endless dates at thy holy feet, in listening to the precious oracles of thy mouth! All the words of thy mouth are truth, and there is no iniquity in them. Thy lips drop as the honey-comb. But oh! since we must part anon, let us, as thou saidst, improve our minutes, and, according as thou promisedst, revive me with thy words, which are sweeter than the honey and the honey-comb.

CHAP. II.

Peace. Dear Truth, I have two sad complaints.

Two great complaints of Peace.

First. The most sober of thy witnesses, that dare to plead thy cause, how are they charged to be mine enemies—contentious, turbulent, seditious!

Secondly. Thine enemies, though they speak and rail against thee, though they outrageously pursue, imprison, banish, kill thy faithful witnesses, yet how is all vermilioned over for justice against the heretics! Yea, if they kindle coals, and blow the flames of devouring wars, that leave neither spiritual nor civil state, but burn up branch and root, yet how do all pretend an holy war! He that kills, and he that is killed, they both cry out, “It is for God, and for their conscience.”

Persecutors seldom plead Christ, but Moses, for their author.

It is true, nor one nor other seldom dare to plead the mighty Prince Christ Jesus for their author, yet both (both protestant and papist) pretend they have spoke with Moses and the prophets, who all, say they, before Christ came, allowed such holy persecutions [and] holy wars against the enemies of holy church.

[Prov. xvii. 14.]

Truth. Dear Peace, to ease thy first complaint, it is true, thy dearest sons, most like their mother, peace-keeping, peace-making sons of God, have borne and still must bear the blurs of troublers of Israel, and turners of the world upside down. And it is true again, what Solomon once spake: The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water, therefore, saith he, leave off contention before it be meddled with. This caveat should keep the banks and sluices firm and strong, that strife, like a breach of waters, break not in upon the sons of men.

Strife distinguished.

Yet strife must be distinguished: it is necessary, or unnecessary, godly or ungodly, Christian or unchristian, &c.

1. Ungodly strife.

It is unnecessary, unlawful, dishonourable, ungodly, unchristian, in most cases in the world: for there is a possibility of keeping sweet Peace in most cases, and, if it be possible, it is the express command of God that Peace be kept, Rom. xii. [18.]

2. Godly strife.

Again, it is necessary, honourable, godly, &c., with civil and earthly weapons to defend the innocent, and to rescue the oppressed from the violent paws and jaws of oppressing, persecuting Nimrods, Psal. lxxiii. Job xxix.

It is as necessary, yea, more honourable, godly, and Christian, to fight the fight of faith, with religious and spiritual artillery, and to contend earnestly for the faith of Jesus, once delivered to the saints, against all opposers, and the gates of earth and hell, men or devils, yea, against Paul himself, or an angel from heaven, if he bring any other faith or doctrine, Jude 4, 9; Gal. i. 8.

Peace. With a clashing of such arms am I never wakened. Speak once again, dear Truth, to my second complaint of bloody persecution, and devouring wars, marching under the colours of upright justice and holy zeal, &c.

A threefold doleful cry.

Truth. Mine ears have long been filled with a threefold doleful outcry—

Christ’s worship is his bed, Cant. i. 16. False worship, therefore, is a false bed.

First. Of one hundred forty-four thousand virgins, Rev. xiv., forced and ravished by emperors, kings, governors, to their beds of worship and religion; set up, like Absalom’s, on high, in their several states and countries.

The cry of the souls under the altar.

Secondly. The cry of those precious souls under the altar, Rev. vi. [9,] the souls of such as have been persecuted and slain for the testimony and witness of Jesus, whose blood hath been spilt like water upon the earth; and that because they have held fast the truth and witness of Jesus, against the worship of the states and times, compelling to an uniformity of state religion.

These cries of murdered virgins, who can sit still and hear? Who can but run, with zeal inflamed, to prevent the deflowering of chaste souls, and spilling of the blood of the innocent? Humanity stirs up and prompts the sons of men to draw material swords for a virgin’s chastity and life, against a ravishing murderer; and piety and Christianity must needs awaken the sons of God to draw the spiritual sword, the word of God, to preserve the chastity and life of spiritual virgins, who abhor the spiritual defilements of false worship, Rev. xiv.

A cry of the whole earth.

Thirdly. The cry of the whole earth, made drunk with the blood of its inhabitants slaughtering each other in their blinded zeal for conscience, for religion, against the catholics, against the Lutherans, &c.

What fearful cries, within these twenty years, of hundred thousands, men, women, children, fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brethren, sisters, old and young, high and low, plundered, ravished, slaughtered, murdered, famished! And hence these cries, that men fling away the spiritual sword and spiritual artillery, in spiritual and religious causes, and rather trust, for the suppressing of each other’s gods, conscience, and religion, as they suppose, to an arm of flesh and sword of steel.

Truth. Sweet Peace, what hast thou there?

Peace. Arguments against persecution for cause of conscience.

Truth. And what there?

Peace. An answer to such arguments, contrarily maintaining such persecution for cause of conscience.

Truth. These arguments against such persecution, and the answer pleading for it, [are] written, as Love hopes, from godly intentions, hearts, and hands, yet in a marvellously different style and manner—the arguments against persecution in milk, the answer for it, as I may say, in blood.

The wonderful providence of God in the writing of the arguments against persecution in milk.

The author of these arguments against persecution, as I have been informed, being committed by some then in power close prisoner to Newgate, for the witness of some truths of Jesus, and having not the use of pen and ink, wrote these arguments in milk, in sheets of paper brought to him by the woman, his keeper, from a friend in London as the stopples of his milk bottle.

In such paper, written with milk, nothing will appear; but the way of reading it by fire being known to this friend who received the papers, he transcribed and kept together the papers, although the author himself could not correct, nor view what himself had written.

It was in milk, tending to soul nourishment, even for babes and sucklings in Christ:—

It was in milk, spiritually white, pure and innocent, like those white horses of the word of truth and meekness, and the white linen or armour of righteousness, in the army of Jesus, Rev. vi. and xix.:—

It was in milk, soft, meek, peaceable, and gentle, tending both to the peace of souls, and the peace of states and kingdoms.

The answer writ in blood.

Peace. The answer, though I hope out of milky pure intentions, is returned in blood—bloody and slaughterous conclusions—bloody to the souls of all men, forced to the religion and worship which every civil state or commonweal agrees on, and compels all subjects to, in a dissembled uniformity:—

Bloody to the bodies, first of the holy witnesses of Christ Jesus, who testify against such invented worships:—

Secondly, of the nations and peoples slaughtering each other for their several respective religions and consciences.

CHAP. III.

Truth. In the answer, Mr. Cotton first lays down several distinctions and conclusions of his own, tending to prove persecution.

Secondly. Answers to the scriptures and arguments proposed against persecution.

The first distinction discussed.

Peace. The first distinction is this: by persecution for cause of conscience, “I conceive you mean either for professing some point of doctrine which you believe in conscience to be the truth, or for practising some work which you believe in conscience to be a religious duty.”

Definition of persecution discussed.

Truth. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practising worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him; and such a person, whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or false, suffereth persecution for conscience.

Conscience will not be restrained from its own worship, nor constrained to another.

But withal I desire it may be well observed, that this distinction is not full and complete. For beside this, that a man may be persecuted because he holdeth or practiseth what he believes in conscience to be a truth, as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions’ den, Dan. vi. 16, and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practise what they believed was by God commanded, as the apostles answered, Acts iv. and v., I say, besides this, a man may also be persecuted because he dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such doctrines and worships as are by men invented and appointed. So the three famous Jews, who were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to fall down, in a nonconformity to the whole conforming world, before the golden image, Dan. iii. 21.[96] So thousands of Christ’s witnesses, and of late in those bloody Marian days, have rather chosen to yield their bodies to all sorts of torments, than to subscribe to doctrines, or practise worships, unto which the states and times (as Nebuchadnezzar to his golden image) have compelled and urged them.

A chaste soul in God’s worship, like a chaste wife.

A chaste wife will not only abhor to be restrained from her husband’s bed as adulterous and polluted, but also abhor (if not much more) to be constrained to the bed of a stranger. And what is abominable in corporal, is much more loathsome in spiritual whoredom and defilement.

The spouse of Christ Jesus, who could not find her soul’s beloved in the ways of his worship and ministry, Cant. i., iii., and v. chapters, abhorred to turn aside to other flocks, worships, &c., and to embrace the bosom of a false Christ, Cant. i. 8.

CHAP. IV.

Peace. The second distinction is this:—

The second distinction discussed.

“In points of doctrine some are fundamental, without right belief whereof a man cannot be saved; others are circumstantial and less principal, wherein a man may differ in judgment without prejudice of salvation on either part.”

God’s people may err from the very fundamentals of visible worship.

Truth. To this distinction I dare not subscribe, for then I should everlastingly condemn thousands, and ten thousands, yea, the whole generation of the righteous, who since the falling away from the first primitive Christian state or worship, have and do err fundamentally concerning the true matter, constitution, gathering, and governing of the church. And yet, far be it from any pious breast to imagine that they are not saved, and that their souls are not bound up in the bundle of eternal life.[97]

We read of four sorts of spiritual, or Christian, foundations in the New Testament.

Four sorts of spiritual foundations.

First, the foundation of all foundations, the corner-stone itself, the Lord Jesus, on whom all depend—persons, doctrines, practices, 1 Cor. iii. [11.]

2. Ministerial foundations. The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Ephes. ii. 20.

3. The foundation of future rejoicing in the fruits of obedience, 1 Tim. vi. [19.]

Στοιχεῖα, θεμὲιοὶ. The six foundations of the Christian religion or worship.

4. The foundation of doctrines, without the knowledge of which there can be no true profession of Christ, according to the first institution, Heb. vi. [1, 2,]—the foundation, or principles, of repentance from dead works, faith towards God, the doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. In some of these, to wit, those concerning baptisms and laying on of hands, God’s people will be found to be ignorant for many hundred years; and I yet cannot see it proved that light is risen, I mean the light of the first institution, in practice.

God’s people in their persons, heart-waking (Cant. v. 2), in the life of personal grace, will yet be found fast asleep in respect of public Christian worship.

Coming out of Babel, not local, but mystical.

God’s people, in their persons, are His, most dear and precious: yet in respect of the Christian worship they are mingled amongst the Babylonians, from whence they are called to come out, not locally, as some have said, for that belonged to a material and local Babel (and literal Babel and Jerusalem have now no difference, John iv. 21), but spiritually and mystically to come out from her sins and abominations.

The great ignorance of God’s people concerning the nature of the true church.

If Mr. Cotton maintain the true church of Christ to consist of the true matter of holy persons called out from the world (and the true form of union in a church government), and that also neither national, provincial, nor diocesan churches are of Christ’s institution: how many thousands of God’s people of all sorts, clergy and laity, as they call them, will they find, both in former and later times, captivated in such national, provincial, and diocesan churches? yea, and so far from living in, yea or knowing of any such churches, for matter and form, as they conceive now only to be true, that until of late years, how few of God’s people knew any other church than the parish church of dead stones or timber? It being a late marvellous light, revealed by Christ Jesus, the Sun of righteousness, that his people are a company or church of living stones, 1 Pet. ii. 9.

Mr. Cotton and all the half separatists, halting between true and false churches, and consequently not yet clear in the fundamental matter of a Christian church.

And, however his own soul, and the souls of many others, precious to God, are persuaded to separate from national, provincial, and diocesan churches, and to assemble into particular churches, yet, since there are no parish churches in England, but what are made up of the parish bounds within such and such a compass of houses, and that such churches have been and are in constant dependence on, and subordination to the national church: how can the New English particular churches join with the old English parish churches in so many ordinances of word, prayer, singing, contribution, &c., but they must needs confess, that as yet their souls are far from the knowledge of the foundation of a true Christian church, whose matter must not only be living stones, but also separated from the rubbish of anti-christian confusions and desolations.

CHAP. V.

Peace. With lamentation, I may add, how can their souls be clear in this foundation of the true Christian matter, who persecute and oppress their own acknowledged brethren, presenting light unto them about this point? But I shall now present you with Mr. Cotton’s third distinction. “In points of practice,” saith he, “some concern the weightier duties of the law, as what God we worship, and with what kind of worship; whether such, as if it be right, fellowship with God is held; if false, fellowship with God is lost.”

Truth. It is worth the inquiry, what kind of worship he intendeth: for worship is of various signification. Whether in general acceptation he mean the rightness or corruptness of the church, or the ministry of the church, or the ministrations of the word, prayer, seals, &c.

The true ministry a fundamental.

And because it pleaseth the Spirit of God to make the ministry one of the foundations of the Christian religion, Heb. vi. 1, 2, and also to make the ministry of the word and prayer in the church to be two special works, even of the apostles themselves, Acts vi. 2, I shall desire it may be well considered in the fear of God.[98]

The New English ministers examined.

First, concerning the ministry of the word. The New English ministers, when they were new elected and ordained ministers in New England, must undeniably grant, that at that time they were no ministers, notwithstanding their profession of standing so long in a true ministry in old England, whether received from the bishops, which some have maintained true, or from the people, which Mr. Cotton and others better liked, and which ministry was always accounted perpetual and indelible. I apply, and ask, will it not follow, that if their new ministry and ordination be true, the former was false? and if false, that in the exercise of it, notwithstanding abilities, graces, intentions, labours, and, by God’s gracious, unpromised, and extraordinary blessing, some success, I say, will it not according to this distinction follow, that according to visible rule, fellowship with God was lost?

Common prayer cast off, and written against by the New English.

Secondly, concerning prayer. The New English ministers have disclaimed and written against that worshipping of God by the common or set forms of prayer, which yet themselves practised in England, notwithstanding they knew that many servants of God, in great sufferings, witnessed against such a ministry of the word, and such a ministry of prayer.

Peace. I could name the persons, time, and place, when some of them were faithfully admonished for using of the Common Prayer, and the arguments presented to them, then seeming weak, but now acknowledged sound; yet, at that time, they satisfied their hearts with the practice of the author of the Council of Trent, who used to read only some of the choicest selected prayers in the mass-book, which I confess was also their own practice in their using of the Common Prayer.[99] But now, according to this distinction, I ask whether or no fellowship with God in such prayers was lost?

God’s people have worshipped God with false worships.

Truth. I could particularize other exercises of worship, which cannot be denied, according to this distinction, to be of the weightier points of the law: to wit, what God we worship, and with what kind of worship? wherein fellowship with God, in many of our unclean and abominable worships, hath been lost. Only upon these premises I shall observe: first, that God’s people, even the standard-bearers and leaders of them, according to this distinction, have worshipped God, in their sleepy ignorance, by such a kind of worship as wherein fellowship with God is lost; yea also, that it is possible for them to do, after much light is risen against such worship, and in particular, brought to the eyes of such holy and worthy persons.

Secondly, there may be inward and secret fellowship with God in false ministries of word and prayer, (for that to the eternal praise of infinite mercy, beyond a word or promise of God, I acknowledge[100]) when yet, as the distinction saith, in such worship, not being right, fellowship with God is lost, and such a service or ministration must be lamented and forsaken.

Fundamentals of Christian worship not so easy and clear.

Thirdly, I observe that God’s people may live and die in such kinds of worship, notwithstanding that light from God, publicly and privately, hath been presented to them, able to convince; yet, not reaching to their conviction, and forsaking of such ways, contrary to a conclusion afterward expressed; to wit, “that fundamentals are so clear, that a man cannot but be convinced in conscience, and therefore that such a person not being convinced, he is condemned of himself, and may be persecuted for sinning against his conscience.”

Fourthly, I observe, that in such a maintaining a clearness of fundamentals or weightier points, and upon that ground a persecuting of men because they sin against their consciences, Mr. Cotton measures that to others, which himself when he lived in such practices would not have had measured to himself. As first, that it might have been affirmed of him, that in such practices he did sin against his conscience, having sufficient light shining about him.

Secondly, that he should or might lawfully have been cut off by death or banishment, as an heretic, sinning against his own conscience.

A notable speech of king James to a great nonconformist, turned persecutor.

And in this respect the speech of king James was notable to a great nonconformitant, converted, as is said, by king James to conformity, and counselling the king afterward to persecute the nonconformists even unto death: “Thou beast,” quoth the king, “if I had dealt so with thee in thy nonconformity, where hadst thou been?”

CHAP. VI.

The four distinctions discussed.

Peace. The next distinction concerneth the manner of persons holding forth the aforesaid practices, not only the weightier duties of the law, but points of doctrine and worship less principal:—

“Some,” saith he, “hold them forth in a meek and peaceable way; some with such arrogance and impetuousness, as of itself tendeth to the disturbance of civil peace.”

Truth. In the examination of this distinction we shall discuss,

First, what is civil peace (wherein we shall vindicate thy name the better),

Secondly, what it is to hold forth a doctrine, or practice, in this impetuousness or arrogancy.

What civil peace is.

First, for civil peace, what is it but pax civitatis, the peace of the city, whether an English city, Scotch, or Irish city, or further abroad, French, Spanish, Turkish city, &c.

God’s people must be nonconformitants to evil.

