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TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER

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ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.

Two things there be, which have been ever found working much mischief to the Church of God, and the advancement of truth; force on one side restraining, and hire on the other side corrupting the teachers thereof. Few ages have been since the ascension of our Saviour, wherein the one of these two, or both together, have not prevailed. ** The former shall be at this time my argument; the latter as I shall find God disposing me, and opportunity inviting. What I argue, shall be drawn from the Scripture only; and therein from true fundamental principles of the gospel, to all knowing christians undeniable. And if the governors of this commonwealth, since the rooting out of prelates, have made least use of force in religion, and most have favoured christian liberty of any in this island before them since the first preaching of the gospel, for which we are not to forget our thanks to God, and their due praise; they may, I doubt not, in this treatise, find that which not only will confirm them to defend still the christian liberty which we enjoy, but will incite them also to enlarge it, if in aught they yet straiten it. **

It will require no great labour of exposition, to unfold what is here meant by matters of religion; being as soon apprehended as defined, such things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and service of God; and are either above the reach and light of nature without revelation from above, and therefore liable to be variously understood by human reason, or such things as are enjoined or forbidden by divine precept, which else by the light of reason would seem indifferent to be done or not done; and so likewise must needs appear to every man as the precept is understood. Whence I here mean by conscience or religion that full persuasion, whereby we are assured, that our belief and practice, as far as we are able to apprehend and probably make appear, is according to the will of God and his holy spirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather than any law of man, as not only his word every where bids us, but the very dictate of reason tells us. Acts iv. 19. "Whether it be right in the sight of God, to hearken to you more than to God, judge ye." That for belief or practice in religion, according to this conscientious persuasion, no man ought to be punished or molested by any outward force on earth whatsoever, I distrust not, through God's implored assistance, to make plain by these following arguments.

First, it cannot be denied, being the main foundation of our protestant religion, that we of these ages, having no other divine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one another as a common ground, but the Holy Scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the holy spirit so interpreting that scripture as warrantable only to ourselves, and to such whose conciences we can so persuade, can have no other ground in matters of religion but only from the Scrip

tures. And these being not possible to be understood without this divine illumination, which no man can know at all times to be in himself, much less to be at any time for certain in any other, it follows clearly, that no man or body of men in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters of religion to any other men's consciences but their own. And therefore those Bereans are commended, Acts xvii. 11. who after the preaching even of St. Paul," searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so.' "****.

It is the general consent of all sound protestant wri-ters that neither traditions, councils, nor canons of any visible church, much less edicts of any magistrate or civil session, but the scripture only, can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, and that only in the conscience of every christian to himself. Which: protestation made by the first public reformers of our religion against the imperial edicts of Charles the fifth, imposing church-traditions without scripture, gave first beginning to the name of Protestant; and with that name hath ever been received this doctrine, which prefers the scripture before the church, and acknowledges none but the scripture sole interpreter of itself to the conscience.** But if any man shall pretend that the scripture judges to his conscience for other men, he makes himself greater not only than the church, but also than the scripture, than the consciences of other men: a presumption too high for any mortal. *** Chiefly for. this cause do all true protestants account the pope Antichrist, for that he assumes to himself this infallibility over both the conscience and the scripture; "sitting in the temple of God," as it were opposite to God, "and exalting himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped," 2 Thess. ii. 4. That is to say, not only above

all judges and magistrates, who though they be called Gods, are far beneath infallible; but also above God himself, by giving law both to the scripture, to the conscience, and to the spirit itself of God within us. ***

Seeing then that in matters of religion, as hath been proved, none can judge or determine here on earth, no not Church-governors themselves against the consciences of other believers, my inference is, or rather not mine but our Saviour's own, that in those matters they neither can command nor use constraint, lest they run rashly on a pernicious consequence, forewarned in that parable, Matt. xiii. from the 29th to the 31st verse: "Lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, gather ye together first the tares," &c. *** But some will object, that this overthrows all church-discipline, all censure of errors, if no man can determine. My answer is, that what they hear is plain scripture, which forbids not church-sentence or determining, but as it ends in violence upon the conscience unconvinced. ****

Thus then, if church-governors cannot use force in religion, though but for this reason, because they cannot infallibly determine to the conscience without convincement, much less have civil magistrates authority to use force where they can much less judge; unless they mean only to be the civil executioners of them who have no civil power to give them such commission, no nor yet ecclesiastical, to any force or violence in religion. To sum up all in brief, if we must believe as the magistrate appoints, why not rather as the church? If not as either without convincement, how can force be lawful? But some are ready to cry out, What shall

then be done to blasphemy? Them I would first exhort not thus to terrify and pose the people with a Greek word; but to teach them better what it is, being a most usual and common word in that language to signify any slander, any malicious or evil speaking, whether against God or man, or any thing to good belonging.** If this suffice not, I refer them to that prudent` and welldeliberated act, August 9, 1650, where the parliament defines blasphemy against God, as far as it is a crime belonging to civil judicature, plenius ac melius Chry sippo et Crantore; in plain English, more wearily, more judiciously, more orthodoxally than twice their number of divines have dua in many a prolix volume. **

But we shall not carry it thus; another Greek apparition stands in our way, Heresy and Heretic; in like nianner also railed at to the people as in a tongue unknown. They should first interpret to them, that Here-sy, by what it signifies in that language, is no word of evil note, meaning only the choice or following of any opinion good or bad in religion, or any other learning :: and thus not only in heathen authors, but in the New Testament itself, without censure or blame; Acts xv. 5, "Certain of the heresy of the Pharisees which believ-ed;" and xxvi. 5, "After the exactest heresy of our religion I lived a Pharisee." In which sense presbyterian or independent may without reproach be called a heresy.. Where it is mentioned with blame, it seems to differ little from schism; 1 Cor. xi. 18, 19, "I hear that there be schims among you, &c.. for there must also heresies be among you," &c. Though some, who write of heresy after their own heads, would make it far worse: than schism; whenas on the contrary, schism signifies division, and in the worst sense; heresy, choice only

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