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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.”
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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._
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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_.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.