Two things there be which have been ever found working much mischief
to the church of God, and the advancement of truth; force on the 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.
It can be at no time therefore unseasonable to speak of these
things; since by them the church is either in continual detriment
and oppression, or in continual danger. 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
libertie 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 libertie which we enjoy, but will incite them also to
enlarge it, if in ought they yet straighten it. To them who perhaps
hereafter, less experienced in religion, may come to govern or give
us laws, this or other such, if they please, maybe a timely
instruction: however, to the truth it will be, at all times, no
unneedful testimonie; at least some discharge of that general dutie
which no christian but, according to what he hath received, knows is
required of him, if he have ought more conducing to the advancement
of religion than what is usually endeavoured, freely to impart.
It will require no great labour of exposition to unfold what is here
meant by matters of religion; being as soon apprehended as designed,
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 unto you more than unto 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, have no other divine
rule or authoritie 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 whole consciences we can
so persuade, can have no other ground in matters of religion but
only from the scriptures. 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 man
in these times can be the infallible judges or determiners in
matters of religion to any other mens 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.” Nor did they more than what God
himself in many places commands us by the same apostle, to search,
to try, to judge of these things ourselves: and gives us reason
also, (Gal. vi. 4, 5.) “let every man prove his own work, and then
shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another: for
every man shall bear his own burden.” If then we count it so
ignorant and irreligious in the papist to think himself discharged
in God’s account, believing only as the church believes, how much
greater condemnation will it be to the protestant his condemner, to
think himself justified, believing only as the state believes?
With good cause therefore, it is the general consent of all sound
protestant writers, that neither traditions, counsels, 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 publick
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. For if the church be not sufficient to be
implicitly believed, as we hold it is not, what can there else be
named of more authoritie than the church but the conscience; than
which God only is greater? (1 John iii. 20.) 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; since every true christian able to give a reason of
his faith, hath the word of God before him, the promised holy
spirit, and the mind of Christ within him. (1 Cor. ii. 16.) A much
better and safer guide of conscience, which as far as concerns
himself he may far more certainly know, than any outward rule
imposed upon him by others whom he inwardly neither knows nor can
know, at least knows nothing of them more sure than this one thing,
that they cannot be his judges in religion. (1 Cor. ii. 15.) “The
spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himself is judged of no
man.”
Chiefly for this cause do all true protestants account the pope
antichrist, for that he assumes to himself this infallibilitie 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 worshiped,” (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. Whereas we find, (James iv. 12.)
“there is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art
thou that judgest another?” That Christ is the only lawgiver of his
church and that it is here meant in religious matters, no well
grounded christian will deny. Thus also St. Paul, (Rom. xiv. 4.)
“who art thou that judgest the servant of another? To his own lord
he standeth or falleth: but he shall stand; for God is able to make
him stand.” As therefore, of one beyond expression bold and
presumptuous, both these apostles demand, “who art thou” that
presumest to impose other law or judgment in religion than the only
lawgiver and judge Christ, who only can save and can destroy, gives
to the conscience? And the forecited place to the Thessalonians by
compared effects resolves us, that be he or they who or wherever
they be or can be, they are of far less authoritie than the church,
whom in these things as protestants they receive not, and yet no
less antichrist in this main point of antichristianism, no less a
pope or popedom than he at Rome, if not much more; by setting up
supreme interpreters of scripture either those doctors whom they
follow, or, which is far worse, themselves as a civil papacie
assuming unaccountable supremacie to themselves not in civil only
but ecclesiastical causes.
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 verse 26, to 31: “least 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.” whereby he declares that this work
neither his own ministers, nor any else, can discerningly enough or
judgingly perform without his own immediate direction, in his own
fit season; and that they ought till then not to attempt it. Which
is further confirmed 2 Cor. i. 24. “not that we have dominion over
your faith, but are helpers of your joy.” If apostles had no
dominion or constraining power over faith or conscience, much less
have ordinary ministers. (1 Pet. v. 2, 3.) “Feed the flock of God
not by constraint, &c. neither as being lords over God’s heritage.”
