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?
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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?
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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._
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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,
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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:—
[Sidenote: 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.”
[Sidenote: 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]
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: 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.]