Thus it pleased the Father of lights to define it, Jer. xxix. 7, Pray for the peace of the city; which peace of the city, or citizens, so compacted in a civil way of union, may be entire, unbroken, safe, &c., notwithstanding so many thousands of God’s people, the Jews, were there in bondage, and would neither be constrained to the worship of the city Babel, nor restrained from so much of the worship of the true God as they then could practice, as is plain in the practice of the three worthies, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as also of Daniel, Dan. iii. and Dan. vi.—the peace of the city or kingdom being a far different peace from the peace of the religion, or spiritual worship, maintained and professed of the citizens. This peace of their (worship which worship also in some cities being various) being a false peace, God’s people were and ought to be nonconformitants, not daring either to be restrained from the true, or constrained to false worship; and yet without breach of the civil or city peace, properly so called.

The difference between spiritual and civil peace.

Peace. Hence it is that so many glorious and flourishing cities of the world maintain their civil peace; yea, the very Americans and wildest pagans keep the peace of their towns or cities, though neither in one nor the other can any man prove a true church of God in those places, and consequently no spiritual and heavenly peace. The peace spiritual, whether true or false, being of a higher and far different nature from the peace of the place or people, being merely and essentially civil and human.

The difference between the spiritual and civil state. The civil state, the spiritual estate, and the church of Christ distinct in Ephesus.

Truth. Oh! how lost are the sons of men in this point! To illustrate this:—the church, or company of worshippers, whether true or false, is like unto a body or college of physicians in a city—like unto a corporation, society, or company of East India or Turkey merchants, or any other society or company in London; which companies may hold their courts, keep their records, hold disputations, and in matters concerning their society may dissent, divide, break into schisms and factions, sue and implead each other at the law, yea, wholly break up and dissolve into pieces and nothing, and yet the peace of the city not be in the least measure impaired or disturbed; because the essence or being of the city, and so the well being and peace thereof, is essentially distinct from those particular societies; the city courts, city laws, city punishments distinct from theirs. The city was before them, and stands absolute and entire when such a corporation or society is taken down. For instance further, the city or civil state of Ephesus was essentially distinct from the worship of Diana in the city, or of the whole city. Again, the church of Christ in Ephesus, which were God’s people, converted and called out from the worship of that city unto Christianity, or worship of God in Christ, was distinct from both.

Now suppose that God remove the candlestick from Ephesus, yea, though the whole worship of the city of Ephesus should be altered, yet, if men be true and honestly ingenuous to city covenants, combinations, and principles, all this might be without the least impeachment or infringement of the peace of the city of Ephesus.

Thus in the city of Smyrna was the city itself or civil estate one thing, the spiritual or religious state of Smyrna another: the church of Christ in Smyrna distinct from them both. And the synagogue of the Jews, whether literally Jews, as some think, or mystically false Christians, as others, called the synagogue of Satan, Rev. ii., [was] distinct from all these. And notwithstanding these spiritual oppositions in point of worship and religion, yet hear we not the least noise—nor need we, if men keep but the bond of civility, of any civil breach, or breach of civil peace amongst them; and to persecute God’s people there for religion, that only was a breach of civility itself.

CHAP. VII.

Peace. Now to the second query, what it is to hold forth doctrine or practice in an arrogant or impetuous way?

The answerer too obscure in generals. God’s meekest servants use to be counted arrogant and impetuous.

Truth. Although it hath not pleased Mr. Cotton to declare what is this arrogant or impetuous holding forth of doctrine or practice tending to disturbance of civil peace, I cannot but express my sad and sorrowful observation, how it pleaseth God to leave him as to take up the common reproachful accusation of the accuser of God’s children: to wit, that they are arrogant and impetuous. Which charge, together with that of obstinacy, pertinacity, pride, troublers of the city, &c., Satan commonly loads the meekest of the saints and witnesses of Jesus with.

Six cases wherein God’s people have been bold and zealous, yet not arrogant.

To wipe off, therefore, these foul blurs and aspersions from the fair and beautiful face of the spouse of Jesus, I shall select and propose five or six cases, for which God’s witnesses, in all ages and generations of men, have been charged with arrogance, impetuousness, &c., and yet the God of heaven, and Judge of all men, hath graciously discharged them from such crimes, and maintained and avowed them for his faithful and peaceable servants.

Christ Jesus and his disciples teach publicly a new doctrine, fundamentally different from the religion professed.

First, God’s people have proclaimed, taught, disputed, for divers months together, a new religion and worship, contrary to the worship projected in the town, city, or state where they have lived, or where they have travelled, as did the Lord Jesus himself over all Galilee, and the apostles after Him in all places, both in the synagogues and market-places, as appears Acts xvii. 2, 17; Acts xviii. 4, 8. Yet this is no arrogance nor impetuousness.

God’s servants zealous and bold to the faces of the highest. 1 Kings xviii. 18. Luke xiii. 32. Acts xxiii. 3.

Secondly, God’s servants have been zealous for their Lord and Master, even to the very faces of the highest, and concerning the persons of the highest, so far as they have opposed the truth of God: so Elijah to the face of Ahab, “It is not I, but thou, and thy father’s house, that troublest Israel.” So the Lord Jesus concerning Herod, Go, tell that fox. So Paul, God delivered me from the mouth of the lion; and to Ananias, Thou whited wall; and yet in all this no arrogance, nor impetuousness.

God’s people constantly immoveable to death.

Thirdly, God’s people have been immoveable, constant, and resolved to the death, in refusing to submit to false worships, and in preaching and professing the true worship, contrary to the express command of public authority. So the three famous worthies against the command of Nebuchadnezzar, and the uniform conformity of all nations agreeing upon a false worship, Dan. iii. So the apostles, Acts iv. and v., and so the witnesses of Jesus in all ages, who loved not their lives to the death, Rev. xii., not regarding sweet life nor bitter death, and yet not arrogant, nor impetuous.

God’s people ever maintained Christ Jesus the only Lord and King to the conscience.

Fourthly, God’s people, since the coming of the King of Israel, the Lord Jesus, have openly and constantly professed, that no civil magistrate, no king, nor Cæsar, have any power over the souls or consciences of their subjects, in the matters of God and the crown of Jesus; but the civil magistrates themselves, yea, kings and Cæsars, are bound to subject their own souls to the ministry and church, the power and government of this Lord Jesus, the King of kings. Hence was the charge against the apostles (false in civil, but true in spirituals) that they affirmed that there was another King, one Jesus, Acts xvii. 7. And, indeed, this was the great charge against the Lord Jesus himself, which the Jews laid against him, and for which he suffered death, as appears by the accusation written over his head upon the gallows, John xix. 19, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

That Christ is King alone over conscience is the sum of all true preaching.

This was and is the sum of all true preaching of the gospel, or glad news, viz., that God anointed Jesus to be the sole King and Governor of all the Israel of God in spiritual and soul causes, Ps. ii. 9; Acts ii. 36. Yet this kingly power of His, he resolved not to manage in His own person, but ministerially in the hands of such messengers which he sent forth to preach and baptize, and to such as believed that word they preached, John xvii. And yet here no arrogance, nor impetuousness.

God’s people have seemed the disturbers of civil state.

5. God’s people, in delivering the mind and will of God concerning the kingdoms and civil states where they have lived, have seemed in all show of common sense and rational policy, if men look not higher with the eye of faith, to endanger and overthrow the very civil state, as appeareth by all Jeremiah’s preaching and counsel to king Zedekiah, his princes and people, insomuch that the charge of the princes against Jeremiah was, that he discouraged the army from fighting against the Babylonians, and weakened the land from its own defence; and this charge in the eye of reason, seemed not to be unreasonable, or unrighteous, Jer. xxxvii. and xxxviii.; and yet in Jeremiah no arrogance, nor impetuousness.

God’s word and people the occasion of tumults.

6. Lastly, God’s people, by their preaching, disputing, &c., have been, though not the cause, yet accidentally the occasion of great contentions and divisions, yea, tumults and uproars, in towns and cities where they have lived and come; and yet neither their doctrine nor themselves arrogant nor impetuous, however so charged: for thus the Lord Jesus discovereth men’s false and secure suppositions, Luke xii. 51, Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on the earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division; for from henceforth shall there be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three, the father shall be divided against the son and the son against the father, &c. And thus upon the occasion of the apostles’ preaching the kingdom and worship of God in Christ, were most commonly uproars and tumults wherever they came. For instance, those strange and monstrous uproars at Iconium, at Ephesus, at Jerusalem, Acts xiv. 4; Acts xix. 29, 40; Acts xxi. 30, 31.

CHAP. VIII.

[1 Obj.]

Peace. It will be said, dear Truth, what the Lord Jesus and his messengers taught was truth; but the question is about error.

Truth. I answer, This distinction now in discussion concerns not truth or error, but the manner of holding forth or divulging.

I acknowledge that such may be the way and manner of holding forth, either with railing or reviling, daring or challenging speeches, or with force of arms, swords, guns, prisons, &c., that it may not only tend to break, but may actually break the civil peace, or peace of the city.

The instances proposed carry a great show of impetuousness, yet all are pure and peaceable.

Yet these instances propounded are cases of great opposition and spiritual hostility, and occasions of breach of civil peace; and yet as the borders, or matter, were of gold, so the specks, or manner, (Cantic. i. [11,]) were of silver: both matter and manner pure, holy, peaceable, and inoffensive.

Moreover, I answer, That it is possible and common for persons of soft and gentle nature and spirits, to hold out falsehood with more seeming meekness and peaceableness, than the Lord Jesus or his servants did or do hold forth the true and everlasting gospel. So that the answerer would be requested to explain what he means by this arrogant and impetuous holding forth of any doctrine, which very manner of holding forth tends to break civil peace, and comes under the cognizance and correction of the civil magistrate, lest he build the sepulchre of the prophets, and say, If we had been in the Pharisees’ days, the Roman emperor’s days, or the bloody Marian days, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets, Matt. xxiii. 30, who were charged with arrogance and impetuousness.

CHAP. IX.

[2 Obj.]

Peace. It will here be said, whence then ariseth civil dissensions and uproars about matters of religion?

The true cause of tumults at the preaching of the word.

Truth. I answer: When a kingdom or state, town or family, lies and lives in the guilt of a false god, false Christ, false worship, no wonder if sore eyes be troubled at the appearance of the light, be it never so sweet. No wonder if a body full of corrupt humours be troubled at strong, though wholesome, physic—if persons sleepy and loving to sleep be troubled at the noise of shrill, though silver, alarums. No wonder if Adonijah and all his company be amazed and troubled at the sound of the right heir, king Solomon, 1 Kings i. [41, 49,]—if the husbandmen were troubled when the Lord of the vineyard sent servant after servant, and at last his only son, and they beat, and wounded, and killed even the son himself, because they meant themselves to seize upon the inheritance, unto which they had no right, Matt. xxi. 38. Hence all those tumults about the apostles in the Acts, &c. Whereas, good eyes are not so troubled at light; vigilant and watchful persons, loyal and faithful, are not so troubled at the true, no, nor at a false religion of Jew or Gentile.

A preposterous way of suppressing errors.

Secondly. Breach of civil peace may arise when false and idolatrous practices are held forth, and yet no breach of civil peace from the doctrine or practice, or the manner of holding forth, but from that wrong and preposterous way of suppressing, preventing, and extinguishing such doctrines or practices by weapons of wrath and blood, whips, stocks, imprisonment, banishment, death, &c.; by which men commonly are persuaded to convert heretics, and to cast out unclean spirits, which only the finger of God can do, that is, the mighty power of the Spirit in the word.

Light only can expel fogs and darkness.

Hence the town is in an uproar, and the country takes the alarum to expel that fog or mist of error, heresy, blasphemy, as is supposed, with swords and guns. Whereas it is light alone, even light from the bright shining Sun of Righteousness, which is able, in the souls and consciences of men, to dispel and scatter such fogs and darkness.

Hence the sons of men, as David speaks in another case, Ps. xxxix. [6,] disquiet themselves in vain, and unmercifully disquiet others, as, by the help of the Lord, in the sequel of this discourse shall more appear.

CHAP. X.

Peace. Now the last distinction is this: “Persecution for conscience is either for a rightly informed conscience, or a blind and erroneous conscience.”

Answ. Persecutors oppress both true and erroneous consciences.

Truth. Indeed, both these consciences are persecuted; but lamentably blind and erroneous will those consciences shortly appear to be, which out of zeal for God, as is pretended, have persecuted either. And heavy is the doom of those blind guides and idol shepherds, whose right eye God’s finger of jealousy hath put out, who flattering the ten horns, or worldly powers, persuade them what excellent and faithful service they perform to God, in persecuting both these consciences; either hanging up a rightly informed conscience, and therein the Lord Jesus himself, between two malefactors, or else killing the erroneous and the blind, like Saul, out of zeal to the Israel of God, the poor Gibeonites, whom it pleased God to permit to live; and yet that hostility and cruelty used against them, as the repeated judgment year after year upon the whole land after told them, could not be pardoned until the death of the persecutor, Saul [and] his sons, had appeased the Lord’s displeasure, 2 Sam. xxi.

CHAP. XI.

Peace. After explication in these distinctions, it pleaseth the answerer to give his resolution to the question in four particulars.

First, that he holds it “not lawful to persecute any for conscience’ sake rightly informed, for in persecuting such,” saith he, “Christ himself is persecuted.” For which reason, truly rendered, he quotes, Acts ix. 4, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

Truth. He that shall read this conclusion over a thousand times, shall as soon find darkness in the bright beams of the sun, as in this so clear and shining a beam of Truth; viz., that Christ Jesus, in his truth, must not be persecuted.

Yet, this I must ask, for it will be admired by all sober men, what should be the cause or inducement to the answerer’s mind to lay down such a position or thesis as this is, It is not lawful to persecute the Lord Jesus?

All persecutors of Christ profess not to persecute him.

Search all scriptures, histories, records, monuments; consult with all experiences; did ever Pharaoh, Saul, Ahab, Jezebel, Scribes and Pharisees, the Jews, Herod, the bloody Neros, Gardiners, Bonners, pope, or devil himself, profess to persecute the Son of God, Jesus as Jesus, Christ as Christ, without a mask or covering?

No, saith Pharaoh, the Israelites are idle, and therefore speak they of sacrificing. David is risen up in a conspiracy against Saul, therefore persecute him. Naboth hath blasphemed God and the king, therefore stone him. Christ is a seducer of the people, a blasphemer against God, and traitor against Cæsar, therefore hang him. Christians are schismatical, factious, heretical, therefore persecute them. The devil hath deluded John Huss, therefore crown him with a paper of devils, and burn him, &c.

Peace. One thing I see apparently in the Lord’s overruling the pen of this worthy answerer, viz., a secret whispering from heaven to him, that although his soul aim at Christ, and hath wrought much for Christ in many sincere intentions, and God’s merciful and patient acceptance, yet he hath never left the tents of such who think they do God good service in killing the Lord Jesus in his servants. And yet they say, if we had been in the days of our fathers, in queen Mary’s days, &c., we would never have consented to such persecution. And therefore, when they persecute Christ Jesus in his truths or servants, they say, “Do not say you are persecuted for the word, for Christ’s sake: for we hold it not lawful to persecute Jesus Christ.”

Let me also add a second: So far as he hath been a guide, by preaching for persecution, I say, wherein he hath been a guide and leader, by misinterpreting and applying the writings of truth, so far, I say, his own mouth and hands shall judge (I hope not his person, but) his actions; for the Lord Jesus hath suffered by him, Acts ix. 5. And if the Lord Jesus himself were present, Himself should suffer that in his own person, which his servants witnessing his truth do suffer for his sake.

CHAP. XII.

Peace. Their second conclusion is this: “It is not lawful to persecute an erroneous and blind conscience, even in fundamental and weighty points, till after admonition once or twice, Tit. iii. 11, and then such consciences may be persecuted; because the word of God is so clear in fundamental and weighty points, that such a person cannot but sin against his conscience, and so being condemned of himself, that is, of his conscience, he may be persecuted for sinning against his own conscience.”[101]

Truth. I answer, In that great battle between the Lord Jesus and the devil, it is observable that Satan takes up the weapons of scripture, and such scripture which in show and colour was excellent for his purpose; but in this third of Titus, as Solomon speaks of the birds of heaven, Prov. i. [17,] a man may evidently see the snare: and I know the time is coming wherein it shall be said, Surely in vain the net is laid in the sight of the saints (heavenly birds).

So palpably gross and thick is the mist and fog which Satan hath raised about this scripture, that he that can but see men as trees in matters of God’s worship, may easily discern what a wonderful deep sleep God’s people are fallen into concerning the visible kingdom of Christ; insomuch that this third of Titus, which through fearful profanations hath so many hundred years been the pretended bulwark and defence of all the bloody wolves, dens of lions, and mountains of leopards, hunting and devouring the witnesses of Jesus, should now be the refuge and defence of (as I hope) the lambs and little ones of Jesus: yet, in this point, so preaching and practising so unlike to themselves, to the Lord Jesus, and lamentably too like to His and their persecutors.

CHAP. XIII.

Peace. Bright Truth, since this place of Titus is such a pretended bulwark for persecuting of heretics, and under that pretence of persecuting all thy followers, I beseech you by the bright beams of the Sun of Righteousness, scatter these mists, and unfold these particulars out of the text:—

First. What this man is that is an heretic.