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. Let who so will interpret or determine, so it be
according to true church-discipline; which is exercised on them only
who have willingly joined themselves in that covenant of union, and
proceeds only to a separation from the rest, proceeds never to any
corporal inforcement or forfeiture of monie; which in spiritual
things are the two arms of antichrist, not of the true church; the
one being an inquisition, the other no better than a temporal
indulgence of sin for monie, whether by the church exacted or by the
magistrate; both the one and the other a temporal satisfaction for
what Christ hath satisfied eternally; a popish commuting of
penaltie, corporal for spiritual; a satisfaction to man, especially
to the magistrate, for what and to whom we owe none: these and more
are the injustices of force and fining in religion, besides what I
most insist on, the violation of God’s express commandment in the
gospel, as hath been shewn. 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 authoritie to use force, where they can
much less judge; unless they mean only to be 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
blasphemie? Them I would first exhort not thus to terrifie 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 signifie any
slander, any malicious or evil speaking, whether against God or man
or any thing to good belonging: blasphemie or evil speaking against
God maliciously, is far from conscience in religion according to
that of Mark ix. 39. “there is none who doth a powerful work in my
name, and can lightly speak evil of me.” If this suffice not, I
reset them to that prudent and well deliberated act of August 9,
1650; where the parliament defines blasphemie against God, as far as
it is a crime belonging to civil judicature, “plenius ac Melius
Chrysippo and Crantore;” in plain English, more warily, more
judiciously, more orthodoxally, than twice their number of divines
have done in many a prolix volume: although in all likelihood they,
whose whole studie and profession these things are, should be most
intelligent and authentic therein, as they are for the most part,
yet neither they, nor these, unerring always or infallible.
But we shall not carry it thus; another Greek apparition stands in
our way, “heresie” and “heresie,” in a manner also railed at to the
people as in a tongue unknown. They should first interpret to them,
that heresie, 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 heresie of the pharisees which
believed,” and xxvi. 5. “after the exactest heresie of religion I
lived a pharisee.” In which sense, presbyterian or independent may
without reproach be called a heresie. Where it is mentioned with
blame, it seems to differ little from schism; (1 Cor. xi. 18. 19.)
“I hear that there be schisms among you, &c. ;” though some who
write of heresie after their own heads, would make it far worse than
schism; whereas on the contrarie, schism signifies division, and in
the worst sense; heresie, choice only of one opinion before another,
which may be without discord. In apostolic times, therefore, ere the
scripture was written, heresie was a doctrine maintained against the
doctrine by them delivered: which, in these times, can be no
otherwise defined than a doctrine maintained against the light,
which we now only have, the scripture.
Seeing therefore that no man, no synod, no session of men, through
called the church, can judge definitively the sense of scripture to
another man’s conscience, which is well known to be a general maxim
of the protestant religion, it follows plainly, that he who holds in
religion that belief or those opinions which to his conscience and
utmost understanding appear with most evidence or probability in the
scripture, though to others he seem erroneous, can no more be justly
censured for a heretic than his censurers; who do but the same thing
themselves while they censure him for so doing. For ask them or any
protestant, which hath most authoritie, the church or the scripture?
They will answer, doubtless, that the scripture: and what hath most
authoritie, that no doubt but they will confess is to be followed.
He then who to his best apprehension follows the scripture, though
against any point of doctrine by the whole church received, is not
the heretic; but he who follows the church against his conscience
and persuasion grounded on the scripture.
To make this yet more undeniable, I shall only borrow a plain
similie, the same which our own writers, when they would demonstrate
plainest that we rightly prefer the scripture before the church, use
frequently against the papist in this manner. As the Samaritans
believed Christ, first for the woman’s word, but next and much
rather for his own, so we the scripture; first on the church’s word,
but afterwards and much more for its own, as the word of God; yea
the church itself we believe then for the scripture. The inference
of itself follows; if by the protestant doctrine we believe the
scripture not for the church’s saying, but for its own, as the word
of God, then ought we to believe what in our conscience we apprehend
the scripture to say, though the visible church with all her doctors
gainsay; and being taught to believe them only for the scripture,
they who so do are not heretics, but the best protestants: and by
their opinions, whatever they be, can hurt no protestant, whose rule
is not to receive them but from the scripture: which to interpret
convincingly to his own conscience none is able but himself, guided
by the holy spirit and not so guided, none than he to himself can be
a worse deceiver.
