ministers of Old 184
Lamentable differences even amongst them that fear God 185
The doctrine of persecution ever drives the most godly out of the
world 186
A MODEL OF CHURCH AND CIVIL POWER, composed by Mr. Cotton and the
ministers of New England, and sent to Salem, (as a further
confirmation of the bloody doctrine of persecution for cause
of conscience) examined and answered 189
Christ’s power in the church confest to be above all magistrates
in spiritual things 190
Isa. xlix. 23, lamentably wrested 190
The civil commonweal, and the spiritual commonweal, the church,
not inconsistent, though independent the one on the other 192
Christ’s ordinances put upon a whole city or nation may civilize
them, and moralize, but not christianize, before repentance
first wrought 193
Mr. Cotton and the New English minister’s confession, that the
magistrate hath neither civil nor spiritual power in soul matters 194
The magistrates and the church, (by Mr. Cotton’s grounds) in one
and the same cause, made the judges on the bench, and delinquents
at the bar 196
A demonstrative illustration, that the magistrate cannot have power
over the church in spiritual or church causes 197
The true way of the God of peace, in differences between the church
and the magistrate 198
The terms _godliness_ and _honesty_ explained, 1 Tim. ii. 1, and
_honesty_ proved not to signify in that place the righteousness
of the second table 201
The forcing of men to God’s worship, the greatest breach of civil
peace 203
The Roman Cæsars of Christ’s time described 204
It pleased not the Lord Jesus, in the institution of the Christian
church, to appoint and raise up any civil government to take care
of his worship 205
The true _custodes utriusque tabulæ_, and keepers of the ordinances
and worship of Jesus Christ 206
The kings of Egypt, Moab, Philistia, Assyria, Nineveh, were not
charged with the worship of God, as the kings of Judah were 207
Masters of families not charged under the gospel to force all the
consciences of their families to worship 207
God’s people have then shined brightest in godliness, when they have
enjoyed least quietness 210
Few magistrates, few men, spiritually good; yet divers sorts of
commendable goodness beside spiritual 211
Civil power originally and fundamentally in the people Mr. Cotton
and the New English give the power of Christ into the hands of
the commonweal 214
Laws concerning religion, of two sorts 217
The very Indians abhor to disturb any conscience at worship 217
Canons and constitutions pretended civil, but indeed ecclesiastical 217
A threefold guilt lying upon civil powers, commanding the subject’s
soul in worship 222
Persons may with less sin be forced to marry whom they cannot love,
than to worship where they cannot believe 223
As the cause, so the weapons of the beast and the lamb are
infinitely different 226
Artaxerxes his decree examined 227
The sum of the examples of the gentile king’s decrees concerning
God’s worship in scripture 230
The doctrine of putting to death blasphemers of Christ, cuts off
the hopes of the Jews partaking in his blood 232
The direful effects of fighting for conscience 233
Error is confident as well as truth 234
Spiritual prisons 236
Some consciences not so easily healed and cured as men imagine 237
Persecutors dispute with heretics, as a tyrannical cat with the
poor mouse: and with a true witness, as a roaring lion with an
innocent lamb in his paw 239
Persecutors endure not the name of persecutors 239
Psalm ci., concerning cutting off the wicked, examined 241
No difference of lands and countries, since Christ Jesus his coming 242
The New English separate in America, but not in Europe 244
Christ Jesus forbidding his followers to permit leaven in the
church, doth not forbid to permit leaven in the world 246
The wall (Cant. viii. 9.) discussed 246
Every religion commands its professors to hear only its own
priests or ministers 248
Jonah his preaching to the Ninevites discussed 248
Hearing of the word discussed 248
Eglon his rising up to Ehud’s message, discussed 248
A twofold ministry of Christ: first, apostolical, properly
converting. Secondly, feeding or pastoral 249
The New English forcing people to church, and yet not to religion
(as they say), forcing them to be of no religion all their days 249
The civil state can no more lawfully compel the consciences of men
to church to hear the word, than to receive the sacraments 250
No precedent in the word, of any people converting and baptizing
themselves 253
True conversion to visible Christianity is not only from sins
against the second table, but from false worships also 254
The commission, Matt. xxviii., discussed 254
The civil magistrate not betrusted with that commission 255
Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xvii., a figure of Christ Jesus in his
church, not of the civil magistrate in the state 256
The maintenance of the ministry, Gal. vi. 6, examined 257
Christ Jesus never appointed a maintenance of the ministry from
