Is it ingenuous to ask liberty, and not to give it? What greater
hypocrisy than for those who were oppressed by the bishops to become
the greatest oppressors themselves so soon as their yoke was removed.
I could wish that they who call for liberty now also had not too much
of that spirit, if the power were in their hands!
As for profane persons, blasphemers, such as preach sedition; the
contentious railers, evil speakers, who seek by evil words to corrupt
good manners, persons of loose conversation--punishment from the
Civil Magistrate ought to meet with these. Because, if they pretend
conscience; yet walking disorderly and not according but contrary to
the gospel and even to natural lights, they are judged of all. And
their sins being open make them subjects of the magistrate's sword,
who ought not to bear it in vain.--The discipline of the Army _was_
such, that a man would not be suffered to remain there, of whom we
could take notice that he was guilty of such practices as those....
... And if it be my "liberty" to walk abroad in the fields, or to
take a journey, yet it is not my wisdom to do so when my house is on
fire!