To protestants therefore whose common rule and touchstone
is the scripture: nothing can with more conscience, more equitie,
nothing more protestantly can be permitted than a free and lawful
debate at all times by writing, conference, or disputation of what
opinion soever, disputable by scripture: concluding, that no man in
religion is properly a heretic at this day, but he who maintains
traditions or opinions not probable by scripture; who, for ought I
know, is the papist only; he the only heretic, who counts all
heretics but himself. Such as these, indeed, were capitally punished
by the laws of Moses, as the only true heretics, idolaters, plain
and open deserters of God and his known law: but in the gospel such
are punished by ex-communion only; (Tit. iii. 10.) “an heretic,
after the first and second admonition, reject.”
But they who think not this heavy enough, and understand not that
dreadful awe and spiritual efficacie which the apostle hath expressed
so highly to be in church-discipline, (2 Cor. x.) of which anon; and
think weakly that the church of God cannot long subsist but in a
bodily fear, for want of other proof, will needs wrest that place of
S. Paul, (Rom. xiii.) to set up civil inquisition, and give power to
the magistrate both of civil judgment and punishment in causes
ecclesiastical. But let us see with what strength of argument. “Let
every soul be subject to the higher powers.” First, how prove they
that the apostle means other powers than such as they to whom he
writes were then under; who meddled not at all in ecelesiastical
causes, unless as tyrants and persecutors; and from them, I hope,
they will not derive either the right of magistrates to judge in
spiritual things, or the duty of such our obedience. How prove they
next, that he intitles them here to spiritual causes, from whom he
withheld, as much as in him lay, the judging of civil. (1 Cor. vi.
1, &c.) If he himself appealed to Caesar, it was to judge his
innocence, not his religion. “For rulers are not a terror to good
works, but to the evil;” then are they not a terror to conscience,
which is the rule or judge of good works grounded on the scripture.
But heresie, they say, is reckoned among evil works; (Gal. V. 20.)
as if all evil works were to be punished by the magistrate; whereof
this place, their own citation, reckons up besides heresie a
sufficient number to confute them; “uncleanness, wantonness,
enmitie, strife, emulations, animosities, contentions, envyings;” all
which are far more manifest to be judged by him than heresie, as
they define it; and yet I suppose they will not subject these evil
works, nor many more such like, to his cognisance and punishment.
“Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good
and thou shalt have praise of the same.” This shews that religious
matters are not here meant; wherein from the power here spoken of
they could have no praise. “For he is the minister of God to thee
for good.” True; but in that office, and to that end, and by those
means, which in this place must be clearly found, if from this place
they intend to argue. And, how for thy good by forcing, oppressing,
and insnaring thy conscience? Many are the ministers of God, and
their offices no less different than many; none more different than
state and church-government. Who seeks to govern both, must needs be
worse than any lord prelate or church-pluralist: for he in his own
facultie and profession, the other not in his own, and for the most
part not thoroughly understood, makes himself supreme lord or pope
of the church as far ash is civil jurisdiction stretches, and all
the ministers of God therein, his ministers, or his curates rather
in the function only, not in the government: while he himself
assumes to rule by civil power things to be ruled only by spiritual:
when as this very chapter, v. 6. Appointing him his peculiar office,
which requires utmost attendance, forbids him this worse than
church-plurality from that full and weighty charge, wherein alone he
is “the minister of God, attending continually on this very thing.”