Secondly. How this heretic is condemned of himself.

Thirdly. What is this first and second admonition, and by whom it is supposed to be given.

Fourthly. What is this rejecting of Him, and by whom it is supposed this rejection was to be made.

What is meant by heretic in Titus.

Truth. First, what is this heretic? I find him commonly defined to be such an one as is obstinate in fundamentals, and so also I conceive the answerer seems to resent him, saying, that the apostle renders this reason why after once and twice admonition he ought to be persecuted; because in fundamental and principal points of doctrine and worship, the word of God is so clear, that the heretic cannot but be convinced in his own conscience.

But of this reason, I find not one tittle mentioned in this scripture. For although he saith such an one is condemned of himself, yet he saith not, nor will it follow, that fundamentals are so clear, that after first and second admonition, a person that submits not to them is condemned of himself, any more than in lesser points. This eleventh verse hath reference to the former verses. Titus, an evangelist, a preacher of glad news, abiding here with the church of Christ at Crete, is required by Paul to avoid, to reject, and to teach the church to reject, genealogies, disputes, and unprofitable questions about the law. Such a like charge it is as he gave to Timothy, left also an evangelist at Ephesus, 1 Tim. i. 4.

If it should be objected, what is to be done to such contentious, vain strivers about genealogies and questions unprofitable?—The apostle seems plainly to answer, Let him be once and twice admonished.

Obj. Yea, but what if once and twice admonition prevail not?

The apostle seems to answer, αἱρετικὸν ἄνθρωπον; and that is, the man that is wilfully obstinate after such once and twice admonition, reject him.

With this scripture agrees that of 1 Tim. vi. 4, 5, where Timothy is commanded to withdraw himself from such who dote about questions and strifes of words.

All which are points of a lower and inferior nature, not properly falling within the terms or notions of those (στοιχεῖα) first principles and (θεμελίους) foundations of the Christian profession, to wit, repentance from dead works, faith towards God, the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, the resurrection, and eternal judgment, Heb. vi. 2, &c.

Concerning these fundamentals (although nothing is so little in the Christian worship, but may be referred to one of these six, yet) doth not Paul to Timothy or Titus speak in those places by me alleged, or of any of these, as may evidently appear by the context and scope.

The beloved spouse of Christ is no receptacle for any filthy person, obstinate in any filthiness against the purity of the Lord Jesus, who hath commanded his people to purge out the old leaven, not only greater portions, but a little leaven which will leaven the whole lump; and therefore this heretic, or obstinate person in these vain and unprofitable questions, was to be rejected, as well as if his obstinacy had been in greater matters.

Again, if there were a door or window left open to vain and unprofitable questions, and sins of smaller nature, how apt are persons to cover [them] with a silken covering, and to say, Why, I am no heretic in fundamentals, spare me in this or that little one, this or that opinion or practice, these are of an inferior, circumstantial nature, &c.

The word heretic generally mistaken.

So the coherence with the former verses, and the scope of the Spirit of God in this and other like scriptures being carefully observed, this Greek word heretic is no more in true English, and in truth, than an obstinate and wilful person in the church of Crete, striving and contending about those unprofitable questions and genealogies, &c.; and [it] is not such a monster intended in this place, as most interpreters run upon, to wit, one obstinate in fundamentals, and, as the answerer makes the apostle to write, in such fundamentals and principal points, wherein the word of God is so clear that a man cannot but be convinced in conscience, and therefore is not persecuted for matter of conscience, but for sinning against his conscience.

CHAP. XIV.

Peace. Now, in the second place, what is this self-condemnation?

Truth. The apostle seemeth to make this a ground of the rejecting of such a person—because he is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself. It will appear upon due search, that this self-condemning is not here intended to be in heretics (as men say) in fundamentals only; but, as it is meant here, in men obstinate in the lesser questions, &c.

First, he is subverted, or turned crooked, ἐξέστραπται, a word opposite to straightness, or rightness. So that the scope is, as I conceive—upon true and faithful admonition once or twice, the pride of heart, or heat of wrath, draws a veil over the eyes and heart, so that the soul is turned off or loosed from the checks of truth.

Secondly, he sinneth, ἁμαρτάνει; that is, being subverted, or turned aside, he sinneth, or wanders from the path of truth, and is condemned by himself, αὐτοκάτακριτος; that is, by the secret checks and whisperings of his own conscience, which will take God’s part against a man’s self, in smiting, accusing, &c.

Checks of conscience.

Which checks of conscience we find even in God’s own dear people, as is most admirably opened in the fifth of Canticles, in those sad, drowsy, and unkind passages of the spouse, in her answer to the knocks and calls of the Lord Jesus; which God’s people, in all their awakenings, acknowledge how slightly they have listened to the checks of their own consciences. This the answerer pleaseth to call sinning against his conscience, for which he may lawfully be persecuted: to wit, for sinning against his conscience.

Which conclusion—though painted over with the vermilion of mistaken scripture, and that old dream of Jew and Gentile that the crown of Jesus will consist of outward material gold, and his sword be made of iron or steel, executing judgment in his church and kingdom by corporal punishment—I hope, by the assistance of the Lord Jesus, to manifest it to be the overturning and rooting up the very foundations and roots of all true Christianity, and absolutely denying the Lord Jesus, the great anointed, to be yet come in the flesh.

CHAP. XV.

This will appear, if we examine the two last queries of this place of Titus; to wit,

First. What this admonition is?

Secondly. What is the rejection here intended? Reject him.

First, then, Titus, unto whom this epistle and these directions were written, and in him to all that succeed him in the like work of the gospel to the world’s end, was no minister of the civil state, armed with the majesty and terror of a material sword, who might for offences against the civil state inflict punishments upon the bodies of men by imprisonments, whippings, fines, banishment, death. Titus was a minister of the gospel, or glad tidings, armed only with the spiritual sword of the word of God, and [with] such spiritual weapons as (yet) through God were mighty to the casting down of strongholds, yea, every high thought of the highest head and heart in the world, 2 Cor. x. 4.

What is the first and second admonition. What the rejecting of the heretic was. Corporal killing in the law, typing out spiritual killing, by excommunication, in the gospel.

Therefore, these first and second admonitions were not civil or corporal punishments on men’s persons or purses, which courts of men may lawfully inflict upon malefactors; but they were the reprehensions, convictions, exhortations, and persuasions of the word of the eternal God, charged home to the conscience in the name and presence of the Lord Jesus, in the midst of the church. Which being despised and not hearkened to, in the last place follows rejection; which is not a cutting off by heading, hanging, burning, &c., or an expelling of the country and coasts; neither [of] which (no, nor any lesser civil punishment) Titus, nor the church at Crete, had any power to exercise. But it was that dreadful cutting off from that visible head and body, Christ Jesus and his church; that purging out of the old leaven from the lump of the saints; the putting away of the evil and wicked person from the holy land and commonwealth of God’s Israel, 1 Cor. v. [6, 7.][102] Where it is observable, that the same word used by Moses for putting a malefactor to death, in typical Israel, by sword, stoning, &c., Deut. xiii. 5, is here used by Paul for the spiritual killing, or cutting off by excommunication, 1 Cor. v. 13, Put away that evil person, &c.

Now, I desire the answerer, and any, in the holy awe and fear of God, to consider, that—

From whom the first and second admonition was to proceed, from them also was the rejecting or casting out to proceed, as before. But not from the civil magistrate, to whom Paul writes not this epistle, and who also is not bound once and twice to admonish, but may speedily punish, as he sees cause, the persons or purses of delinquents against his civil state; but from Titus, the minister or angel of the church, and from the church with him, were these first and second admonitions to proceed.

And, therefore, at last also, this rejecting: which can be no other but a casting out, or excommunicating of him from their church society.

Indeed, this rejecting is no other than that avoiding which Paul writes of to the church of Christ at Rome, Rom. xvi. 17; which avoiding, however wofully perverted by some to prove persecution, belonged to the governors of Christ’s church and kingdom in Rome, and not to the Roman emperor, for him to rid and avoid the world of them by bloody and cruel persecution.

CHAP. XVI.

The third conclusion discussed.

Peace. The third conclusion is—in points of lesser moment there ought to be a toleration.

Satan’s policy.

Which though I acknowledge to be the truth of God, yet three things are very observable in the manner of laying it down: for Satan useth excellent arrows to bad marks, and sometimes beyond the intent, and hidden from the eye of the archer.

The answerer granteth a toleration.

First, saith he, such a person is to be tolerated till God may be pleased to reveal his truth to him.

Patience to be used toward the opposite.

Truth. This is well observed by you: for indeed this is the very ground why the apostle calls for meekness and gentleness toward all men, and toward such as oppose themselves, 2 Tim. ii. [25]; because there is a peradventure, or it may be; “It may be, God may give them repentance.” That God that hath shown mercy to one, may show mercy to another. It may be, that eye-salve that anointed one man’s eye who was blind and opposite, may another as blind and opposite. He that hath given repentance to the husband, may give it to his wife, &c.

The carriage of a soul, sensible of mercy, toward other sinners in their blindness and opposition.

Hence the soul that is lively and sensible of mercy received to itself in former blindness, opposition, and enmity against God, cannot but be patient and gentle toward the Jews, who yet deny the Lord Jesus to be come, and justify their forefathers in murdering of him: toward the Turks, who acknowledge Christ a great prophet, yet less than Mahomet: yea, to all the several sorts of anti-christians, who set up many a false Christ instead of him: and, lastly, to the pagans, and wildest sorts of the sons of men, who have not yet heard of the Father, nor the Son: and to all these sorts, Jews, Turks, anti-christians, pagans, when they oppose the light presented to them, in the sense of its own former opposition, and that God peradventure may at last give repentance. I add, such a soul will not only be patient, but earnestly and constantly pray for all sorts of men, that out of them God’s elect may be called to the fellowship of Christ Jesus; and, lastly, not only pray, but endeavour, to its utmost ability, their participation of the same grace and mercy.[103]

That great rock upon which so many gallant ships miscarry, viz., that such persons, false prophets, heretics, &c., were to be put to death in Israel, I shall, with God’s assistance, remove. As also that fine silken covering of the image, viz., that such persons ought to be put to death, or banished, to prevent the infecting and seducing of others, I shall, with God’s assistance, in the following discourse pluck off.

The answerer confounds the churches in Philippi and Rome, with the cities Philippi and Rome.

Secondly, I observe from the scriptures he quoteth for this toleration, Phil. iii. [17], and Rom. xiv. [1-4], how closely, yet I hope unadvisedly, he makes the churches of Christ at Philippi and Rome all one with the cities Philippi and Rome, in which the churches were, and to whom only Paul wrote. As if what these churches in Philippi and Rome must tolerate amongst themselves, that the cities Philippi and Rome must tolerate in their citizens: and what these churches must not tolerate, that these cities, Philippi and Rome, must not tolerate within the compass of the city, state, and jurisdiction.

Truth. Upon that ground, by undeniable consequence, these cities, Philippi and Rome, were bound not to tolerate themselves, that is, the cities and citizens of Philippi and Rome, in their own civil life and being; but must kill or expel themselves from their own cities, as being idolatrous worshippers of other gods than the true God in Jesus Christ.

Difference between the church and the world.

But as the lily is amongst the thorns, so is Christ’s love among the daughters; and as the apple-tree among the trees of the forest, so is her beloved among the sons; so great a difference is there between the church in a city or country, and the civil state, city, or country in which it is.

No less then (as David in another case, Ps. ciii. [11], as far as the heavens are from the earth) are they that are truly Christ’s (that is, anointed truly with the Spirit of Christ) [different] from many thousands who love not the Lord Jesus Christ, and yet are and must be permitted in the world, or civil state, although they [i. e., the world, &c.] have no right to enter into the gates of Jerusalem, the church of God.

The church and civil state confusedly made all one.

And this is the more carefully to be minded, because whenever a toleration of others’ religion and conscience is pleaded for, such as are (I hope in truth) zealous for God, readily produce plenty of scriptures written to the church, both before and since Christ’s coming, all commanding and pressing the putting forth of the unclean, the cutting off the obstinate, the purging out the leaven, rejecting of heretics. As if because briars, thorns, and thistles may not be in the garden of the church, therefore they must all be plucked up out of the wilderness. Whereas he that is a briar, that is, a Jew, a Turk, a pagan, an anti-christian, to-day, may be, when the word of the Lord runs freely, a member of Jesus Christ to-morrow, cut out of the wild olive and planted into the true.

Persecutors have forgotten the blessedness promised to the merciful, Matt. v. [7.]

Peace. Thirdly, from this toleration of persons but holding lesser errors, I observe the unmercifulness of such doctrines and hearts, as if they had forgotten the blessedness; Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy, Matt. v. [7.] He that is slightly and but a little hurt, shall be suffered, and means vouchsafed for his cure. But the deep wounded sinners, and leprous, ulcerous, and those of bloody issues twelve years together, and those which have been bowed down thirty-eight years of their life, they must not be suffered, until peradventure God may give them repentance. But either it is not lawful for a godly magistrate to rule and govern such a people, as some have said, or else if they be under government, and reform not to the state religion after the first and second admonition, the civil magistrate is bound to persecute, &c.

Truth. Such persons have need, as Paul to the Romans, chap. xii. 1, to be besought by the mercy of God to put on bowels of mercy toward such as have neither wronged them in body nor goods, and therefore justly should not be punished in their goods or persons.

CHAP. XVII.

Peace. I shall now trouble you, dear Truth, but with one conclusion more, which is this, viz., that if a man hold forth error with a boisterous and arrogant spirit, to the disturbance of the civil peace, he ought to be punished, &c.

Truth. To this I have spoken to, confessing that if any man commit aught of those things which Paul was accused of, Acts xxv. 11, he ought not to be spared, yea, he ought not, as Paul saith, in such cases to refuse to die.

What persons are guilty of breach of civil peace.

But if the matter be of another nature, a spiritual and divine nature, I have written before in many cases, and might in many more, that the worship which a state professeth may be contradicted and preached against, and yet no breach of civil peace. And if a breach follow, it is not made by such doctrines, but by the boisterous and violent opposers of them.

The most peaceable wrongfully accused of peace-breaking.

Such persons only break the city’s or kingdom’s peace, who cry out for prison and swords against such who cross their judgment or practice in religion. For as Joseph’s mistress accused Joseph of uncleanness, and calls out for civil violence against him, when Joseph was chaste and herself guilty, so, commonly, the meek and peaceable of the earth are traduced as rebels, factious, peace-breakers, although they deal not with the state or state matters, but matters of divine and spiritual nature, when their traducers are the only unpeaceable, and guilty of breach of civil peace.[104]

Peace. We are now come to the second part of the answer, which is a particular examination of such grounds as are brought against such persecution.

The first sort of grounds are from the scriptures.

CHAP. XVIII.

The examination of what is meant by the tares and the command of the Lord Jesus to let them alone.

First, Matt. xiii. 30, 38, “Because Christ commandeth to let alone the tares to grow up together with the wheat, until the harvest.”

Unto which he answereth: “That tares are not briars and thorns, but partly hypocrites, like unto the godly, but indeed carnal, as the tares are like to wheat, but are not wheat; or partly such corrupt doctrines or practices as are indeed unsound, but yet such as come very near the truth (as tares do to the wheat), and so near, that good men may be taken with them; and so the persons in whom they grow cannot be rooted out but good wheat will be rooted out with them. In such a case,” saith he, “Christ calleth for peaceable toleration, and not for penal prosecution, according to the third conclusion.”

The answerer’s fallacious exposition, that tares signify either persons, doctrines, or practices.

Truth. The substance of this answer I conceive to be, first, negative; that by tares are not meant persons of another religion and worship, that is, saith he, “they are not briars and thorns.”

Secondly, affirmative; by tares are meant either persons or doctrines, or practices; persons, as hypocrites, like the godly; doctrines or practices corrupt, yet like the truth.

For answer hereunto, I confess that not only those worthy witnesses, whose memories are sweet with all that fear God, Calvin, Beza, &c., but of later times many conjoin with this worthy answerer, to satisfy themselves and others with such an interpretation.

The answerer barely affirming a most strange interpretation.

But, alas! how dark is the soul left that desires to walk with God in holy fear and trembling, when in such a weighty and mighty point as this is, that in matters of conscience concerneth the spilling of the blood of thousands, and the civil peace of the world in the taking up arms to suppress all false religions!—when, I say, no evidence, or demonstration of the Spirit, is brought to prove such an interpretation, nor arguments from the place itself or the scriptures of truth to confirm it; but a bare affirmation that these tares must signify persons, or doctrines and practices.

Satan’s subtlety about the opening of scripture.

I will not imagine any deceitful purpose in the answerer’s thoughts in the proposal of these three—persons, doctrines, or practices; yet dare I confidently avouch, that the old serpent hath deceived his precious soul, and by tongue and pen would deceive the souls of others by such a method of dividing the word of truth. A threefold cord, and so a threefold snare, is strong; and too like it is that one of the three, either persons, doctrines, or practices, may catch some feet.[105]

CHAP. XIX.

