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 unto 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 true profession of the truth, for this is to
be done with spiritual weapons, whereby Christians are to be exhorted,
not compelled. But this,” saith he, “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.”
_Truth._ I answer, in this joint confession of the answerer with Luther,
to wit, that the government of the civil magistrate extendeth no further
than over the bodies and goods of their subjects, not over their souls:
who sees not what a clear testimony from his own mouth and pen is given,
to wit, that either the spiritual and church estate, the preaching
of the word, and the gathering of the church, the baptism of it, the
ministry, government, and administrations thereof, belong to the civil
body of the commonweal, that is, to the bodies and goods of men, which
seems monstrous to imagine? Or else that the civil magistrate cannot,
without exceeding the bounds of his office, meddle with those spiritual
affairs?[192]
[Sidenote: Mr. Cotton’s positions evidently proved contradictory to
themselves.]
Again, necessarily must it follow, that these two are contradictory to
themselves, to wit,—
The magistrates’ power extends no further than the bodies and goods of
the subject, and yet—
The magistrate must punish Christians for sinning against the light of
faith and conscience, and for corrupting the souls of men. The Father of
lights make this worthy answerer, and all that fear him, to see their
wandering in this case: not only from his fear, but also from the light
of reason itself, their own convictions and confessions.
Secondly. In his joint confession with Luther, that the church doth not
use the secular power to compel men to the faith and profession of the
truth, he condemneth, as before I have observed,—
First. His former implication, viz., that they may be compelled when they
are convinced of the truth of it.
Secondly. Their own practice who suffer no man of any different
conscience and worship to live in their jurisdiction, except that he
depart from his own exercise of religion and worship, differing from the
worship allowed of in the civil state, yea, and also actually submit to
come to their church.
[Sidenote: Hearing of the word of God in a church estate a part of God’s
worship.]
Which, however it is coloured over with this varnish, viz., that men are
compelled no further than unto the hearing of the word, unto which all
men are bound, yet it will appear, that teaching and being taught in a
church estate is a church worship, as true and proper a church worship as
the supper of the Lord, Acts ii. 46.
Secondly. All persons, papist and protestant, that are conscientious,
have always suffered upon this ground especially, that they have refused
to come to each other’s church or meeting.
CHAP. LXXIV.
[Sidenote: Papists’ plea for toleration of conscience.]
_Peace._ The next passage in the author which the answerer descends
unto, is the testimony of the papists themselves, a lively and shining
testimony, from scriptures alleged both against themselves and all that
associate with them (as power is in their hand) in such unchristian and
bloody both tenents and practices.
“As for the testimony of the popish book,” saith he,[193] “we weigh it
not, as knowing whatever 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.”
_Truth._ I answer, although both writings and practices have been such,
yet the scriptures and expressions of truth alleged and uttered by them,
speak loud and fully for them when they are under the hatches, that
for their conscience and religion they should not there be choked and
smothered, but suffered to breathe and walk upon the decks, in the air
of civil liberty and conversation, in the ship of the commonwealth, upon
good assurance given of civil obedience to the civil state.
[Sidenote: The protestants partial in the case of persecution.]
Again, if this practice be so abominable in his eyes from the papists,
viz., that they are so partial as to persecute when they sit at helm, and
yet cry out against persecution when they are under the hatches, I shall
beseech the righteous Judge of the whole world to present, as in a water
or glass where face answereth to face, the faces of the papist to the
protestant, answering to each other in the sameness of partiality, both
of this doctrine and practice.
When Mr. Cotton and others have formerly been under hatches, what sad and
true complaints have they abundantly poured forth against persecution!
How have they opened that heavenly scripture, Cant. iv. 8, where
Christ Jesus calls his tender wife and spouse from the fellowship with
persecutors in their dens of lions and mountains of leopards?
But coming to the helm, as he speaks of the papists, how, both by
preaching, writing, printing, practice, do they themselves—I hope in
their persons lambs—unnaturally and partially express towards others the
cruel nature of such lions and leopards?
[Sidenote: A false balance in God’s matters abominable to God.]
Oh! that the God of heaven might please to tell them how abominable in
his eyes are a weight and a weight, a stone and a stone, in the bag of
weights!—one weight for themselves when they are under hatches, and
another for others when they come to helm.
Nor shall their confidence of their being in the truth, which they judge
the papists and others are not in, no, nor the truth itself, privilege
them to persecute others, and to exempt themselves from persecution,
because (as formerly)—
[Sidenote: Sheep cannot hunt, no, not the wolves.]
First, it is against the nature of true sheep to persecute, or hunt
the beasts of the forest: no, not the same wolves who formerly have
persecuted themselves.[194]
Secondly, if it be a duty and charge upon all magistrates, in all parts
of the world, to judge and persecute in and for spiritual causes, then
either they are no magistrates who are not able to judge in such cases,
or else they must judge according to their consciences, whether pagan,
Turkish, or anti-christian.