To little purpose will they here instance Moses, who did all by
immediate divine direction; no, nor yet Asa, Jehoshaphat, or Josiah,
who both might when they pleased receive answer from God, and had a
commonwealth by him delivered them, incorporated with a national
church exercised more in bodily than in spiritual worship, so as
that the church might be called a commonwealth and the whole
commonwealth a church: nothing of which can be said of
christianitie, delivered without the help of magistrates, yea in the
midst of their opposition; how little then with any reference to
them or mention of them, save only of our obedience to their civil
laws, as they countenance good and deter evil: which is the proper
work of the magistrate, following in the same verse, and shews
distinctly wherein he is the minister of God, “a revenger to execute
wrath on him that doth evil.” But we must first know who it is that
doth evil: the heretic they say among the first. Let it be known
then certainly who is a heretic: and that he who holds opinions in
religion professedly from tradition, of his own inventions, and not
from scripture but rather against it, is the only heretic; and yet
though such, not always punishable by the magistrate, unless he do
evil against a civil law, properly so called, hath been already
proved without need of repetition.
“But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid.” To do by scripture
and gospel according to conscience is not to do evil; if we thereof
ought not to be afraid, he ought not by his judging to give cause.
Causes therefore of religion are not here meant. “For he beareth not
the sword in vain.” Yes altogether in vain, if it smite he knows not
what; if that for heresie, which not the church itself, much less
he, can determine absolutely to be so; if truth for error, being
himself so often fallible, he bears the sword not in vain only, but
unjustly and to evil. “Be subject not only for wrath, but for
conscience fake.” How, for conscience fake against conscience? By
all these reasons it appears plainly that the apostle in this place
gives no judgment or coercive power to magistrates, neither to those
then, nor these now, in matters of religion; and exhorts us no
otherwise than he exhorted those Romans.
It hath now twice befallen me to assert, through God’s assistance,
this most wrested and vexed place of scripture; heretofore, against
Salmasius and regal tyrannie over the state; now, against Erastus
and state-tyrannie over the church. If, from such uncertain or
rather such improbable grounds as these, they endue magistracie
with spiritual judgment, they may as well invest him in the same
spiritual kind with power of utmost punishment, excommunication; and
then turn spiritual into corporal, as no worse authors did than
Chrysostom, Jerome and Austine, whom Erasmus and others, in their
notes on the new Testament, have cited to interpret that cutting
off, which S. Paul wished to them who had brought back the Galatians
to circumcision, no less than the amercement of their whole
virilitie; and Grotius adds that this concising punishment of
circumcisers became a penal law thereupon among the Visigothes: a
dangerous example of beginning in the spirit to end so in the flesh:
whereas that cutting off much likelier seems meant a cutting off
from the church, not unusually so termed in scripture, and a zealous
imprecation, not a command. But I have mentioned this passage to
shew how absurd they often prove who have not learned to distinguish
rightly between civil power and ecclesiastical.
How many persecutions, then imprisonments, banishments, penalties
and stripes! How much bloodshed have the forcers of conscience to
answer for, and protestants rather than papists! For the papist,
judging by his principles, punishes them who believe not as the
church believes, though against the scripture: but the protestant,
teaching every one to believe the scripture, though against the
church, counts heretical and persecutes, against his own principles,
them who in any particular so believe as he in general teaches them;
them, who most honor and believe divine scripture, but not against
it any human interpretation, though universal; them, who interpret
scripture only to themselves, which by his own position none but
they to themselves can interpret; them who use the scripture no
otherwise by his own doctrine to their edification, than he himself
uses it to their punishing; and so, whom his doctrine acknowledges a
true believer, his discipline persecutes as a heretic. The papist
exacts our belief as to the church due above scripture; and by the
church, which is the whole people of God, understands the pope, the
general councils prelatical only, and the surnamed fathers: but the
forcing protestant though he deny such belief to any church
whatsoever, yet takes it to himself and his teachers, of far less
authoritie than to be called the church, and above scripture
believed: which renders his practice both contrarie to his belief,
and far worse than that belief which he condemns in the papist. By
all which well considered, the more he professes to be a true
protestant, the more he hath to answer for his persecuting than a
papist. No protestant therefore, of what sect soever, following
scripture only, which is the common sect wherein they all agree, and
the granted rule of every man’s conscience to himself, ought, by the
common doctrine of protestants, to be forced or molested for
religion.