Peace. The place then being of such importance as concerning the truth of God, the blood of thousands, yea, the blood of saints, and of the Lord Jesus in them, I shall request your more diligent search, by the Lord’s holy assistance, into this scripture.

[Truth.] I shall make it evident, that by these tares in this parable are meant persons in respect of their religion and way of worship, open and visible professors, as bad as briars and thorns; not only suspected foxes, but as bad as those greedy wolves which Paul speaks of, Acts xx. [29], who with perverse and evil doctrines labour spiritually to devour the flock, and to draw away disciples after them, whose mouths must be stopped, and yet no carnal force and weapon to be used against them; but their mischief to be resisted with those mighty weapons of the holy armoury of the Lord Jesus, wherein there hangs a thousand shields, Cant. iv. [4.]

That the Lord Jesus intendeth not doctrines, or practices, by the tares in this parable, is clear; for,

First, the Lord Jesus expressly interpreteth the good seed to be persons, and those the children of the kingdom; and the tares also to signify men, and those the children of the wicked one, ver. 38.[106]

Toleration in Rom. xiv. considered. Toleration of Jewish ceremonies, for a time, upon some grounds in the Jewish church, proves not toleration of popish and anti-christian ceremonies in the Christian church, although in the state.

Secondly, such corrupt doctrines or practices are not to be tolerated now, as those Jewish observations, the Lord’s own ordinances, were for a while to be permitted, Rom. xiv. Nor so long as till the angels, the reapers, come to reap the harvest in the end of the world. For can we think, that because the tender consciences of the Jews were to be tendered in their differences of meats, that therefore persons must now be tolerated in the church (for I speak not of the civil state), and that to the world’s end, in superstitious forbearing and forbidding of flesh in popish Lents, and superstitious Fridays, &c.; and that because they were to be tendered in their observation of Jewish holidays, that therefore until the harvest, or world’s end, persons must now be tolerated (I mean in the church) in the observation of popish Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide, and other superstitious popish festivals?

I willingly acknowledge, that if the members of a church of Christ shall upon some delusion of Satan kneel at the Lord’s supper, keep Christmas, or any other popish observation, great tenderness ought to be used in winning his soul from the error of his way; and yet I see not that persons so practising were fit to be received into the churches of Christ now, as the Jews, weak in the faith, that is, in the liberties of Christ, were to be received, Rom. xiv. 1. And least of all (as before) that the toleration or permission of such ought to continue till doomsday, or the end of the world, as this parable urgeth the toleration: Let them alone until the harvest.

CHAP. XX.

Again, hypocrites were not intended by the Lord Jesus in this famous parable.

Tares proved not to signify hypocrites.

First, the original word ζιζάνια, signifying all those weeds which spring up with the corn, as cockle, darnel, tares, &c., seems to imply such a kind of people as commonly and generally are known to be manifestly different from, and opposite to, the true worshippers of God, here called the children of the kingdom: as these weeds, tares, cockle, darnel, &c., are commonly and presently known by every husbandman to differ from the wheat, and to be opposite, and contrary, and hurtful unto it.[107]

Now whereas it is pleaded that these tares are like the wheat, and so like that this consimilitude, or likeness, is made the ground of this interpretation, viz., that tares must needs signify hypocrites, or doctrines, or practices, who are like God’s children, truth, &c.:—

I answer, first, the parable holds forth no such thing, that the likeness of the tares should deceive the servants to cause them to suppose for a time that they were good wheat; but that as soon as ever the tares appeared, ver. 26, the servants came to the householder about them, ver. 27. The scripture holds forth no such time wherein they doubted or suspected what they were.

Peace. It may be said they did not appear to be tares until the corn was in the blade, and put forth its fruit.

The false and counterfeit Christians appear as soon as the true and faithful.

Truth. I answer, the one appeared as soon as the other; for so the word clearly carries it, that seed of both having been sown, when the wheat appeared and put forth its blade and fruit, the tares also were as early, and put forth themselves, or appeared also.

Secondly, there is such a dissimilitude, or unlikeness, I say such a dissimilitude, that as soon as the tares, and wheat are sprung up to blade and fruit, every husbandman can tell which is wheat, and which are tares and cockle, &c.

Peace. It may be said, True: so when the hypocrite is manifested, then all may know him, &c.; but before hypocrites be manifested by fruits they are unknown.

I answer: search into the parable, and ask when was it that the servants first complained of the tares to the householder, but when they appeared or came in sight, there being no interim, wherein the servants could not tell what to make of them, but doubted whether they were wheat or tares, as the answerer implies.

Hypocritical Christians.

Secondly, when was it that the householder gave charge to let them alone, but after that they appeared, and were known to be tares; which should imply by this interpretation of the answerer, that when men are discovered and known to be hypocrites, yet, still such a generation of hypocrites in the church must be let alone and tolerated until the harvest, or end of the world; which is contrary to all order, piety, and safety, in the church of the Lord Jesus, as doubtless the answerer will grant. So that these tares being notoriously known to be different from the corn, I conclude that they cannot here be intended by the Lord Jesus to signify secret hypocrites, but more open and apparent sinners.[108]

CHAP. XXI.

The tares cannot signify hypocrites.

The second reason why these tares cannot signify hypocrites in the church, I take from the Lord Jesus’s own interpretation of the field, in which both wheat and tares are sown, which, saith he, is the world, out of which God chooseth and calleth his church.

Two sorts of hypocrites, 1. In the church, as Judas, Simon Magus; and these must be tolerated until discovered, and no longer. 2. Hypocrites in the world, which are false Christians, false churches; and these the Lord Jesus will have let alone unto harvest.

The world lies in wickedness, is like a wilderness, or a sea of wild beasts innumerable, fornicators, covetous, idolaters, &c.; with whom God’s people may lawfully converse and cohabit in cities, towns, &c., else must they not live in the world, but go out of it. In which world, as soon as ever the Lord Jesus had sown the good seed, the children of the kingdom, true Christianity, or the true church, the enemy, Satan, presently, in the night of security, ignorance, and error, whilst men slept, sowed also these tares, which are anti-christians, or false Christians. These strange professors of the name of Jesus the ministers and prophets of God beholding, they are ready to run to heaven to fetch fiery judgments from thence to consume these strange Christians, and to pluck them by the roots out of the world. But the Son of man, the meek Lamb of God—for the elect’s sake which must be gathered out of Jew and Gentile, pagan, anti-christian—commands a permission of them in the world, until the time of the end of the world, when the goats and sheep, the tares and wheat, shall be eternally separated each from other.

The field by most, generally, but falsely, interpreted the church.

Peace. You know some excellent worthies, dead and living, have laboured to turn this field of the world into the garden of the church.[109]

The Lord Jesus the great teacher by parables, and the only expounder of them.

Truth. But who can imagine that the wisdom of the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ,[110] would so open this parable, as he professedly doth, as that it should be closer shut up, and that one difficulty or lock should be opened by a greater and harder, in calling the world the church? Contrary also to the way of the light and love that is in Jesus, when he would purposely teach and instruct his scholars; contrary to the nature of parables and similitudes; and lastly, to the nature of the church or garden of Christ.

CHAP. XXII.

The scope of the parable. Four sorts of ground, or hearers of the word, in the world, and but one properly in the church; the rest seldom come, or accidentally, to hear the word in the church, which word ought to be fitted for the feeding of the church or flock: preaching for conversion, is properly out of the church.

In the former parable, the Lord Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to the sowing of seed. The true messengers of Christ are the sowers, who cast the seed of the word of the kingdom upon four sorts of ground. Which four sorts of ground, or hearts of men, cannot be supposed to be of the church, nor will it ever be proved that the church consisteth of any more sorts or natures of ground properly but one, to wit, the honest and good ground. And the proper work of the church concerns the flourishing and prosperity of this sort of ground, and not the other unconverted three sorts; who, it may be, seldom or never come near the church, unless they be forced by the civil sword, which the pattern or first sower never used; and being forced, they are put into a way of religion by such a course—if not so, they are forced to live without a religion: for one of the two must necessarily follow, as I shall prove afterward.

In the field of the world, then, are all those sorts of ground: highway hearers, stony and thorny ground hearers, as well as the honest and good ground; and I suppose it will not now be said by the answerer, that those three sorts of bad grounds were hypocrites, or tares, in the church.[111]

The scope of the parable of the tares.

Now after the Lord Jesus had propounded that great leading parable of the sower and the seed, he is pleased to propound this parable of the tares, with admirable coherence and sweet consolation to the honest and good ground; who, with glad and honest hearts, having received the word of the kingdom, may yet seem to be discouraged and troubled with so many anti-christians and false professors of the name of Christ.

The Lord Jesus, therefore, gives direction concerning these tares, that unto the end of the world, successively in all the sorts and generations of them, they must be (not approved or countenanced, but) let alone, or permitted in the world.

The Lord Jesus in this parable of the tares, gives direction and consolation to his servants.

Secondly, he gives to his own good seed this consolation: that those heavenly reapers, the angels, in the harvest, or end of the world, will take an order and course with them, to wit, they shall bind them into bundles, and cast them into the everlasting burnings; and to make the cup of their consolation run over, he adds, ver. 43, Then, then at that time, shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

The tares proved properly to signify anti-christians.

These tares, then, neither being erroneous doctrines, nor corrupt practices, nor hypocrites, in the true church, intended by the Lord Jesus in this parable, I shall, in the third place, by the help of the same Lord Jesus, evidently prove that these tares can be no other sort of sinners but false worshippers, idolaters, and in particular [and] properly, anti-christians.

CHAP. XXIII.

Matt. viii. 12. Matt. xxi. 43. God’s kingdom on earth the visible church.

First, then, these tares are such sinners as are opposite and contrary to the children of the kingdom, visibly so declared and manifest, ver. 38.[112] Now the kingdom of God below is the visible church of Christ Jesus, according to Matt. viii. 12. The children of the kingdom, which are threatened to be cast out, seem to be the Jews, which were then the only visible church in covenant with the Lord, when all other nations followed other gods and worships. And more plain is that fearful threatening, Matt. xxi. 43, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation that will bring forth the fruits thereof.

The distinction between the wheat and the tares, as also between these tares and all other.

Such, then, are the good seed, good wheat, children of the kingdom, as are the disciples, members, and subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ, his church and kingdom: and therefore, consequently, such are the tares, as are opposite to these, idolaters, will-worshippers, not truly but falsely submitting to Jesus: and in especial, the children of the wicked one, visibly so appearing. Which wicked one I take not to be the devil; for the Lord Jesus seems to make them distinct: He that sows the good seed, saith he, is the Son of man; the field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked, or wickedness; the enemy that soweth them is the devil.

The original here τοῦ πονηροῦ, agrees with that, Luke xi. 4, Deliver us ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ, from evil, or wickedness; opposite to the children of the kingdom and the righteousness thereof.

CHAP. XXIV.

Peace. It is true, that all drunkards, thieves, unclean persons, &c., are opposite to God’s children.

Truth. Answ. Their opposition here against the children of the kingdom, is such an opposition as properly fights against the religious state, or worship, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Secondly, it is manifest that the Lord Jesus in this parable intends no other sort of sinners: unto whom he saith, Let them alone, in church or state; for then he should contradict other holy and blessed ordinances for the punishment of offenders, both in Christian and civil state.

Civil magistracy from the beginning of the world. Offenders against the civil laws not to be perpetually tolerated.

First, in civil state. From the beginning of the world, God hath armed fathers, masters, magistrates, to punish evil doers; that is, such, of whose actions fathers, masters, magistrates are to judge, and accordingly to punish such sinners as transgress against the good and peace of their civil state, families, towns, cities, kingdoms—their states, governments, governors, laws, punishments, and weapons being all of a civil nature; and therefore neither disobedience to parents or magistrates, nor murder, nor quarrelling, uncleanness, nor lasciviousness, stealing nor extortion, neither aught of that kind ought to be let alone, either in lesser or greater families, towns, cities, kingdoms, Rom. xiii.; but seasonably to be suppressed, as may best conduce to the public safety.

Nor offenders in the church of Christ Jesus to be suffered.

Again, secondly, in the kingdom of Christ Jesus, whose kingdom, officers, laws, punishments, weapons, are spiritual and of a soul nature, he will not have anti-christian idolaters, extortioners, covetous, &c., to be let alone; but the unclean and lepers to be thrust forth, the old leaven purged out, the obstinate in sin spiritually stoned to death, and put away from Israel; and this by many degrees of gentle admonition in private and public, as the case requires.

Therefore, if neither offenders against the civil laws, state, and peace ought to be let alone; nor the spiritual estate, the church of Jesus Christ, ought to bear with them that are evil, Rev. ii. 2, I conclude that these are sinners of another nature—idolaters, false worshippers, anti-christians, who without discouragement to true Christians must be let alone, and permitted in the world to grow and fill up the measure of their sins, after the image of him that hath sown them, until the great harvest shall make the difference.[113]

CHAP. XXV.

The great reapers are the angels.

Thirdly, in that the officers, unto whom these tares are referred, are the angels, the heavenly reapers at the last day, it is clear as the light that, as before, these tares cannot signify hypocrites in the church; who, when they are discovered and seen to be tares, opposite to the good fruit of the good seed, are not to be let alone to the angels at harvest, or end of the world, but purged out by the governors of the church, and the whole church of Christ.[114] Again, they cannot be offenders against the civil state and common welfare, whose dealing with is not suspended unto the coming of the angels, but [permitted] unto men, who, although they know not the Lord Jesus Christ, yet are lawful governors and rulers in civil things.

Accordingly, in the fourth and last place, in that the plucking up of these tares out of this field must be let alone unto the very harvest or end of the world, it is apparent from thence, that, as before, they could not signify hypocrites in the church, who, when they are discovered to be so, as these tares were discovered to be tares, are not to be suffered, after the first and second admonition, but to be rejected, and every brother that walketh disorderly to be withdrawn or separated from.[115] So likewise no offender against the civil state, by robbery, murder, adultery, oppression, sedition, mutiny, is for ever to be connived at, and to enjoy a perpetual toleration unto the world’s end, as these tares must.

The tares to be tolerated the longest of any sinners.

Moses for a while held his peace against the sedition of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. David for a season tolerated Shimei, Joab, Adonijah. But till the harvest, or end of the world, the Lord never intended that any but these spiritual and mystical tares should be so permitted.

CHAP. XXVI.

The danger of infection by these tares assoiled.

Truth. Now if any imagine that the time or date is long, that in the mean season they may do a world of mischief before the world’s end, as by infection, &c.

Lamentable experience hath proved this true of late in Europe, and lamentably true in the slaughter of some hundred thousands of the English.

First, I answer, that as the civil state keeps itself with a civil guard, in case these tares shall attempt aught against the peace and welfare of it let such civil offences be punished; and yet, as tares opposite to Christ’s kingdom, let their worship and consciences be tolerated.[116]

Secondly, the church, or spiritual state, city, or kingdom, hath laws, and orders, and armories, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, Cant. iv. 4, weapons and ammunition, able to break down the strongest holds, 2 Cor. x. 4, and so to defend itself against the very gates of earth or hell.[117]

Thirdly, the Lord himself knows who are his, and his foundation remaineth sure; his elect or chosen cannot perish nor be finally deceived.[118]

Lastly, the Lord Jesus here, in this parable, lays down two reasons, able to content and satisfy our hearts to bear patiently this their contradiction and anti-christianity, and to permit or let them alone.

First, lest the good wheat be plucked up and rooted up also out of this field of the world. If such combustions and fightings were as to pluck up all the false professors of the name of Christ, the good wheat also would enjoy little peace, but be in danger to be plucked up and torn out of this world by such bloody storms and tempests.[119]

And, therefore, as God’s people are commanded, Jer. xxix. 7, to pray for the peace of material Babel, wherein they were captivated, and 1 Tim. ii. 1, 2, to pray for all men, and specially [for] kings and governors, that in the peace of the civil state they may have peace: so, contrary to the opinion and practice of most, drunk with the cup of the whore’s fornication, yea, and of God’s own people, fast asleep in anti-christian Delilah’s lap, obedience to the command of Christ to let the tares alone will prove the only means to preserve their civil peace, and that without obedience to this command of Christ, it is impossible (without great transgression against the Lord in carnal policy, which will not long hold out) to preserve the civil peace.

Beside, God’s people, the good wheat, are generally plucked up and persecuted, as well as the vilest idolaters, whether Jews or anti-christians: which the Lord Jesus seems in this parable to foretell.

The great and dreadful harvest.

The second reason noted in the parable, which may satisfy any man from wondering at the patience of God, is this: when the world is ripe in sin, in the sins of anti-christianism (as the Lord spake of the sins of the Amorites, Gen. xv. 16), then those holy and mighty officers and executioners, the angels, with their sharp and cutting sickles of eternal vengeance, shall down with them, and bundle them up for the everlasting burnings.[120]

Then shall that man of sin, 2 Thess. ii. [8], be consumed by the breath of the mouth of the Lord Jesus; and all that worship the beast and his picture, and receive his mark into their forehead or their hands, shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb, and the smoke of their torment shall ascend up for ever and ever, Rev. xiv. 10, 11.

CHAP. XXVII.