[Sidenote: Pills to purge out the spirit of persecution.]
Lastly, notwithstanding their confidence of the truth of their own
way, yet the experience of our fathers’ errors, our own mistakes and
ignorance, the sense of our own weaknesses and blindness in the depths
of the prophecies and mysteries of the kingdom of Christ, and the great
professed expectation of light to come which we are not now able to
comprehend, may abate the edge, yea, sheath up the sword of persecution
toward any, especially [toward] such as differ not from them in doctrines
of repentance, or faith, or holiness of heart and life, and hope of
glorious and eternal union to come, but only in the way and manner of the
administrations of Jesus Christ.
CHAP. LXXV.
_Peace._ To close this head of the testimony of writers, it pleaseth the
answerer to produce a contrary testimony of Austin, Optatus, &c.[195]
[Sidenote: Superstition and persecution have had many votes from God’s
own people.]
_Truth._ I readily acknowledge, as formerly I did concerning the
testimony of princes, that anti-christ is too hard for Christ at votes
and numbers; yea, and believe that in many points, wherein the servants
of God these many hundred years have been fast asleep, superstition and
persecution have had more suffrages and votes from God’s own people, than
hath either been honourable to the Lord, or peaceable to their own or
the souls of others: therefore, not to derogate from the precious memory
of any of them, let us briefly consider what they have in this point
affirmed.
To begin with Austin: “They murder,” saith he, “souls, and themselves are
afflicted in body, and they put men to everlasting death, and yet they
complain when themselves are put to temporal death.”[196]
[Sidenote: Austin’s saying for persecution examined.]
I answer, this rhetorical persuasion of human wisdom seems very
reasonable in the eye of flesh and blood; but one scripture more prevails
with faithful and obedient souls than thousands of plausible and eloquent
speeches: in particular,
[Sidenote: Soul-killing.]
First, the scripture useth soul-killing in a large sense, not only for
the teaching of false prophets and seducers, but even for the offensive
walking of Christians: in which respect, 1 Cor. viii. 9, a true
Christian may be guilty of destroying a soul for whom Christ died, and
therefore by this rule ought to be hanged, burned, &c.
Secondly, that plausible similitude will not prove that every false
teaching or false practice actually kills the soul, as the body is slain,
and slain but once; for souls infected or bewitched may again recover, 1
Cor. v.; Gal. v.; 2 Tim. ii., &c.[197]
[Sidenote: Punishments provided by Christ Jesus against soul-killers and
soul-wounders.]
Thirdly, for soul-killings, yea, also for soul-woundings and grievings,
Christ Jesus hath appointed remedies sufficient in his church. There
comes forth a two-edged sword out of his mouth (Rev. i. and Rev. ii.),
able to cut down heresy, as is confessed: yea, and to kill the heretic:
yea, and to punish his soul everlastingly, which no sword of steel can
reach unto in any punishment comparable or imaginable. And therefore,
in this case, we may say of this spiritual soul-killing by the sword of
Christ’s mouth, as Paul concerning the incestuous person, 2 Cor. ii. [6,]
_Sufficient is this punishment_, &c.
Fourthly, although no soul-killers, nor soul-grievers, may be suffered
in the spiritual state, or kingdom of Christ, the church; yet he hath
commanded that such should be suffered and permitted to be and live in
the world, as I have proved on Matt. xiii.: otherwise thousands and
millions, of souls and bodies both, must be murdered and cut off by civil
combustions and bloody wars about religion.
[Sidenote: Men dead in sin cannot be soul-killed. A national enforced
religion, or a civil war for religion, the two great preventers of
soul-conversion and life.]
Fifthly, I argue thus: the souls of all men in the world are either
naturally dead in sin, or alive in Christ. If dead in sin, no man can
kill them, no more than he can kill a dead man: nor is it a false
teacher, or false religion, that can so much prevent the means of
spiritual life, as one of these two:—either the force of a material
sword, imprisoning the souls of men in a state or national religion,
ministry, or worship: or, secondly, civil wars and combustions for
religion’s sake, whereby men are immediately cut off without any longer
means of repentance.
Now again, for the souls that are alive in Christ, he hath graciously
appointed ordinances powerfully sufficient to maintain and cherish that
life—armour of proof able to defend them against men and devils.
Secondly, the soul once alive in Christ, is like Christ himself, Rev. i.
18, alive for ever, Rom. vi. 8; and cannot die a spiritual death.
[Sidenote: Soul-killers prove, by the grace of Christ, soul-savers.]