But as for poperie and idolatrie, why they also may not hence plead
to be tolerated, I have much less to say. Their religion the more
considered, the less can be acknowledged a religion; but a Roman
principalitie rather, endeavouring to keep up her old universal
dominion under a new name and mere shadow of a catholic religion;
being indeed more rightly named a catholic heresie against the
scripture; supported mainly by a civil, and, except in Rome, by a
foreign power: justly therefore to be suspected, not tolerated by
the magistrate of another country. Besides, of an implicit faith,
which they profess, the conscience also becomes implicit; and so by
voluntarie servitude to man’s law, forfeits her christian libertie.
Who then can plead for such a conscience, as being implicitly
enthralled to man instead of God, almost becomes no conscience, as
the will, not free, becomes no will. Nevertheless, if they ought not
to be tolerated, it is for just reason of state more than of
religion; which they who force, though professing to be protestants,
deserve as little to be tolerated themselves, being no less guilty
of poperie in the most popish point. Lastly, for idolatrie, who
knows it not to be evidently against all scripture both of the old
and new Testament, and therefore a true heresie, or rather an
impietie; wherein a right conscience can have nought to do; and the
works thereof so manifest, that a magistrate can hardly err in
prohibiting and quite removing at least the public and scandalous
use thereof.
From the riddance of these objections, I proceed yet
to another reason, why it is unlawful for the civil magistrate to
use force in matters of religion; which is, because to judge in
those things, thought we should grant him able, which is proved he
is not, yet as a civil magistrate he hath no right. Christ hath a
government of his own, sufficient of itself to all his ends and
purposes in governing his church, but much different from that of
the civil magistrate: and the difference in this very thing
principally consists, that it governs not by outward force, and that
for two reasons. First, because it deals only with the inward man, and
his actions, which are all spiritual, and to outward force not
liable. Secondly, to shew us the divine excellence of his spiritual
kingdom, able without worldly force, to subdue all the powers and
kingdoms of this world, which are upheld by outward force only.
That the inward man is nothing else but the inward part of man, his
understanding and his will, and that his actions thence proceeding;
yet not simply thence, but from the work of divine grace upon them,
are the whole matter of religion under the gospel, will appear
plainly by considering what that religion is; whence we shall
perceive yet more plainly that it cannot be forced. What evangelic
religion is, is told in two words, faith and charitie; or belief and
practice. That both these flow either the one from the
understanding, the other from the will, or both jointly from both,
once indeed naturally free, but now only as they are regenerate and
wrought on by divine grace, is in part evident to common sense and
principles unquestioned, the rest by scripture: concerning our
belief, (Matt. xvi. 17.) “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but my father which is in heaven: concerning our practice, as
it is religious and not merely civil, Gal. V. 22. 23. and other
places declare it to be the fruit of the spirit only. Nay our whole
practical duty in religion is contained in charitie, or the love of
God and our neighbour, no way to be forced, yet the fulfilling of
the whole law; that is to say, our whole practice, which comprehend
our whole religion, flow from faculties of the inward man, free and
unconstrainable of themselves by nature, and our practice not only
from faculties indued with freedom, but from love and charitie
besides, incapable of force; and all these things by transgression
lost, but renewed and regenerated in us by the power and gift of
God-alone, how can such religion as this admit of force from man, or
force be any way applied to such religion, especially under the free
offer of grace in the gospel, but it must forthwith frustrate and
make of no effect both the religion and the gospel. And that to
compel outward profession, which they will say perhaps ought to be
compelled though inward religion cannot, is to compel hypocrisie,
not to advance religion, shall yet, though of itself clear enough,
be ere the conclusion further manifest.