Peace. You have been larger in vindicating this scripture from the violence offered unto it, because, as I said before, it is of such great consequence; as also, because so many excellent hands have not rightly divided it, to the great misguiding of many precious feet, which otherwise might have been turned into the paths of more peaceableness in themselves and towards others.

Truth. I shall be briefer in the scriptures following.

The charge of Christ Jesus, Let alone the tares, was not spoken to magistrates, ministers of the civil state, but to ministers of the gospel.

Peace. Yet before you depart from this, I must crave your patience to satisfy one objection, and that is: These servants to whom the householder answereth, seem to be the ministers or messengers of the gospel, not the magistrates of the civil state, and therefore this charge of the Lord Jesus is not given to magistrates, to let alone false worshippers and idolaters.

Again, being spoken by the Lord Jesus to his messengers, it seems to concern hypocrites in the church, as before was spoken, and not false worshippers in the state, or world.

Truth. I answer, first, I believe I have sufficiently and abundantly proved, that these tares are not offenders in the civil state. Nor, secondly, hypocrites in the church, when once discovered so to be; and that therefore the Lord Jesus intends a grosser kind of hypocrites, professing the name of churches and Christians in the field of the world, or commonwealth.

The civil magistrate not so particularly spoken to as fathers and masters, in the New Testament, and why, Eph. v. 6; Col. iii. 4, &c.

Secondly, I acknowledge this command, Let them alone, was expressly spoken to the messengers or ministers of the gospel, who have no civil power or authority in their hand, and therefore not to the civil magistrate, king, or governor, to whom it pleased not the Lord Jesus, by himself or by his apostles, to give particular rules or directions concerning their behaviour and carriage in civil magistracy, as they have done expressly concerning the duty of fathers, mothers, children, masters, servants, yea, and of subjects towards magistrates, Ephes. v. and vi.; Colos. iii. and iv. &c.

A twofold state of Christianity the persecuted under the Roman emperors, and the apostate ever since.

I conceive not the reason of this to be, as some weakly have done, because the Lord Jesus would not have any followers of his to hold the place of civil magistracy, but rather that he foresaw, and the Holy Spirit in the apostles foresaw, how few magistrates, either in the first persecuted or apostated state of Christianity, would embrace his yoke. In the persecuted state, magistrates hated the very name of Christ, or Christianity. In the state apostate, some few magistrates, in their persons holy and precious, yet as concerning their places, as they have professed to have been governors or heads of the church, have been so many false heads, and have constituted so many false visible Christs.

Thirdly, I conceive this charge of the Lord Jesus to his messengers, the preachers and proclaimers of his mind, is a sufficient declaration of the mind of the Lord Jesus, if any civil magistrate should make question what were his duty concerning spiritual things.

Christ’s messengers receive a threefold charge in that prohibition of Christ, Let them alone.

The apostles, and in them all that succeed them, being commanded not to pluck up the tares, but let them alone, received from the Lord Jesus a threefold charge.

First, to let them alone, and not to pluck them up by prayer to God for their present temporal destruction.[121]

God’s people not to pray for the present ruin and destruction of idolaters, although their persecutors, but for their peace and salvation.

Jeremy had a commission to plant and build, to pluck up and destroy kingdoms, Jer. i. 10; therefore he is commanded not to pray for that people whom God had a purpose to pluck up, Jer. xiv. 11, and he plucks up the whole nation by prayer, Lament, iii. 66. Thus Elijah brought fire from heaven to consume the captains and the fifties, 2 Kings i. And the apostles desired also so to practise against the Samaritans, Luke ix. 54, but were reproved by the Lord Jesus. For, contrarily, the saints, and servants, and churches of Christ, are to pray for all men, especially for all magistrates, of what sort or religions soever, and to seek the peace of the city, whatever city it be, because in the peace of the place God’s people have peace also, Jer. xxix. 7; 2 Tim. ii., &c.

Secondly, God’s messengers are herein commanded not to prophecy, or denounce, a present destruction or extirpation of all false professors of the name of Christ, which are whole towns, cities, and kingdoms full.[122]

The word of God rightly denounced plucks up kingdoms.

Jeremy did thus pluck up kingdoms, in those fearful prophecies he poured forth against all the nations of the world, throughout his chaps. xxiv., xxv., xxvi., &c.; as did also the other prophets in a measure, though none comparably to Jeremy and Ezekiel.

Such denunciations of present temporal judgments, are not the messengers of the Lord Jesus to pour forth. It is true, many sore and fearful plagues are poured forth upon the Roman emperors and Roman popes in the Revelation, yet not to their utter extirpation or plucking up until the harvest.

God’s ministers are not to provoke magistrates to persecute anti-christians. 1 Pet. ii. 9. 1 Cor. v.

Thirdly, I conceive God’s messengers are charged to let them alone, and not pluck them up, by exciting and stirring up civil magistrates, kings, emperors, governors, parliaments, or general courts, or assemblies, to punish and persecute all such persons out of their dominions and territories as worship not the true God, according to the revealed will of God in Christ Jesus. It is true, Elijah thus stirred up Ahab to kill all the priests and prophets of Baal; but that was in that figurative state of the land of Canaan, as I have already and shall further manifest, not to be matched or paralleled by any other state, but the spiritual state or church of Christ in all the world, putting the false prophets and idolaters spiritually to death by the two-edged sword and power of the Lord Jesus, as that church of Israel did corporally.[123]

Companying with idolaters, 1 Cor. v., discussed.

And therefore saith Paul expressly, 1 Cor. v. 10, we must go out of the world, in case we may not company in civil converse with idolaters, &c.

Peace. It may be said, some sorts of sinners are there mentioned, as drunkards, railers, extortioners, who are to be punished by the civil sword—why not idolaters also? for although the subject may lawfully converse, buy and sell, and live with such, yet the civil magistrates shall nevertheless be justly blamed in suffering of them.

Lawful converse with idolaters in civil, but not in spiritual things.

Truth. I answer, the apostle, in this scripture, speaks not of permission of either, but expressly shows the difference between the church and the world, and the lawfulness of conversation with such persons in civil things, with whom it is not lawful to have converse in spirituals: secretly withal foretelling, that magistrates and people, whole states and kingdoms, should be idolatrous and anti-christian, yet with whom, notwithstanding, the saints and churches of God might lawfully cohabit, and hold civil converse and conversation.

Concerning their permission of what they judge idolatrous, I have and shall speak at large.

Dangerous and ungrounded zeal.

Peace. Oh! how contrary unto this command of the Lord Jesus have such, as have conceived themselves the true messengers of the Lord Jesus, in all ages, not let such professors and prophets alone, whom they have judged tares; but have provoked kings and kingdoms (and some out of good intentions and zeal to God) to prosecute and persecute such even unto death! Amongst whom God’s people, the good wheat, hath also been plucked up, as all ages and histories testify, and too, too oft the world laid upon bloody heaps in civil and intestine desolations on this occasion. All which would be prevented, and the greatest breaches made up in the peace of our own or other countries, were this command of the Lord Jesus obeyed, to wit, to let them alone until the harvest.

CHAP. XXVIII.

[Truth.] I shall conclude this controversy about this parable, in this brief sum and recapitulation of what hath been said. I hope, by the evident demonstration of God’s Spirit to the conscience, I have proved, negatively,

First. That the tares in this parable cannot signify doctrines or practices, as was affirmed, but persons.

Secondly. The tares cannot signify hypocrites in the church, either undiscovered or discovered.

Thirdly. The tares here cannot signify scandalous offenders in the church.

Fourthly. Nor scandalous offenders, in life and conversation, against the civil state.

Fifthly. The field in which these tares are sown, is not the church.

Again, affirmatively: First. The field is properly the world, the civil state, or commonwealth.

Secondly. The tares here intended by the Lord Jesus, are anti-christian idolaters, opposite to the good seed of the kingdom, true Christians.

Thirdly. The ministers or messengers of the Lord Jesus ought to let them alone to live in the world, and neither seek by prayer, or prophecy, to pluck them up before the harvest.

Fourthly. This permission or suffering of them in the field of the world, is not for hurt, but for common good, even for the good of the good wheat, the people of God.

Lastly. The patience of God is, that the patience of man ought to be exercised toward them; and yet notwithstanding, their doom is fearful at the harvest, even gathering, bundling, and everlasting burnings, by the mighty hand of the angels in the end of the world.

CHAP. XXIX.

Matt. xv. 14, the second scripture controverted in this cause.

Peace. The second scripture brought against such persecution for cause of conscience, is Matt. xv. 14; where the disciples being troubled at the Pharisees’ carriage toward the Lord Jesus and his doctrines, and relating how they were offended at him, the Lord Jesus commanded his disciples to let them alone, and gives this reason—that the blind lead the blind, and both should fall into the ditch.

Unto which, answer is made, “That it makes nothing to the cause, because it was spoken to his private disciples, and not to public officers in church or state: and also, because it was spoken in regard of troubling themselves, or regarding the offence which the Pharisees took.”

Christ Jesus never directed his disciples to the civil magistrate for help in his cause.

Truth. I answer,—to pass by his assertion of the privacy of the apostles, in that the Lord Jesus commanding to let them alone, that is, not only not to be offended themselves, but not to meddle with them—it appears it was no ordinance of God, nor Christ, for the disciples to have gone further, and have complained to, and excited, the civil magistrate to his duty: which if it had been an ordinance of God and Christ, either for the vindicating of Christ’s doctrine, or the recovering of the Pharisees, or the preserving of others from infection, the Lord Jesus would never have commanded them to omit that which should have tended to these holy ends.[124]

CHAP. XXX.

Peace. It may be said, that neither the Roman Cæsar, nor Herod, nor Pilate, knew aught of the true God, or of Christ; and it had been in vain to have made complaint to them who were not fit and competent, but ignorant and opposite judges.

Paul’s appealing to Cæsar.

Truth. I answer, first, this removes, by the way, that stumbling-block which many fall at, to wit, Paul’s appealing to Cæsar; which since he could not in common sense do unto Cæsar as a competent judge in such cases, and wherein he should have also denied his own apostleship or office, in which regard, to wit, in matters of Christ, he was higher than Cæsar himself—it must needs follow, that his appeal was merely in respect of his civil wrongs, and false accusations of sedition, &c.[125]

Civil magistrates never appointed by God defenders of the faith of Jesus. Every one is bound to put forth himself to his utmost power in God’s business, and where it stops, the guilt will lie.

Secondly, if it had been an ordinance of God, that all civil magistrates were bound to judge in causes spiritual or Christian, as to suppress heresies, defend the faith of Jesus, although that Cæsar, Herod, Pilate were wicked, ignorant, and opposite, yet the disciples, and the Lord Christ himself, had been bound to have performed the duty of faithful subjects, for the preventing of further evil, and the clearing of themselves, and so to have left the matter upon the magistrates’ care and conscience, by complaining unto the magistrate against such evils. For every person is bound to go as far as lies in his power for the preventing and the redressing of evil; and where it stops in any, and runs not clear, there the guilt, like filth or mud, will lie.

Christ could easily have been furnished with godly magistrates, if he had so appointed.

Thirdly, had it been the holy purpose of God to have established the doctrine and kingdom of his Son this way, since his coming he would have furnished commonweals, kingdoms, cities, &c., then and since, with such temporal powers and magistrates as should have been excellently fit and competent: for he that could have had legions of angels, if he so pleased, could as easily have been, and still be furnished with legions of good and gracious magistrates to this end and purpose.[126]

CHAP. XXXI.

It is generally said, that God hath in former times, and doth still, and will hereafter stir up kings and queens, &c.

I answer, that place of Isa. xlix. 23, will appear to be far from proving such kings and queens judges of ecclesiastical causes: and if not judges, they may not punish.

In spiritual things, themselves are subject to the church and censures of it, although in civil respects superior. How shall those kings and queens be supreme governors of the church, and yet lick the dust of the church’s feet? as it is there expressed.[127]

God’s Israel earnest with God for an arm of flesh, which God gives in his anger, and takes away in his wrath.

Thirdly, God’s Israel of old were earnest with God for a king, for an arm of flesh, for a king to protect them, as other nations had: God’s Israel still have ever been restless with God for an arm of flesh.

God gave them Saul in his anger, and took him away in his wrath: and God hath given many a Saul in his anger, that is, an arm of flesh in the way of his providence: though I judge not all persons whom Saul in his calling typed out, to be of Saul’s spirit, for I speak of a state and outward visible power only.

I add, God will take away such stays, on whom God’s people rest, in his wrath: that king David, that is, Christ Jesus the antitype, in his own spiritual power in the hands of the saints, may spiritually and for ever be advanced.

And therefore I conclude, it was in one respect that the Lord Jesus said, Let them alone; because it was no ordinance for any disciple of Jesus to prosecute the Pharisees at Cæsar’s bar.

The punishment of blind Pharisees, though let alone, yet is greater than any corporal punishment in the world, in four respects.

Beside, let it be seriously considered by such as plead for present corporal punishments, as conceiving that such sinners, though they break not civil peace, should not escape unpunished—I say, let it be considered, though for the present their punishment is deferred, yet the punishment inflicted on them will be found to amount to a higher pitch than any corporal punishment in the world beside, and that in these four respects:—

CHAP. XXXII.

The eye of the soul struck out, is worse than for both right and left eye of the body to be struck out ten thousand times.

First, by just judgment from God, false teachers are stark blind. God’s sword hath struck out the right eye of their mind and spiritual understanding, ten thousand times a greater punishment than if the magistrate should command both the right and left eye of their bodies to be bored or plucked out; and that in so many fearful respects if the blindness of the soul and of the body were a little compared together—whether we look at that want of guidance, or the want of joy and pleasure, which the light of the eye affordeth; or whether we look at the damage, shame, deformity, and danger, which blindness brings to the outward man; and much more true in the want of the former, and misery of the latter, in spiritual and soul blindness to all eternity.

Some souls incurable, whom not only corporal, but spiritual physic can nothing avail.

Secondly, how fearful is that wound that no balm in Gilead can cure! How dreadful is that blindness which for ever to all eye-salve is incurable! For if persons be wilfully and desperately obstinate, after light shining forth, Let them alone, saith the Lord. So spake the Lord once of Ephraim: Ephraim is joined to idols, let him alone, Hos. iv. 17. What more lamentable condition, than when the Lord hath given a poor sinner over as a hopeless patient, incurable, which we are wont to account a sorer affliction, than if a man were torn and racked, &c.

And this I speak, not that I conceive that all whom the Lord Jesus commands his servants to pass from and let alone, to permit and tolerate, when it is in their power corporally to molest them, I say, that all are thus incurable; yet that sometimes that word is spoken by Christ Jesus to his servants to be patient, for neither can corporal or spiritual balm or physic ever heal or cure them.

The bottomless pit, or ditch, into which the spiritually blind fall.

Thirdly, their end is the ditch, that bottomless pit of everlasting separation from the holy and sweet presence of the Father of lights, goodness, and mercy itself—endless, easeless, in extremity, universality, and eternity of torments; which most direful and lamentable downfall, should strike a holy fear and trembling into all that see the pit whither these blind Pharisees are tumbling, and cause us to strive, so far as hope may be, by the spiritual eye-salve of the word of God, to heal and cure them of this their soul-destroying blindness.

Fourthly, of those that fall into this dreadful ditch, both leader and followers, how deplorable in more especial manner is the leader’s case, upon whose neck the followers tumble—the ruin, not only of his own soul, being horrible, but also the ruin of the followers’ souls eternally galling and tormenting.

Peace. Some will say, these things are indeed full of horror; yet such is the state of all sinners, and of many malefactors, whom yet the state is bound to punish, and sometimes by death itself.

Truth. I answer, the civil magistrate beareth not the sword in vain, but to cut off civil offences, yea, and the offenders too in case. But what is this to a blind Pharisee, resisting the doctrine of Christ, who haply may be as good a subject, and as peaceable and profitable to the civil state as any: and for his spiritual offence against the Lord Jesus, in denying him to be the true Christ, he suffereth the vengeance of a dreadful judgment, both present and eternal, as before.[128]

CHAP. XXXIII.

Peace. Yea: but it is said that the blind Pharisees, misguiding the subjects of a civil state, greatly sin against a civil state, and therefore justly suffer civil punishments; for shall the civil magistrate take care of outsides only, to wit, of the bodies of men, and not of souls, in labouring to procure their everlasting welfare?

Soul-killing the chiefest murder. No magistrate can execute true justice in killing soul for soul but Christ Jesus, who by typical death in the law typed out spiritual in the gospel.

Truth. I answer, It is a truth: the mischief of a blind Pharisee’s blind guidance is greater than if he acted treasons, murders, &c.; and the loss of one soul by his seduction, is a greater mischief than if he blew up parliaments, and cut the throats of kings or emperors, so precious is that invaluable jewel of a soul above all the present lives and bodies of all the men in the world! And therefore I affirm, that justice, calling for eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, calls also soul for soul; which the blind-guiding, seducing Pharisee, shall truly pay in that dreadful ditch, which the Lord Jesus speaks of. But this sentence against him, the Lord Jesus only pronounceth in his church, his spiritual judicature, and executes this sentence in part at present, and hereafter to all eternity. Such a sentence no civil judge can pass, such a death no civil sword can inflict.[129]

A great mistake in most to conceive that dead men, that is, souls dead in sin, may be infected by false doctrine.