Lastly, grant a man to be a false teacher, a heretic, a Balaam, a
spiritual witch, a wolf, a persecutor, breathing out blasphemies against
Christ and slaughters against his followers, as Paul did, Acts ix. 1, I
say, these who appear soul-killers to-day, by the grace of Christ may
prove, as Paul, soul-savers to-morrow: and saith Paul to Timothy, 1 Tim.
iv. [16,] _Thou shalt save thyself and them that hear thee_: which all
must necessarily be prevented, if all that comes within the sense of
these soul-killers must, as guilty of blood, be corporally killed and put
to death.[198]
CHAP. LXXVI.
[Sidenote: Optatus examined.]
_Peace._ Dear Truth, your answers are so satisfactory to Austin’s speech,
that if Austin himself were now living, methinks he should be of your
mind. I pray descend to Optatus, “who,” saith the answerer, “justifies
Macarius for putting some heretics to death, affirming that he had done
no more herein than what Moses, Phineas, and Elias had done before him.”
[Sidenote: Persecutors leave Christ, and fly to Moses for their practice.]
_Truth._ These are shafts usually drawn from the quiver of the ceremonial
and typical state of the national church of the Jews, whose shadowish and
figurative state vanished at the appearing of the body and substance, the
Sun of righteousness, who set up another kingdom, or church, Heb. xii.
[27,] ministry and worship: in which we find no such ordinance, precept,
or precedent of killing men by material swords for religion’s sake.
More particularly concerning Moses, I query what commandment, or practice
of Moses, either Optatus, or the answerer here intend? Probably that
passage of Deut. xiii. [15,] wherein Moses appointed a slaughter, either
of a person or a city, that should depart from the God of Israel,
with whom that national church was in covenant. And if so, I shall
particularly reply to that place in my answer to the reasons hereunder
mentioned.[199]
Concerning Phineas’s zealous act:
[Sidenote: Phineas’s act discussed.]
First, his slaying of the Israelitish man, and woman of Midian, was not
for spiritual but corporal filthiness.
Secondly, no man will produce his fact as precedential to any minister
of the gospel so to act, in any civil state or commonwealth; although I
believe in the church of God it is precedential, for either minister or
people, to kill and slay with the two-edged sword of the Spirit of God,
any such bold and open presumptuous sinners as these were.
Lastly, concerning Elijah: there were two famous acts of Elijah of a
killing nature:
First, that of slaying 850 of Baal’s prophets, 1 Kings xviii. [40.][200]
Secondly, of the two captains and their fifties, by fire, &c.
[Sidenote: Elijah’s slaughters examined.]
For the first of these, it cannot figure, or type out, any material
slaughter of the many thousands of false prophets in the world by any
material sword of iron or steel: for as that passage was miraculous,[201]
so find we not any such commission given by the Lord Jesus to the
ministers of the Lord. And lastly, such a slaughter must not only extend
to all the false prophets in the world, but, according to the answerer’s
grounds, to the many thousands of thousands of idolaters and false
worshippers in the kingdoms and nations of the world.
[Sidenote: Elijah’s consuming the two captains and their companions by
fire, discussed.]
For the second act of Elijah, as it was also of a miraculous nature, so,
secondly, when the followers of the Lord Jesus, Luke ix. [54,] proposed
such a practice to the Lord Jesus, for injury offered to his own person,
he disclaimed it with a mild check to their angry spirits, telling them
plainly they knew not what spirits they were of: and addeth that gentle
and merciful conclusion, that he came not to destroy the bodies of men,
as contrarily anti-christ doth—alleging these instances from the Old
Testament, as also Peter’s killing Ananias, Acts v. 5, and Peter’s vision
and voice, _Arise, Peter, kill and eat_, Acts x. 13.
CHAP. LXXVII.
_Peace._ You have so satisfied these instances brought by Optatus, that
methinks Optatus and the answerer himself might rest satisfied.
I will not trouble you with Bernard’s argument from Rom. xiii., which you
have already on that scripture so largely answered. But what think you,
lastly, of Calvin, Beza, and Aretius?
_Truth._ Ans. Since matters of fact and opinion are barely related by
the answerer without their grounds, whose grounds, notwithstanding, in
this discourse are answered—I answer, if Paul himself were joined with
them, yea, or an angel from heaven bringing any other rule than what the
Lord Jesus hath once delivered, we have Paul’s conclusion and resolution,
peremptory and dreadful, Gal. i. 8.
_Peace._ This passage finished, let me finish the whole by proposing one
conclusion of the author of the arguments,[202] viz., “It is no prejudice
to the commonwealth, if liberty of conscience were suffered to such
as fear God indeed: Abraham abode a long time amongst the Canaanites,
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., xxi., xxiii., xxiv.
“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
different in religion, Gen. xxxi.
“The people of Israel were about four hundred and thirty years in that
infamous land of Egypt, and afterwards seventy years in Babylon: all
which times they differed in religion from the states, Exod. xii., and 2
Chron. xxxvi.