The other reason why Christ rejects outward force in the government
of his church, is, as I said before, to shew us the divine
excellence of his spiritual kingdom, able without worldly force to
subdue all the powers and kingdoms of this world, which are upheld
by outward force only; by which to uphold religion otherwise than to
defend the religious from outward violence, is no service to Christ
or his kingdom, but rather a disparagement, and degrades it from a
divine and spiritual kingdom to a kingdom of this world: which he
denies it to be, because it needs not force to confirm it: (John
xviii. 36.) “If my kingdom were of this world, then would my
servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the jews.” This
proves the kingdom of Christ not governed by outward force; as being
none of this world, whose kingdoms are maintained all by force only:
and yet disproves not that a christian commonwealth may defend
itself against outward force in the cause of religion as well as in
any other; though Christ himself, coming purposely to die for us,
would not be so defended. (1 Cor. i. 27.) “God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.” Then
surely he hath not chosen the force of this world to subdue
conscience and conscientious men, who in this world are counted
weakest: but rather conscience, as being weakest, to subdue and
regulate force, his adversarie, not his aid or instrument in
governing the church. (2 Cor. x. 3. 4. 5. 6.) “For though we walk in
the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: for the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down
of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into
captivitie every thought to the obedience of Christ: and having in a
readiness to avenge all disobedience.” It is evident by the first
and second verses of this chapter, that the apostle here speaks of
that spiritual power by which Christ governs his church, how all
sufficient it is, how powerful to reach the conscience and the
inward man, with whom it chiefly deals, and whom no power else can
deal with. In comparison of which, as it is here thus magnificently
described, how uneffectual and weak is outward force with all her
boistrous tools, to the shame of those Christians, and especially
those churchmen, who to the exercising of church discipline never
cease calling on the civil magistrate to interpose his fleshly
force; an argument that all true ministerial and spiritual power is
dead within them: who think the gospel, which both began and spread
over the whole world for above three hundred years under heathen and
persecuting emperors, cannot stand or continue, supported by the
same divine presence and protection to the world’s end, much easier
under the defensive favour only of a christian magistrate, unless it
be enacted and settled, as they call it, by the state, a statute or
a state-religion: and understand not that the church itself cannot,
much less the state, settle or impose one tittle of religion upon
our obedience implicit, but can only recommend or propound it to our
free and conscientious examination: unless they mean to set the
state higher than the church in religion, and with a gross
contradiction give to the state in their settling petition that
command of our implicit belief, which they deny in their settled
confession both to the state and to the church. Let them cease then
to importune and interrupt the magistrate from attending to his own
charge in civil and moral things, the settling of things just,
things honest, the defence of things religious settled by the
churches within themselves; and the repressing of their contraries
determinable by the common light of nature; which is not to
constrain or to repress religion, probable by scripture, but the
violators and persecutors thereof: of all which things he hath
enough and more than enough to do, left yet undone; for which the
land groans and justice goes to wrack the while: let him also
forbear force where he hath no right to judge; for the conscience is
not his province: least a worse woe arrive him, for worse offending,
than was denounced by our saviour, (Matt. xxiii. 23.) against the
pharisees: ye have forced the conscience, which was not to be
forced; but judgment and mercy ye have not executed: this ye should
have done, and the other let alone. And since it is the counsel and
set purpose of God in the gospel by spiritual means which are
counted weak, to overcome all power which resists him; let them not
go about to do that by worldly strength, which he hath decreed to do
by those means which the world counts weakness, lest they be again
obnoxious to that saying, which in another place is also written of
the pharisees, (Luke vii. 30.) “that they frustrated the counsel of
God.” The main plea is, and urged with much vehemence to their
imitation, that the kings of Judah, as I touched before, and
especially Josiah, both judged and used force in religion; (2 Chr.
xxxiv. 33.) “he made all that were present in Israel to serve the
Lord their God.” An argument, if it be well weighed, worse than that
used by the false prophet Shemaiah to the high priest, that in
imitation of Jehoiada he ought to put Jeremiah in the stocks, (Jer.
xxix. 24, 26, &c.) for which he received his due denouncement from
God.
But to this besides I return a three-fold answer: first, that
the state of religion under the gospel is far differing from what it
was under the law; then was the stare of rigour, childhood, bondage
and works, to all which force was not unbefitting; now is the state
of grace, manhood, freedom and faith; to all which belongs
willingness and reason, not force: the law was then written on
tables of stone, and to be performed according to the letter,
willingly or unwillingly; the gospel, our new covenant, upon the
heart of every believer, to be interpreted only by the sense of
charitie and inward persuasion: the law had no distinct government
or governors of church and commonwealth, but the priests and levites
judged in all causes not ecclesiastical only but civil, (Deut. xvii.