I answer, secondly, Dead men cannot be infected. The civil state, the world, being in a natural state, dead in sin, whatever be the state-religion unto which persons are forced, it is impossible it should be infected. Indeed the living, the believing, the church and spiritual state, that and that only is capable of infection; for whose help we shall presently see what preservatives and remedies the Lord Jesus hath appointed.

All natural men being dead in sin, yet none die everlastingly but such as are thereunto ordained.

Moreover, as we see in a common plague or infection the names are taken how many are to die, and not one more shall be struck than the destroying angel hath the names of:[130] so here, whatever be the soul-infection breathed out from the lying lips of a plague-sick Pharisee, yet the names are taken, not one elect or chosen of God shall perish. God’s sheep are safe in his eternal hand and counsel, and he that knows his material, knows also his mystical stars, their numbers, and calls them every one by name. None fall into the ditch on the blind Pharisee’s back but such as were ordained to that condemnation, both guide and followers, 1 Pet. ii. 8; Jude 4. The vessels of wrath shall break and split, and only they, to the praise of God’s eternal justice, Rom. ix. 22.

CHAP. XXXIV.

Peace. But it is said, be it granted that in a common plague or infection none are smitten and die but such as are appointed, yet it is not only every man’s duty, but the common duty of the magistrate to prevent infection, and to preserve the common health of the place; likewise, though the number of the elect be sure, and God knows who are his, yet hath he appointed means for their preservation from perdition, and from infection, and therefore the angel is blamed for suffering Balaam’s doctrine, and Jezebel, to seduce Christ Jesus’ servants, Rev. ii. [14, 20]; Tit. iii. 10; Rom. xvi. 17.

The Lord Jesus hath not left his church without spiritual antidotes and remedies against infection.

Truth. I answer, Let the scripture, that of Titus, Reject an heretic, and Rom. xvi. 17, Avoid them that are contentious, &c., let them, and all of like nature, be examined, and it will appear that the great and good Physician, Christ Jesus, the Head of the body, and King of the church, hath not been unfaithful in providing spiritual antidotes and preservatives against the spiritual sickness, sores, weaknesses, dangers, of his church and people. But he never appointed the civil sword for either antidote or remedy, as an addition to those spirituals which he hath left with his wife, his church or people.[131]

The miserable bondage God’s people live in.

Hence how great is the bondage, the captivity of God’s own people to Babylonish or confused mixtures in worship, and unto worldly and earthly policies to uphold state-religions or worships: since that which is written to the angel and church at Pergamos shall be interpreted as sent to the governor and city of Pergamos, and that which is sent to Titus and the church of Christ at Crete must be delivered to the civil officers and city thereof.

But as the civil magistrate hath his charge of the bodies and goods of the subject: so have the spiritual officers, governors, and overseers of Christ’s city or kingdom, the charge of their souls, and soul-safety.[132] Hence that charge of Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim. v. 20, Them that sin rebuke before all, that others may learn to fear. This is, in the church of Christ, a spiritual means for the healing of a soul that hath sinned, or taken infection, and for the preventing of the infecting of others, that others may learn to fear, &c.

CHAP. XXXV.

Peace. It is said true, that Titus and Timothy, and so the officers of the church of Christ, are bound to prevent soul-infection: but what hinders that the magistrate should not be charged also with this duty?

The kings and queens of England governors of the church.

Truth. I answer, many things I have answered, and more shall, at present I shall only say this: If it be the magistrate’s duty or office, then is he both a temporal and ecclesiastical officer: [the] contrary to which most men will affirm. And yet we know, the policy of our own land and country hath established to the kings and queens thereof the supreme heads or governors of the church of England.

Strange confusion in punishments.

That doctrine and distinction, that a magistrate may punish a heretic civilly, will not here avail; for what is Babel, if this be not, confusedly to punish corporal or civil offences with spiritual or church censures (the offender not being a member of it), or to punish soul or spiritual offences with corporal or temporal weapons, proper to delinquents against the temporal or civil state.

Woe were it with the civil magistrate if the blood of souls (beside the ordinary care of the bodies and goods of the subjects) should cry against him.

Lastly, woe were it with the civil magistrate—and most intolerable burdens do they lay upon their backs that teach this doctrine—if together with the common care and charge of the commonwealth, the peace and safety of the town, city, state, or kingdom, the blood of every soul that perisheth should cry against him; unless he could say with Paul, Acts xx. [26,] (in spiritual regards), I am clear from the blood of all men, that is, the blood of souls, which was his charge to look after, so far as his preaching went, not the blood of bodies which belongeth to the civil magistrate.

The magistrates’ duties toward the church, the spouse of Christ.

I acknowledge he ought to cherish, as a foster-father, the Lord Jesus, in his truth, in his saints, to cleave unto them himself, and to countenance them even to the death, yea, also, to break the teeth of the lions, who offer civil violence and injury unto them.

Usurpers and true heirs of the spiritual crown of Jesus.

But, to see all his subjects Christians, to keep such church or Christians in the purity of worship, and see them do their duty, this belongs to the head of the body, Christ Jesus, and [to] such spiritual officers as he hath to this purpose deputed, whose right it is, according to the true pattern. Abimelech, Saul, Adonijah, Athalia, were but usurpers: David, Solomon, Joash, &c., they were the true heirs and types of Christ Jesus, in his true power and authority in his kingdom.

CHAP. XXXVI.

Luke ix. 54, 55, discussed.

Peace. The next scripture brought against such persecution is Luke ix. 54, 55: where the Lord Jesus reproved his disciples, who would have had fire come down from heaven, and devour those Samaritans that would not receive him, in these words: You know not of what spirit you are, the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.

With this scripture Mr. Cotton joins the fourth, and answers both in one, which is this, 2 Tim. ii. 24, The servant of the Lord must not strive, but must be gentle toward all men, suffering the evil men, instructing them with meekness that are contrary-minded and oppose themselves; proving if God peradventure will give them repentance that they may acknowledge the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

An excellent saying of persecutors themselves.

Unto both these scriptures it pleased him thus to answer: “Both these are directions to ministers of the gospel how to deal, not with obstinate offenders in the church who sin against conscience, but either with men without, as the Samaritans were, and many unconverted Christians in Crete, whom Titus, as an evangelist, was to seek to convert: or at best with some Jews or Gentiles in the church, who, though carnal, yet were not convinced of the error of their way. And it is true, it became not the spirit of the gospel to convert aliens to the faith, such as the Samaritans were, by fire and brimstone, nor to deal harshly in public ministry, or private conference, with all such several minded men, as either had not yet entered into church fellowship, or if they had, did hitherto sin of ignorance, not against conscience. But neither of both these texts do hinder the minister of the gospel to proceed in a church way against church members, when they become scandalous offenders, either in life or doctrine, much less do they speak at all to the civil magistrate.”[133]

CHAP. XXXVII.

Truth. This perplexed and ravelled answer, wherein so many things and so doubtful are wrapt up and entangled together, I shall take in pieces.

The answerer when he should speak to toleration in the state, runs to punishments in the church, which none can deny.

First, concerning that of the Lord Jesus rebuking his disciples for their rash and ignorant bloody zeal (Luke ix.), desiring corporal destruction upon the Samaritans for refusing the Lord Jesus, &c., the answerer affirmeth, that hindereth not the ministers of the gospel to proceed in a church way against scandalous offenders; which is not here questioned, but maintained to be the holy will of the Lord, and a sufficient censure and punishment, if no civil offence against the civil state be committed.

Secondly, saith he, “Much less doth this speak at all to the civil magistrate.”

Where I observe, that he implies that beside the censure of the Lord Jesus, in the hands of his spiritual governors, for any spiritual evil in life or doctrine, the civil magistrate is also to inflict corporal punishment upon the contrary-minded:[134] whereas,

If the civil magistrate be a Christian, he is bound to be like Christ in saving, not destroying men’s bodies.

First, if the civil magistrate be a Christian, a disciple, or follower of the meek Lamb of God, he is bound to be far from destroying the bodies of men for refusing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ: for otherwise he should not know, according to this speech of the Lord Jesus, what spirit he was of, yea, and to be ignorant of the sweet end of the coming of the Son of man, which was not to destroy the bodies of men, but to save both bodies and souls, vers. 55, 56.

The civil magistrate bound not to inflict, nor to suffer any other to inflict, violence, stripes, or any other corporal punishment, for evil against Christ.

Secondly, if the civil magistrate being a Christian, gifted, prophesy in the church, 1 Cor. xiv. 1—although the Lord Jesus Christ, whom they in their own persons hold forth, shall be refused—yet they are here forbidden to call for fire from heaven, that is, to procure or inflict any corporal judgment, upon such offenders, remembering the end of the Lord Jesus’ coming [was] not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.

Lastly, this also concerns the conscience of the civil magistrate. As he is bound to preserve the civil peace and quiet of the place and people under him, he is bound to suffer no man to break the civil peace, by laying hands of violence upon any, though as vile as the Samaritans, for not receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Rev. xiii. 13. Fire from heaven. What the fire from heaven is which the false prophet bringeth down.

It is indeed the ignorance and blind zeal of the second beast, the false prophet, Rev. xiii. 13, to persuade the civil powers of the earth to persecute the saints, that is, to bring fiery judgments upon men in a judicial way, and to pronounce that such judgments of imprisonment, banishment, death, proceed from God’s righteous vengeance upon such heretics. So dealt divers bishops in France, and England too in Queen Mary’s days, with the saints of God at their putting to death, declaiming against them in their sermons to the people, and proclaiming that these persecutions, even unto death, were God’s just judgments from heaven upon these heretics.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

2 Tim. ii. 25, 26, examined.

Peace. Doubtless such fiery spirits, as the Lord Jesus said, are not of God. I pray, speak to the second place out of Timothy, 2 Epist. ii. 25, 26.

Truth. I acknowledge this instruction, to be meek and patient, &c., is properly an instruction to the ministers of the gospel. Yet divers arguments from hence will truly and fairly be collected, to manifest and evince how far the civil magistrate ought to be from dealing with the civil sword in spiritual cases.

And first, by the way I desire to ask, what were these unconverted Christians in Crete, which the answerer compareth with the Samaritans, whom Titus, saith he, as an evangelist, was to seek to convert; and whether the Lord Jesus have any such disciples and followers, who yet are visibly in an unconverted state? Oh! that it may please the Father of mercies, the Father of lights, to awaken and open the eyes of all that fear before him, that they may see whether this be the language of Canaan, or the language of Ashdod.

A quære what the answerer means by his unconverted Christian in Crete.

What is an unconverted Christian, but in truth an unconverted convert? that is in English, one unturned turned; unholy holy; disciples, or followers of Jesus, not following of him: in a word, that is, Christians, or anointed by Christ, anti-christians, not anointed with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.[135]

The original of Christians.

Certain it is, such they were not unto whom the Spirit of God gives that name, Acts ii. [26.] And, indeed, whither can this tend but to uphold the blasphemy of so many as say they are Jews, that is, Christians, but are not? Rev. ii. 2. But as they are not Christians from Christ, but from the beast and his picture, so their proper name from anti-christ, is anti-christians.[136]

The answerer yet in the unconverted churches and worships.

How sad yet and how true an evidence is this, that the soul of the answerer (I speak not of his outward soul and person, but of his worship), hath never yet heard the call of the Lord Jesus to come out from those unconverted churches, from that unconverted, anti-christian Christian world, and so from anti-christ, Belial, to seek fellowship with Christ Jesus and his converted Christians, disciples after the first pattern.

God’s people sleepy in the matters of Christ’s kingdom, Cant. v. 2.

Again, I observe the haste and light attention of the answerer to these scriptures, as commonly the spirits of God’s children in matters of Christ’s kingdom are very sleepy: for these persons here spoken of were not, as he speaks, unconverted Christians in Crete, whom Titus as an evangelist was to convert, but they were such opposites as Timothy, to whom Paul writes this letter at Ephesus, should not meet withal.

CHAP. XXXIX.

Peace. But what is there in this scripture of Timothy alleged concerning the civil magistracy?

Truth. I argue from this place of Timothy in particular, thus:—

1 Cor. xiv. Patience and meekness required in all that open Christ’s mysteries.

First. If the civil magistrates be Christians, or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, then, I say as before, they are bound by this command of Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine, with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait, if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites.

So also it pleaseth the answerer to acknowledge in these words:—

“It becomes not the spirit of the gospel to convert aliens to the faith (such as the Samaritans, and the unconverted Christians in Crete) with fire and brimstone.”

The civil sword may make a nation of hypocrites and anti-christians, but not one Christian.

Secondly. Be they oppositions within, and church members, as the answerer speaks, become scandalous in doctrine, (I speak not of scandals against the civil state, which the civil magistrate ought to punish), it is the Lord only, as this scripture to Timothy implies, who is able to give them repentance, and recover them out of Satan’s snare. To which end also, he hath appointed those holy and dreadful censures in his church or kingdom. True it is, the sword may make, as once the Lord complained, Isa. x., a whole nation of hypocrites; but to recover a soul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-christian doctrine or worship to the doctrine or worship Christian in the least true internal or external submission, that only works the all-powerful God, by the sword of his Spirit in the hand of his spiritual officers.[137]

Wonderful changes of religion in England. England’s changes in point of religion.

What a most woeful proof hereof have the nations of the earth given in all ages? And to seek no further than our native soil, within a few scores of years, how many wonderful changes in religion hath the whole kingdom made, according to the change of the governors thereof, in the several religions which they themselves embraced! Henry the Seventh finds and leaves the kingdom absolutely popish. Henry the Eighth casts it into a mould half popish, half protestant. Edward the Sixth brings forth an edition all protestant. Queen Mary within few years defaceth Edward’s work, and renders the kingdom, after her grandfather Henry the Seventh’s pattern, all popish. Mary’s short life and religion end together; and Elizabeth reviveth her brother Edward’s model, all protestant. And some eminent witnesses of God’s truth against anti-christ have inclined to believe, that before the downfall of that beast, England must once again bow down her fair neck to his proud usurping yoke and foot.

Peace. It hath been England’s sinful shame, to fashion and change their garments and religions with wondrous ease and lightness, as a higher power, a stronger sword hath prevailed; after the ancient pattern of Nebuchadnezzar’s bowing the whole world in one most solemn uniformity of worship to his golden image, Dan. iii.[138]

CHAP. XL.

But it hath been thought, or said, Shall oppositions against the truth escape unpunished? will they not prove mischievous? &c.

The misery of opposites against the truth.

Truth. I answer, as before, concerning the blind guides, in case there be no civil offence committed, the magistrates, and all men that by the mercy of God to themselves discern the misery of such opposites, have cause to lament and bewail that fearful condition wherein such are entangled: to wit, in the snares and chains of Satan, with which they are so invincibly caught and held, that no power in heaven or earth but the right hand of the Lord, in the meek and gentle dispensing of the word of truth, can release and quit them.

A difference between the true and false Christ and Christians.

Those many false Christs, of whom the Lord Jesus forewarns, Matt. xxiv. 5, 11, have suitably their false bodies, faith, spirit, baptism, as the Lord Jesus hath his true body, faith, spirit, &c., Ephes. iv. 5; correspondent also are their weapons, and the success, issue, or operation of them. A carnal weapon or sword of steel may produce a carnal repentance, a show, an outside, a uniformity, through a state or kingdom; but it hath pleased the Father to exalt the Lord Jesus only to be a Prince, armed with power and means sufficient to give repentance to Israel, Acts v. 31.

The worship of unbelieving, unregenerate persons.

Accordingly, an unbelieving soul being dead in sin, although he be changed from one worship to another, like a dead man shifted into several changes of apparel, cannot please God, Heb. xi. 6. And consequently, whatever such an unbelieving and unregenerate person acts in worship or religion, it is but sin, Rom. xiv. [23.] Preaching [is] sin, praying, though without beads or book, sin; breaking of bread, or Lord’s supper, sin; yea, as odious as the oblation of swine’s blood, a dog’s neck, or killing of a man, Isa. lxvi. [3.]

But faith is that gift which proceeds alone from the Father of lights, Phil. i. 29, and till he please to make his light arise and open the eyes of blind sinners, their souls shall lie fast asleep—and the faster, in that a sword of steel compels them to a worship in hypocrisy—in the dungeons of spiritual darkness and Satan’s slavery.

The danger and mischief of a civil sword in soul matters, which makes the civil magistrates deeply guilty of all those evils which he aims to suppress. That cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it. Persecutors beget a persuasion of their cruelty in the hearts of the persecuted. Antoninus Pius’s golden act.