“Come to the time of Christ, where Israel was under the Romans, where
lived divers sects of religion, as Herodians, Scribes, and Pharisees,
Sadducees and Libertines, Theudæans and Samaritans, beside the common
religion of the Jews, and Christ and his apostles. All which differed
from the common religion of the state, which was like the worship of
Diana, which almost the whole world then worshipped, Acts xix., xx.
“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 wisely appeased them, Acts xviii. 14, and xix. 35.”
Unto this the answerer returns thus much:—[203]
“It is true, that without prejudice to the commonwealth, liberty of
conscience may be suffered to such as 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 a
heretic, after once or twice admonition, and so after conviction, and
any other scandalous and heinous offender, may be tolerated either in
the church without excommunication, or in the commonweal without such
punishment as may preserve others from dangerous and damnable infection.”
CHAP. LXXVIII.
_Truth._ I here observe the answerer’s partiality, that none but such as
truly fear God should enjoy liberty of conscience; whence the inhabitants
of the world must either come into the estate of men fearing God, or else
dissemble a religion in hypocrisy, or else be driven out of the world.
One must follow. The first is only the gift of God; the second and third
are too commonly practised upon this ground.
Again. Since there is so much controversy in the world where the name
of Christ is taken up, concerning the true church, the ministry, and
worship, and who are those that truly fear God; I ask, who shall judge in
this case, who be they that fear God?
[Sidenote: Dangerous consequences flowing from the civil magistrates
judging in spiritual causes. The world turned upside down.]
It must needs be granted, that such as have the power of suffering, or
not suffering such consciences, must judge: and then must it follow,
as before I intimated, that the civil state must judge of the truth of
the spiritual; and then magistrates fearing or not fearing God, must
judge of the fear of God; also, that their judgment or sentence must be
according to their conscience, of what religion soever: or that there
is no lawful magistrate, who is not able to judge in such cases. And
lastly, that since the sovereign power of all civil authority is founded
in the consent of the people, that every common weal hath radically and
fundamentally in it a power of true discerning the true fear of God,
which they transfer to their magistrates and officers: or else, that
there are no lawful kingdoms, cities, or towns in the world, in which a
man may live, and unto whose civil government he may submit: and then, as
I said before, there must be no world, nor is it lawful to live in it,
because it hath not a true discerning spirit to judge them that fear or
not fear God.
[Sidenote: The wonder-answer of the ministers of the church of New
England to the ministers of the church of Old England.]
Lastly. Although this worthy answerer so readily grants, that liberty of
conscience should be suffered to them that fear God indeed: yet we know
what the ministers of the churches of New England wrote in answer to the
thirty-two questions sent to them by some ministers of Old England,[204]
viz., that although they confessed them to be such persons whom they
approved of far above themselves, yea, who were in their hearts to live
and die together; yet if they, and other godly people with them, coming
over to them, should differ in church constitution, they then could not
approve their civil cohabitation with them, and, consequently, could not
advise the magistrates to suffer them to enjoy a civil being within their
jurisdiction.
_Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth! yea, let the heavens be
astonished, and the earth tremble_, at such an answer as this from such
excellent men to such whom they esteem for godliness above themselves!
CHAP. LXXIX.
_Peace._ Yea, but they say, they doubt not if they were there but they
should agree; for, say they, either you will come to us, or you may
show us light to come to you, for we are but weak men, and dream not of
perfection in this life.
[Sidenote: Lamentable differences even amongst them that fear
God. Between the presbyterians and independents, covenanters and
non-covenanters, of both which many are truly godly in their persons.]
_Truth._ Alas, who knows not what lamentable differences have been
between the same ministers of the church of England, some conforming,
others leaving their livings, friends, country, life, rather than
conform; when others again, of whose personal godliness it is not
questioned, have succeeded by conformity unto such forsaken (so called)
livings? How great the present differences, even amongst them that fear
God, concerning faith, justification, and the evidence of it? concerning
repentance and godly sorrow, as also and mainly concerning the church,
the matter, form, administrations, and government of it?
Let none now think that the passage to New England by sea, or the nature
of the country, can do what only the key of David can do, to wit, open
and shut the consciences of men.
Beside, how can this be a faithful and upright acknowledgment of their
weakness and imperfection, when they preach, print, and practise such
violence to the souls and bodies of others, and by their rules and
grounds ought to proceed even to the killing of those whom they judge so
dear unto them, and in respect of godliness far above themselves?
CHAP. LXXX.
_Peace._ Yea; but, say they, the godly will not persist in heresy, or
turbulent schism, when they are convinced in conscience, &c.
[Sidenote: The doctrine of persecution necessarily, and most commonly,
falls heaviest upon the most godly persons.]