impenitent and unbelieving 257
They that compel men to hear, compel them also to pay for their
hearing and conversion 258
Luke xiv., _Compel them to come in_, examined 258
Natural men can neither truly worship, nor maintain it 259
The national church of the Jews might well be forced to a settled
maintenance: but not so the Christian church 261
The maintenance which Christ hath appointed his ministry in the
church 262
The universities of Europe causes of universal sins and plagues:
yet schools are honourable for tongues and arts 263
The true church is Christ’s school, and believers his scholars 264
Mr. Ainsworth excellent in the tongues, yet no university man 265
King Henry the Eighth set down in the pope’s chair in England 266
Apocrypha, homilies, and common prayer, precious to our forefathers 266
Reformation proved fallible 267
The precedent of the kings of Israel and Judah largely examined 271
The Persian kings’ example make strongly against the doctrine
of persecution 272
1. The difference of the land of Canaan from all lands and
countries in seven [eight] particulars 273
2. The difference of the people of Israel from all other peoples,
in seven particulars 278
Wonderful turnings of religion in England in twelve years
revolution 280
The pope not unlike to recover his monarchy over Europe before his
downfall 280
Israel, God’s only church, might well renew that national covenant
and ceremonial worship, which other nations cannot do 283
The difference of the kings and governors of Israel from all kings
and governors of the world, in four particulars 284
Five demonstrative arguments proving the unsoundness of the maxim,
viz., the church and commonweal are like Hippocrates’ twins 286
A sacrilegious prostitution of the name Christian 290
David immediately inspired by God in his ordering of church affairs 291
Solomon’s deposing Abiathar, 1 Kings ii. 26, 27, discussed 292
The liberties of Christ’s churches in the choice of her officers 293
A civil influence dangerous to the saints’ liberties 293
Jehoshaphat’s fast examined 294
God will not wrong Cæsar, and Cæsar should not wrong God 294
The famous acts of Josiah examined 295
Magistracy in general from God, the particular forms from the
people 295
Israel confirmed in a national covenant by revelations, signs, and
miracles; but not so any other land 295
Kings and nations often plant and often pluck up religions 296
A national church ever subject to turn and return 297
A woman, Papissa, or head of the church 297
The papists nearer to the truth, concerning the governor of the
church, than most protestants 297
The kingly power of the Lord Jesus troubles all the kings and
rulers of the world 298
A twofold exaltation of Christ 298
A monarchical and ministerial power of Christ 300
Three great competitors for the ministerial power of Christ 300
The pope pretendeth to the ministerial power of Christ, yet upon
the point challengeth the monarchical also 300
Three great factions in England, striving for the arm of flesh 300
The churches of the separation ought in humanity and subjects’
liberty not to be oppressed, but at least permitted 302
Seven reasons proving that the kings of Israel and Judah can have
no other but a spiritual antitype 303
Christianity adds not to the nature of a civil commonweal; nor doth
want of Christianity diminish it 304
Most strange, yet most true consequences from the civil magistrates
being the antitype of the kings of Israel and Judah 305
If no religion but what the commonweal approve, then no Christ,
no God, but at the pleasure of the world 305
The true antitype of the kings of Israel and Judah 306
4. The difference of Israel’s statutes and laws from all others
in three particulars 306
5. The difference of Israel’s punishments and rewards from all
others 308
Temporal prosperity most proper to the national state of the Jew 308
The excommunication in Israel 308
The corporal stoning in the law, typed out spiritual stoning
in the gospel 308
The wars of Israel typical and unparalleled, but by the spiritual
wars of spiritual Israel 309
The famous typical captivity of the Jews 311
Their wonderful victories 311
The mystical army of white troopers 312
Whether the civil state of Israel was precedential 313
Great unfaithfulness in magistrates [ministers] to cast the burden
of judging and establishing Christianity upon the commonweal 314
Thousands of lawful civil magistrates, who never hear of Jesus
Christ 315
Nero and the persecuting emperors not so injurious to Christianity
as Constantine and others, who assumed a power in spiritual
things 316
They who force the conscience of others, cry out of persecution
when their own are forced 316
Constantine and others wanted not so much affection, as information
of judgment 317
Civil authority giving and lending their horns to bishops,
dangerous to Christ’s truth 317
The spiritual power of Christ Jesus compared in scripture to the
incomparable horn of the rhinoceros 318