Peace. I add, that a civil sword, as woeful experience in all ages hath proved, is so far from bringing, or helping forward an opposite in religion to repentance, that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God, and blood of souls, by such proceedings. Because as commonly the sufferings of false and anti-christian teachers harden their followers, who being blind are by this means occasioned to tumble into the ditch of hell after their blind leaders, with more inflamed zeal of lying confidence: so, secondly, violence and a sword of steel, beget such an impression in the sufferers, that certainly they conclude, that indeed that religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of violence to uphold it; so that persecutors are far from [a] soft and gentle commiseration of the blindness of others.[139] To this purpose it pleased the Father of spirits, of old, to constrain the emperor of Rome, Antoninus Pius, to write to all the governors of his provinces to forbear to persecute the Christians; because such dealing must needs be so far from converting the Christians from their way, that it rather begat in their minds an opinion of their cruelties, &c.[140]

CHAP. XLI.

Isa. ii. 4; Mic. iv. 3; Isa. xi. 9; concerning Christ’s peaceable kingdom, discussed.

Peace. The next scripture against such persecution, is that of the prophet Isa. ii. 4, together with Mic. iv. 3, They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Isa. xi. 9, There shall none hurt or destroy in all the mountain of my holiness.

Mr. Cotton’s excellent interpretation of those prophecies.

Unto which it pleased Mr. Cotton to say, “That these predictions do only show, first, with what kind of weapons he should subdue the nations to the obedience of the faith of the gospel, not by fire and sword, and weapons of war, but by the power of the word and Spirit of God, which,” saith he, “no man doubts of.”

“Secondly, those predictions of the prophets show what the meek and peaceable temper will be of all true converts to Christianity; not lions nor leopards, not cruel oppressors nor malignant opposers, nor biters one of another: but do not forbid them to drive ravenous wolves from the sheepfold, and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ.”

His doctrine and practice condemned by that interpretation.

Truth. In this first excellent and truly Christian answer, methinks the answerer may hear a voice from heaven, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee. For what can be said more heavenly, by the tongues of men and angels, to show the heavenly, meek temper of all the soldiers of the Lamb of God, as also to set forth what are the spiritual weapons and ammunition of the holy war and battle of the gospel and kingdom of Jesus Christ, for the subduing of the nations of the world unto him?

Peace. And yet out of the same mouth, which should not be, saith James, proceeds good and evil, sweet and sour; for he adds, “But this doth not forbid them to drive ravenous wolves from the sheepfold, and to restrain them from devouring the sheep of Christ.”

Spiritual and mystical wolves.

Truth. In these words, according to the judgment here maintained by him, he fights against the former truth, to wit, that by spiritual weapons Christ Jesus will subdue the nations of the earth to the obedience of the gospel: for by driving away these wolves, he intends not only the resistance and violence which the shepherds of Christ ought spiritually to make, but the civil resistance of the material swords, staves, guns, &c. Whence I argue, that same power that forceth the evil, or wolves, out, forceth the good, the sheep, in; for of the same or like things is the same or like reason: as the same arm of flesh that with a staff beats off a wolf, with a rod and hook brings in the sheep: the same dog that assaulteth and teareth the wolf, frighteth and forceth in the straggling sheep.[141]

CHAP. XLII.

Acts xx. 29, opened.

Peace. But for the clearer opening of this mystery, I pray explicate that scripture where the Spirit of God is pleased to use this similitude of wolves, Acts xx. 29, out of which, keeping to the allegory, I shall propose these queries.

First, what wolves were these Paul warns of?

Truth. Answer. Wolves literally he will not say. Nor, secondly, persecutors of the flock, such as the Roman emperors were, [or] magistrates under him.

What those wolves were, Acts xx. 29.

Therefore, thirdly, such as brought in other religions and worships, as the Spirit of God opens it, ver. 30. Such as amongst themselves should speak perverse things, as many anti-christs did, and especially the anti-christ. And I ask, whether or no such as may hold forth other worships or religions, Jews, Turks, or anti-christians, may not be peaceable and quiet subjects, loving and helpful neighbours, fair and just dealers, true and loyal to the civil government? It is clear they may, from all reason and experience in many flourishing cities and kingdoms of the world, and so offend not against the civil state and peace, nor incur the punishment of the civil sword, notwithstanding that in spiritual and mystical account they are ravenous and greedy wolves.[142]

Peace. 2. I query, to whom Paul gave this charge to watch against them, ver. 31?

Truth. They were not the magistrates of the city of Ephesus, but the elders or ministers of the church of Christ, his mystical flock of sheep, at Ephesus. Unto them was this charge of watching given, and so consequently of driving away these wolves.

Charges directed to ministers of the spiritual kingdom, falsely applied to the magistrates of the civil.

And, however that many of these charges and exhortations, given by that one Shepherd, Christ Jesus, to the shepherds or ministers of churches, be commonly attributed and directed, by the answerer in this discourse, to the civil magistrate; yet I desire, in the fear and holy presence of God, it may be inquired into, whether in all the will or testament of Christ there be any such word of Christ, by way of command, promise, or example, countenancing the governors of the civil state to meddle with these wolves, if in civil things peaceable and obedient.

No word of Christ to the civil magistrate to feed his flock, but to his ministers; who (if true) have spiritual power sufficient against spiritual wolves.

Peace. Truly, if this charge were given to the magistrates at Ephesus, or any magistrates in the world, doubtless they must be able to discern and determine, out of their own official abilities in these spiritual law questions, who are spiritual sheep, what is their food, what their poison, what their properties, who their keepers, &c. So, on the contrary, who are wolves, what their properties, their haunts, their assaults, the manner of taking, &c., spiritually:—and this beside the care and study of the civil laws, and the discerning of his own proper civil sheep, obedient sheep, &c.: as also wolfish oppressors, &c., whom he is bound to punish and suppress.

Magistrates decline the name of head of the church, and yet practise the headship or government.

Truth. I know that civil magistrates, in some places, have declined the name of head of the church, and ecclesiastical judge; yet can they not with good conscience decline the name if they do the work, and perform the office of determining and punishing a merely spiritual wolf.

They must be sufficiently also able to judge in all spiritual causes, and that with their own, and not with other men’s eyes, no more than they do in civil causes, contrary to the common practice of the governors and rulers of civil states, who often set up that for a religion or worship to God, which the clergy, or churchmen, as men speak, shall in their consciences agree upon.

And if this be not so, to wit, that magistrates must not be spiritual judges, as some decline it in the title supreme head and governor, why is Gallio wont to be exclaimed against for refusing to be a judge in such matters as concerned the Jewish worship and religion? How is he censured for a profane person, without conscience, &c., in that he would be no judge or head? for that is all one in point of government.[143]

The elect shall not be devoured.

Peace. In the third place, I query, whether the Father who gave, and the Son who keeps the sheep, be not greater than all? Who can pluck these sheep, the elect, out of his hand? which answers that common objection of that danger of devouring, although there were no other weapons in the world appointed by the Lord Jesus. But,

CHAP. XLIII.

Christ Jesus furnisheth his shepherds with power sufficient to drive away wolves. Tit. i. 9. 10, opened.

Fourthly, I ask, were not these elders or ministers of the church of Ephesus sufficiently furnished, from the Lord Jesus, to drive away these mystical and spiritual wolves?[144]

Truth. True it is, against the inhuman and uncivil violence of persecutors, they were not, nor are God’s children, able and provided; but to resist, drive away, expel, and kill spiritual and mystical wolves by the word of the Lord, none are fit to be Christ’s shepherds who are not able, Tit. i. 9-11. The bishop, or overseer, must be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers: which gainsayers to be by him convinced, that is, overcome or subdued, though it may be in themselves ever obstinate, they were, I say, as greedy wolves in Crete, as any could be at Ephesus. For so saith Paul, ver. 10: they were unruly and vain talkers, deceivers, whose mouths must be stopped, who subverted whole houses; and yet Titus, and every ordinary shepherd of a flock of Christ, had ability sufficient to defend the flock from spiritual and mystical wolves, without the help of the civil magistrate.

Job xxvi. 2, 3.

Peace. In this respect, therefore, methinks we may fitly allude to that excellent answer of Job to Bildad, the Shuhite, Job xxvi., How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? How hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is?

5.

Lastly, I ask, whether, as men deal with wolves, these wolves at Ephesus were intended by Paul to be killed, their brains dashed out with stones, staves, halberts, guns, &c., in the hands of the elders of Ephesus, &c.?[145]

Truth. Doubtless, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, all such mystical wolves must spiritually and mystically so be slain. And the witnesses of truth, Rev. xi. 5, speak fire, and kill all that hurt them, by that fiery word of God, and that two-edged sword in their hand, Ps. cxlix. 6.

Unmerciful and bloody doctrine. John vi. 15.

But oh! what streams of the blood of saints have been and must be shed, until the Lamb have obtained the victory, Rev. xvii. 14, by this unmerciful—and in the state of the New Testament, when the church is spread all the world over—most bloody doctrine, viz., the wolves (heretics) are to be driven away, their brains knocked out, and killed—the poor sheep to be preserved, for whom Christ died, &c.

Is not this to take Christ Jesus, and make him a temporal king by force? John vi. 15. Is not this to make his kingdom of this world, to set up a civil and temporal Israel, to bound out new earthly, holy lands of Canaan, yea, and to set up a Spanish inquisition in all parts of the world, to the speedy destruction of thousands, yea, of millions of souls, and the frustrating of the sweet end of the coming of the Lord Jesus, to wit, to save men’s souls (and to that end not to destroy their bodies) by his own blood?[146]

CHAP. XLIV.

2 Cor. x. 4, discussed.

Peace. The next scripture produced against such persecution is 2 Cor. x. 4, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to avenge all disobedience, &c.

Unto which it is answered, “When Paul saith, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, he denieth not civil weapons of justice to the civil magistrate, Rom. xiii., but only to church officers. And yet the weapons of church officers he acknowledgeth to be such, as though they be spiritual, yet are ready to take vengeance on all disobedience, 2 Cor. x. 6: which hath reference, amongst other ordinances, to the censures of the church against scandalous offenders.”

Truth. I acknowledge that herein the Spirit of God denieth not civil weapons of justice to the civil magistrate, which the scripture he quotes, Rom. xiii., abundantly testifies.

Yet withal, I must ask, why he here affirmeth the apostle denies not civil weapons of justice to the civil magistrate? of which there is no question, unless that, according to his scope of proving persecution for conscience, he intends withal that the apostle denies not civil weapons of justice to the civil magistrate in spiritual and religious causes: the contrary whereunto, the Lord assisting, I shall evince, both from this very scripture and his own observation, and lastly by that thirteenth of the Romans, by himself quoted.

First, then, from this scripture and his own observation. The weapons of church officers, saith he, are such, which though they be spiritual, are ready to take vengeance on all disobedience; which hath reference, saith he, amongst other ordinances, to the censures of the church against scandalous offenders.

The difference of the civil and spiritual estate. Civil weapons most improper in spiritual causes: fitly exemplified by that similitude, 2 Cor. x. 4.

I hence observe, that there being in this scripture held forth a twofold state, a civil state and a spiritual, civil officers and spiritual, civil weapons and spiritual weapons, civil vengeance and punishment and a spiritual vengeance and punishment: although the Spirit speaks not here expressly of civil magistrates and their civil weapons, yet, these states being of different natures and considerations, as far differing as spirit from flesh, I first observe, that civil weapons are most improper and unfitting in matters of the spiritual state and kingdom, though in the civil state most proper and suitable.[147]

CHAP. XLV.

For—to keep to the similitude which the Spirit useth, for instance—to batter down a stronghold, high wall, fort, tower, or castle, men bring not a first and second admonition, and, after obstinacy, excommunication, which are spiritual weapons, concerning them that be in the church: nor exhortations to repent and be baptized, to believe in the Lord Jesus, &c., which are proper weapons to them that be without, &c.; but to take a stronghold, men bring cannons, culverins, saker,[148] bullets, powder, muskets, swords, pikes, &c., and these to this end are weapons effectual and proportionable.[149]

Spiritual weapons only effectual in spiritual and soul causes.

On the other side, to batter down idolatry, false worship, heresy, schism, blindness, hardness, out of the soul and spirit, it is vain, improper, and unsuitable to bring those weapons which are used by persecutors, stocks, whips, prisons, swords, gibbets, stakes, &c., (where these seem to prevail with some cities or kingdoms, a stronger force sets up again, what a weaker pulled down); but against these spiritual strongholds in the souls of men, spiritual artillery and weapons are proper, which are mighty through God to subdue and bring under the very thought to obedience, or else to bind fast the soul with chains of darkness, and lock it up in the prison of unbelief and hardness to eternity.

Civil weapons not only improper, but unnecessary in spiritual causes.

2. I observe that as civil weapons are improper in this business, and never able to effect aught in the soul: so although they were proper, yet they are unnecessary; for if, as the Spirit here saith, and the answerer grants, spiritual weapons in the hand of church officers are able and ready to take vengeance on all disobedience, that is, able and mighty, sufficient and ready for the Lord’s work, either to save the soul, or to kill the soul of whomsoever be the party or parties opposite; in which respect I may again remember that speech of Job, How hast thou helped him that hath no power? Job xxvi. 2.

No earthly kings or governors will be so served, as we pretend to serve the King of kings.

Peace. Offer this, as Malachi once spake, to the governors, the kings of the earth, when they besiege, beleaguer, and assault great cities, castles, forts, &c., should any subject pretending his service bring store of pins, sticks, straws, bulrushes, to beat and batter down stone walls, mighty bulwarks, what might his expectation and reward be, but at least the censure of a man distract, beside himself? &c.

Ps. xlv. 4. The white troopers.

Truth. What shall we then conceive of His displeasure, who is the Chief or Prince of the kings of the earth, and rides upon the word of truth and meekness, which is the white horse, Rev. vi. and Rev. xix., with his holy witnesses, the white troopers upon white horses, when to his help and aid men bring and add such unnecessary, improper, and weak munition?

Spiritual ammunition, Eph. vi. 6, applied; material and spiritual artillery unfitly joined together. An alarm to civil or earthly rulers.

Will the Lord Jesus (did He ever in his own person practise, or did he appoint to) join to his breastplate of righteousness, the breastplate of iron and steel? to the helmet of righteousness and salvation in Christ, a helmet and crest of iron, brass, or steel? a target of wood to His shield of faith? [to] His two-edged sword, coming forth of the mouth of Jesus, the material sword, the work of smiths and cutlers? or a girdle of shoe-leather to the girdle of truth? &c. Excellently fit and proper is that alarm and item, Ps. ii. 10, Be wise, therefore, O ye kings—especially those ten horns, Rev. xvii., who, under pretence of fighting for Christ Jesus, give their power to the beast against Him—and be warned, ye judges of the earth: kiss the Son, that is, with subjection and affection, acknowledge Him only the King and Judge of souls, in that power bequeathed to His ministers and churches, lest his wrath be kindled, yea, but a little; then, blessed are they that trust in Him.

CHAP. XLVI.

Concerning the civil ruler’s power in spiritual causes discussed.

Peace. Now, in the second place, concerning that scripture, Rom. xiii., which it pleased the answerer to quote, and himself, and so many excellent servants of God have insisted upon to prove such persecution for conscience:—how have both he and they wrested this scripture, not as Peter writes of the wicked, to their eternal, yet to their own and other’s temporal destruction, by civil wars and combustions in the world?

My humble request, therefore, is to the Father of lights, to send out the bright beams of the Sun of righteousness, and to scatter the mist which that old serpent, the great juggler, Satan, hath raised about this holy scripture, and my request to you, divine Truth, is for your care and pains to enlighten and clear this scripture.

Rom. xiii. speaks not at all of spiritual but civil affairs.

Truth. First, then, upon the serious examination of this whole scripture, it will appear, that from the 9th verse of the 12th chapter to the end of this whole 13th chapter, the Spirit handles the duties of the saints in the careful observation of the second table in their civil conversation, or walking towards men, and speaks not at all of any point or matter of the first table concerning the kingdom of the Lord Jesus.[150]

For, having in the whole epistle handled that great point of free justification by the free grace of God in Christ, in the beginning of the 12th chapter he exhorts the believers to give and dedicate themselves unto the Lord, both in soul and body; and unto the 9th verse of the 12th chapter he expressly mentioneth their conversation in the kingdom, or body, of Christ Jesus, together with the several officers thereof.

The scope of Rom. xiii.

And from the 9th verse to the end of the 13th [chapter], he plainly discourseth of their civil conversation and walking one toward another, and with all men, from whence he hath fair occasion to speak largely concerning their subjection to magistrates in the 13th chapter.

Love to man the duty of the whole second table.

Hence it is, that [at] ver. 7 of this 13th chapter, Paul exhorts to performance of love to all men, magistrates and subjects, vers. 7, 8, Render, therefore, to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe nothing to any man, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

How love fulfilleth the law.

If any man doubt, as the papists speak, whether a man may perfectly fulfil the law, every man of sound judgment is ready to answer him, that these words, He that loveth hath fulfilled the law, concerneth not the whole law in the first table, that is, the worship and kingdom of God in Christ.

Secondly, That the apostle speaks not here of perfect observation of the second table, without failing in word or act toward men, but lays open the sum and substance of the law, which is love; and that he that walks by the rule of love toward all men, magistrates and subjects, he hath rightly attained unto what the law aims at, and so in evangelical obedience fulfils and keeps the law.

Hence, therefore, again in the 9th verse, having discoursed of the fifth command in this point of superiors, he makes all the rest of the commandments of the second table, which concern our walking with man,—viz., Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not covet: and if there be any other commandment—to be briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

And verse 10, Love worketh no ill to his neighbour, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law, that is, as before, the law concerning our civil conversation toward all men, magistrates or governors, and fellow subjects of all conditions.

CHAP. XLVII.

Rom. xiii. so interpreted even by them that held persecution for conscience.

Peace. Although the scripture is sufficient to make the man of God perfect, and the fool wise to salvation, and our faith in God must be only founded upon the rock Christ, and not upon the sand of men’s judgments and opinions: yet, as Paul allegeth the judgment and sayings of unbelievers for their conviction, out of their own tenents and grants, “So I pray you to set down the words of one or two, not unbelievers in their persons, but excellent and precious servants and witnesses of God in their times, whose names are sweet and precious to all that fear God,—who, although their judgment ran in the common stream, viz., ‘That magistrates were keepers of the two tables, defenders of the faith against heretics,’ and, notwithstanding whatever they have written for defence of their judgments, yet the light of truth so evidently shined upon their souls in this scripture, that they absolutely denied the 13th of the Romans to concern any matter of the first table.”

Calvin’s judgment of Rom. xiii.

Truth. First, I shall produce that excellent servant of God, Calvin, who, upon this 13th to the Romans, writes,[151] Tota autem hæc disputatio est de civilibus præfecturis; itaque frustra inde sacrilegam suam tyrannidem stabilire moliuntur, qui dominatum in conscientias exerceant:—“But,” saith he, “this whole discourse concerneth civil magistrates, and, therefore, in vain do they who exercise power over consciences, go about from this place to establish their sacrilegious tyranny.”[152]

God’s people loth to be found, yet proved persecutors.

Peace. I know how far most men, and especially the sheep of Jesus, will fly from the thought of exercising tyranny over conscience, that happily they will disclaim the dealing of all with men’s consciences: yet, if the acts and statutes which are made by them concerning the worship of God be attended to, their profession—and that out of zeal according to the pattern of that ceremonial and figurative state of Israel—to suffer no other religion nor worship in their territories, but one—their profession and practice to defend their faith from reproach and blasphemy of heretics by civil weapons, and all that from this very 13th of the Romans—I say, if these particulars and others, be with fear and trembling, in the presence of the Most High, examined, the wonderful deceit of their own hearts shall appear unto them, and how guilty they will appear to be of wresting this scripture before the tribunal of the Most High.

Truth. Again, Calvin, speaking concerning fulfilling of the law by love, writes thus on the same place: Sed Paulus in totam legem non respicit; tantum de officiis loquitur, quæ nobis erga proximum demandantur a lege:—That is, “Paul hath not respect unto the whole law, he speaks only of those duties which the law commands towards our neighbours.” And it is manifest, that in this place by our neighbours he means high and low, magistrates and subjects, unto whom we ought to walk by the rule of love, paying unto every one their due.

Again, Cæterum Paulus hic tantum meminet secundæ tabulæ, quia de ea tantum erat quæstio:—“But Paul here only mentioneth the second table, because the question was only concerning that.”

Calvin confesseth that the first table, concerning God’s worship, is not here, in Rom. xiii. touched.

And again, Quod autem repetit, complementum legis esse dilectionem, intellige (ut prius) de ea legis parte, quod hominum societatem spectat? Prior enim legis tabula quæ est de cultu Dei minime hic attingitur:—“But in that he repeateth, that love is the fulfilling of the law, understand as before, that he speaks of that part of the law which respects human society; for the first table of the law, which concerneth the worship of God, is not in the least manner here touched.”[153]

Beza upon Rom. xiii.

After Calvin, his successor in Geneva, that holy and learned Beza, upon the word ἀνακεφαλαιοῦται, if there be any other commandment it is summed up in this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, writes thus:[154]—Tota lex nihil aliud quam amorem Dei et proximi præcipet; sed tamen cum apostolus hoc loco de mutuis hominum officiis disserat, legis vocabulum ad secundum tabulam restringendam puto. “The whole law,” saith he, “commands nothing else but the love of God, and yet, nevertheless, since the apostle in this place discourseth of the duties of men one toward another, I think this term law ought to be restrained to the second table.”[155]

CHAP. XLVIII.

Peace. I pray now proceed to the second argument from this scripture, against the use of civil weapons in matters of religions, and spiritual worship.

Truth. The Spirit of God here commands subjection and obedience to higher powers, even to the Roman emperors and all subordinate magistrates; and yet the emperors and governors under them were strangers from the life of God in Christ, yea, most averse and opposite, yea, cruel and bloody persecutors of the name and followers of Jesus: and yet unto these, is this subjection and obedience commanded. Now true it is, that as the civil magistrate is apt not to content himself with the majesty of an earthly throne, crown, sword, sceptre, but to seat himself in the throne of David in the church: so God’s people, and it may be in Paul’s time, considering their high and glorious preferment and privileges by Jesus Christ, were apt to be much tempted to despise civil governors, especially such as were ignorant of the Son of God, and persecuted him in his servants.

Paul writes not to the Roman governors to defend the truth, and to punish heretics.

Now then I argue, if the apostle should have commanded this subjection unto the Roman emperors and Roman magistrates in spiritual causes, as to defend the truth which they were no way able to discern, but persecuted—and upon trust from others no magistrate, not persuaded in his own conscience, is to take it:—

Or else to punish heretics, whom then also they must discern and judge, or else condemn them, as the Jews would have Pilate condemn the Lord Jesus, upon the sentence of others—I say, if Paul should have, in this scripture, put this work upon these Roman governors, and commanded the churches of Christ to have yielded subjection in any such matters, he must, in the judgment of all men, have put out the eye of faith, and reason, and sense, at once.[156]

CHAP. XLIX.

Paul’s appeal to Cæsar discussed.

Peace. It is said by some, why then did Paul himself, Acts xxv. 11, appeal to Cæsar, unless that Cæsar, (though he was not, yet) he ought to have been a fit judge in such matters?

If Paul had appealed to Cæsar in spiritual things, he had committed five evils.

Truth. I answer, if Paul, in this appeal to Cæsar, had referred and submitted simply and properly the cause of Christ, his ministry and ministration, to the Roman emperor’s tribunal, knowing him to be an idolatrous stranger from the true God, and a lion-like, bloody persecutor of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God,—I say, let it be considered, whether or no he had committed these five evils:—

The first, against the dimmest light of reason, in appealing to darkness to judge light, to unrighteousness to judge righteousness, [to] the spiritually blind to judge and end the controversy concerning heavenly colours.

Secondly, against the cause of religion, which, if condemned by every inferior idolater, must needs be condemned by the Cæsars themselves, who, Nebuchadnezzar-like, set up their state images or religions, commanding the world’s uniformity of worship to them.

Thirdly, against the holy state and calling of the Christians themselves, who, by virtue of their subjection to Christ, even the least of them, are in spiritual things above the highest potentates or emperors in the world who continue in enmity against, or in an ignorant, natural state without Christ Jesus. This honour, or high exaltation have all his holy ones, to bind, not literally but spiritually, their kings in chains, and their nobles in links of iron. Ps. cxlix. 8.

Fourthly, against his own calling, apostleship, or office of ministry, unto which Cæsar himself and all potentates, in spiritual and soul-matters, ought to have submitted; and unto which, in controversies of Christ’s church and kingdom, Cæsar himself ought to have appealed, the church of God being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Eph. ii. 20.

Emperors themselves, if Christians, subject to the apostles and churches in spiritual things.

And, therefore, in case that any of the Roman governors, or the emperor himself, had been humbled and converted to Christianity by the preaching of Christ, were not they themselves bound to subject themselves unto the power of the Lord Jesus in the hands of the apostles and churches, and might not the apostles and churches have refused to have baptized, or washed them into the profession of Christ Jesus, upon the apprehension of their unworthiness?

Or, if received into Christian fellowship, were they not to stand at the bar of the Lord Jesus in the church, concerning either their opinions or practices? were they not to be cast out and delivered unto Satan by the power of the Lord Jesus, if, after once and twice admonition, they persist obstinately, as faithfully and impartially as if they were the meanest in the empire? Yea, although the apostles, the churches, the elders, or governors thereof, were poor and mean, despised persons in civil respects, and were themselves bound to yield all faithful and loyal obedience to such emperors and governors in civil things.

Were they not, if Christians, bound themselves to have submitted to those spiritual decrees of the apostles and elders, as well as the lowest and meanest members of Christ? Acts xvi. And if so, how should Paul appeal in spiritual things to Cæsar, or write to the churches of Jesus to submit to them [in] Christian or spiritual matters?

Fifthly, if Paul had appealed to Cæsar in spiritual respects, he had greatly profaned the holy name of God in holy things, in so improper and vain a prostitution of spiritual things to carnal and natural judgments, which are not able to comprehend spiritual matters, which are alone spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. ii. 14.

Lawful appeals in civil things to civil magistrates.

And yet Cæsar, as a civil, supreme magistrate, ought to defend Paul from civil violence, and slanderous accusations about sedition, mutiny, civil disobedience, &c. And in that sense, who doubts but God’s people may appeal to the Roman Cæsar, an Egyptian Pharaoh, a Philistian Abimelech, an Assyrian Nebuchadnezzar, the great Mogul, Prester John, the great Turk, or an Indian Sachem?[157]

CHAP. L.

Peace. Which is the third argument against the civil magistrates’ power in spiritual and soul-matters out of this scripture, Rom. xiii.?

Truth. I dispute from the nature of the magistrates’ weapons, ver. 4. He hath a sword, which he bears not in vain, delivered to him, as I acknowledge from God’s appointment in the free consent and choice of the subjects for common good.

We must distinguish of swords.

Four sorts of swords mentioned in the New Testament.

We find four sorts of swords mentioned in the New Testament.

First, the sword of persecution, which Herod stretched forth against James, Acts xii. 1, 2.

Secondly, the sword of God’s Spirit, expressly said to be the word of God, Ephes. vi. [17]. A sword of two edges, carried in the mouth of Christ, Rev. i. [16], which is of strong and mighty operation, piercing between the bones and the marrow, between the soul and the spirit, Heb. iv. [12].

Thirdly, the great sword of war and destruction, given to him that rides that terrible red horse of war, so that he takes peace from the earth, and men kill one another, as is most lamentably true in the slaughter of so many hundred thousand souls within these few years in several parts of Europe, our own and others.

None of these three swords are intended in this scripture.

The civil sword.

Therefore, fourthly, there is a civil sword, called the sword of civil justice, which being of a material, civil nature, for the defence of persons, estates, families, liberties of a city or civil state, and the suppressing of uncivil or injurious persons or actions, by such civil punishment, it cannot, according to its utmost reach and capacity, now under Christ, when all nations are merely civil, without any such typical, holy respect upon them, as was upon Israel, a national church—I say, cannot extend to spiritual and soul-causes, spiritual and soul-punishment, which belongs to that spiritual sword with two edges, the soul-piercing,—in soul-saving, or soul-killing,—the word of God.[158]

CHAP. LI.

Tribute, custom, &c., merely civil recompences for civil work.

Truth. A fourth argument from this scripture, I take in the sixth verse, from tribute, custom, &c.: which is a merely civil reward, or recompence, for the magistrates’ work. Now as the wages are, such is the work; but the wages are merely civil—custom, tribute, &c.: not the contributions of the saints or churches of Christ, proper to the spiritual and Christian state. And such work only must the magistrate attend upon, as may properly deserve such civil wages, reward, or recompence.

Magistrates called by God, God’s ministers.

Lastly, that the Spirit of God never intended to direct, or warrant, the magistrate to use his power in spiritual affairs and religious worship, I argue from the term or title it pleaseth the wisdom of God to give such civil officers, to wit, ver. 6, God’s ministers.

Now at the very first blush, no man denies a double ministry.

The spiritual ministry.

The one appointed by Christ Jesus in his church, to gather, to govern, receive in, cast out, and order all the affairs of the church, the house, city, or kingdom of God, Eph. iv.; 1 Cor. xii.

The civil ministry or service.

Secondly, a civil ministry, or office, merely human and civil, which men agree to constitute, called therefore a human creation, 1 Pet. ii. [13], and is as true and lawful in those nations, cities, kingdoms, &c., which never heard of the true God, nor his holy Son Jesus, as in any part of the world beside, where the name of Jesus is most taken up.

From all which premises, viz., that the scope of the Spirit of God in this chapter is to handle the matters of the second table—having handled the matters of the first, in the twelfth:—since the magistrates of whom Paul wrote, were natural, ungodly, persecuting, and yet lawful magistrates, and to be obeyed in all lawful civil things: since all magistrates are God’s ministers, essentially civil, bounded to a civil work, with civil weapons, or instruments, and paid or rewarded with civil rewards:—from all which, I say, I undeniably collect, that this scripture is generally mistaken, and wrested from the scope of God’s Spirit, and the nature of the place, and cannot truly be alleged by any for the power of the civil magistrate to be exercised in spiritual and soul-matters.

CHAP. LII.

What is to be understood by evil, Rom. xiii. 4.

Peace. Against this I know many object, out of the fourth verse of this chapter, that the magistrate is to avenge, or punish, evil: from whence is gathered that heresy, false Christs, false churches, false ministries, false seals, being evil, ought to be punished civilly, &c.

Truth. I answer, that the word κακὸν is generally opposed to civil goodness, or virtue, in a commonwealth, and not to spiritual good, or religion, in the church.

Secondly, I have proved from the scope of the place, that here is not intended evil against the spiritual, or Christian estate handled in the twelfth chapter, but evil against the civil state in this thirteenth, properly falling under the cognizance of the civil minister of God, the magistrate, and punishable by that civil sword of his as an incivility, disorder, or breach of that civil order, peace, and civility, unto which all the inhabitants of a city, town, or kingdom, oblige themselves.

Peace. I have heard, that the elders of the New England churches—who yet out of this thirteenth of Romans maintain persecution—grant[159] that the magistrate is to preserve the peace and welfare of the state, and therefore that he ought not to punish such sins as hurt not his peace. In particular, they say, the magistrate may not punish secret sins in the soul: nor such sins as are yet handling in the church, in a private way: nor such sins which are private in families—and therefore, they say, the magistrate transgresseth to prosecute complaints of children against their parents, servants against masters, wives against husbands, (and yet this proper to the civil state). Nor such sins as are between the members and churches themselves.

And they confess, that if the magistrate punish, and the church punish, there will be a greater rent in their peace.

Truth. From thence, sweet Peace, may we well observe,

First, the magistrate is not to punish all evil, according to this their confession.

The distinction of private and public evil will not here avail; because such as urge that term evil, viz., that the magistrate is to punish evil, urge it strictly, eo nomine; because heresy, blasphemy, false church, false ministry, is evil, as well as disorder in a civil state.

Some give to the magistrate what is not his, and take from him that which is proper to him.

Secondly, I observe, how they take away from the magistrate that which is proper to his cognizance, as the complaints of servants, children, wives, against their parents, masters, husbands, &c. Families as families, being as stones which make up the common building, and are properly the object of the magistrates’ care, in respect of civil government, civil order, and obedience.[160]

CHAP. LIII.

Peace. I pray now, lastly, proceed to the author’s reason[161] why Christ’s disciples should be so far from persecuting:—that they ought to bless them that curse them, and pray for them that persecute them, because of the freeness of God’s grace, and the deepness of his counsels, calling them that are enemies, persecutors, no people, to become meek lambs, the sheep and people of God, according to 1 Pet. ii. 10, You which were not a people, are now a people, &c.; and Matt. xx. 6, some come at the last hour, which if they were cut off because they came not sooner, would be prevented, and so should never come.

Unto this reason, the answerer is pleased thus to reply.[162]

First, in general; we must not do evil that good may come thereof.

Toleration discussed.[163]

Secondly, in particular, he affirmeth, “that it is evil to tolerate seditious evil doers, seducing teachers, scandalous livers;” and for proof of this, he quotes Christ’s reproof to the angel of the church at Pergamos, for tolerating them that hold the doctrine of Balaam; and against the church of Thyatira, for tolerating Jezebel to teach and seduce, Rev. ii. 14, 20.

Truth. I answer, first, by assenting to the general proposition, that it is most true, like unto Christ Jesus himself, a sure foundation, 1 Cor. iii. 11. Yet what is built upon it, I hope by God’s assistance to make it appear, is but hay and stubble, dead and withered, not suiting that golden foundation, nor pleasing to the Father of mercies, nor comfortable to the souls of men.

It is evil, saith he, to tolerate notorious evil doers, seducing teachers, scandalous livers.

In which speech I observe two evils:

First, that this proposition is too large and general, because the rule admits of exception, and that according to the will of God.

Evil is always evil, yet permission of it may in case be good.

1. It is true, that evil cannot alter its nature, but it is alway evil, as darkness is alway darkness, yet,

2. It must be remembered, that it is one thing to command, to conceal, to counsel, to approve evil, and another thing to permit and suffer evil with protestation against it, or dislike of it, at least without approbation of it.

Lastly, this sufferance, or permission, of evil, is not for its own sake, but for the sake of good, which puts a respect of goodness upon such permission.

God’s wonderful toleration.