The nursing fathers and mothers, Isa. xlix. 319
The civil magistrate owes three things to the true church of Christ 319
The civil magistrate owes two things to false worshippers 320
The rise of high commissions 321
Pious magistrates’ and ministers’ consciences are persuaded for
that, which other as pious magistrates’ and ministers’
consciences condemn 321
An apt similitude discussed concerning the civil magistrate 322
A grievous charge against the Christian church and the king of it 330
A strange law in New England formerly against excommunicate persons 331
A dangerous doctrine against all civil magistrates 331
Original sin charged to hurt the civil state 331
They who give the magistrate more than his due, are apt to disrobe
him of what is his 332
A strange double picture 336
The great privileges of the true church of Christ 336
Two similitudes illustrating the true power of the magistrate 337
A marvellous challenge of more power under the Christian, than
under the heathen magistrate 339
Civil magistrates, derivatives from the fountains or bodies of
people 341
A believing magistrate no more a magistrate than an unbelieving 341
The excellency of Christianity in all callings 341
The magistrate like a pilot in the ship of the commonweal 342
The terms _heathen_ and _Christian_ magistrates 343
The unjust and partial liberty to some consciences, and bondage
unto all others 344
The commission, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20, not proper to pastors and
teachers, least of all to the civil magistrate 345
Unto whom now belongs the care of all the churches, &c. 345
Acts xv. commonly misapplied 346
The promise of Christ’s presence, Matt. xviii., distinct from that
Matt. xxviii. 347
Church administrations firstly charged upon the ministers thereof 349
Queen Elizabeth’s bishops truer to their principles than many of a
better spirit and profession 350
Mr. Barrowe’s profession concerning Queen Elizabeth 350
The inventions of men swerving from the true essentials of civil
and spiritual commonweals 353
A great question, viz., whether only church members, that is, godly
persons, in a particular church estate, be only eligible into
the magistracy 353
The world being divided in thirty parts, twenty-five never heard
of Christ 354
Lawful civil states where churches of Christ are not 355
Few Christians wise and noble, and qualified for affairs of state 355
The Ninevites’ fast examined 357
Luke xxii. 36 discussed 359
Rev. xvii. 16 discussed 361
Conclusion 363
[MR. COTTON’S LETTER EXAMINED AND ANSWERED.
To the Impartial Reader 367
If Jesus Christ bring more light he must be persecuted 371
Public sins, the cause of public calamities, must be discovered 372
Grounds of Mr. Williams’s banishment 375
Persecutors do no good to men’s souls 377
Mr. Cotton’s proof from Prov. xi. 26 discussed 379
Spiritual offences only liable to spiritual censure 382
Mr. Cotton ignorant of the cause of Williams’s sufferings 383
Civil peace and magistracy blessed ordinances of God 384
The mercies of a civil state distinct from those of a spiritual
state 385
Affliction for Christ sweet 390
The state of godly persons in gross sins 393
God’s mystical Israel must come forth of Babel before they build
the temple 395
New England refuses church fellowship with godly ministers of Old
England 398
Christ considered personally and in his people 398
Mr. Cotton confessing the true and false constitution of the church 401
Difference between God’s institutions to the Jews and anti-christian
institutions 403
Coming forth of Babel not local 406
The polygamy of the fathers 410
Every true church separate from idols 411
The substance of true repentance in all God’s children 412
The first Christians the best pattern for Christians now 413
Mr. Cotton against a national church, and yet holds fellowship
with it 415
The Jewish national church not to be separated from 417
Mr. Cotton extenuates national churches 420
Mr. Cotton guilty of cruelty in persecuting, yet cries out against
due severity in the church 423
God’s controversy for persecution 424
The puritans and separatists compared 424
Mr. Ainsworth’s poverty 426
Four sorts of backsliders from separation 428
Mr. Canne’s Answer to Mr. Robinson’s Liberty of Hearing 429
Preachers and pastors far different 430
The fellowship of the word taught in a church estate 432
False callings or commissions for the ministry 433
The Nonconformists’ grounds enforce separation 436
Mr. Cotton’s practice of separation in New England 436
Persecution is unjust oppression wheresoever 438]
THE
BLOVDY TENENT
of PERSECUTION, for cause of
CONSCIENCE, discussed, in
_A_ Conference _betweene_
TRVTH and PEACE.
WHO,
In all tender Affection, present to the High
Court of _Parliament_, (as the result of
their Discourse) these, (amongst other
_Passages_) of _highest consideration_.
[Illustration]
_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.
[Sidenote: 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.