8, &c.) which under the gospel is forbidden to all church ministers,
as a thing which Christ their master in his ministerie disclaimed,
(Lu. xii. 14.) as a thing beneath them; (1 Cor. vi. 4.) and by many
of our statutes, as to them who have a peculiar and far differing
government of their own. If not, why different the governors? Why
not church ministers in state affairs, as well as state ministers in
church affairs? If church and state shall be made one flesh again as
under the law, let it be withal considered, that God who then joined
them hath now severed them; that which he so ordaining, was then a
lawful conjunction; to such on either side as join again what he
hath severed, would be nothing now but their own presumptuous
fornication.
Secondly, the kings of Judah, and those magistrates
under the law, might have recourse, as I said before, to divine
inspiration; which our magistrates under the gospel have not, more
than to the same spirit, which those whom they force have oft times
in greater measure than themselves: and so, instead of forcing the
christian, they force the holy ghost; and, against that wise
forewarning of Gamaliel, fight against God.
Thirdly, those kings and magistrates used force in such things only
as were undoubtedly known and forbidden in the law of Moses,
idolatrie and direct apostacie from that national and strict
enjoined worship of God; whereof the corporal punishment was by
himself expressly set down: but magistrates under the gospel, our
free, elective and rational worship, are most commonly busiest to
force those things which in the gospel are either left free, nay
sometimes abolished, when by them compelled, or else controverted
equally by writers on both sides, and sometimes with odds on that
side which is against them. By which means they either punish that
which they ought to favour and protect, or that with corporal
punishment and of their own inventing, which not they but the church
hath received command to chastise with a spiritual rod only. Yet
some are so eager in their zeal of forcing, that they refuse not to
descend at length to the utmost shift of that parabolical proof,
Luke xiv. 16, &c. “compel them to come in:” therefore, magistrates
may compel in religion. As if a parable were to be strained through
every word or phrase, and not expounded by the general scope
thereof: which is no other here, than the earnest expression of
God’s displeasure on those recusant jews, and his purpose to prefer
the gentiles on any terms before them; expressed here by the word
“compel.”
But how compels he? Doubtless no otherwise than he draws, without
which no man can come to him, (John vi. 44.) and that is by the
inward persuasive motions of his spirit, and by his ministers; not
by the outward compulsions of a magistrate or his officers.
The true people of Christ, as is foretold, (Psalm cx. 3.) “are a
willing people in the day of his power.” Then much more now when he
rules all things by outward weakness, that both his inward power and
their sinceritie may the more appear. “God loveth a cheerful giver:”
then certainly is not pleased with an uncheerful worshipper; as the
very words declare of his evangelical invitations. (Isa. lv. i.)
“Ho, every one that thirsteth, come.” (John vii. 37.) “If any man
thirst.” (Rev. iii. 18.) “I counsel thee.” and (xxii. 17.)
“whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” And in that
grand commission of preaching to invite all nations (Mark, xvi. 16.)
as the reward of them who come, so the penaltie of them who come not
is only spiritual.
But they bring now some reason with their force, which must not pass
unanswered; that the church of Thyatira was blamed, (Rev. ii. 20.)
for suffering the false “prophetess to teach and to seduce.” I
answer, that seducement is to be hindered by fit and proper means
ordained in church discipline; by instant and powerful demonstration
to the contrary; by opposing truth to error, no unequal match; truth
the strong, to error to the weak though fly and shifting. Force is
no honest confutation; but uneffectual, and, for the most part,
unsuccessful, ofttimes fatal to them who use it: sound doctrine
diligently and duly taught, is of herself both sufficient, and of
herself (if some secret judgment of God hinder not) always prevalent
against seducers. This the Thyatirans had neglected, suffering,
against church discipline, that woman to teach and seduce among
them: civil force they had not then in their power; being the
christian part only of that city, and then especially under one of
those ten great persecutions, whereof this, the second, was raised
by Domitian force, therefore, in these matters could not be required
of them, who were then under force themselves.
I have shewn that the civil power hath neither right nor can do
right by forcing religious things: I will now shew the wrong it
doth; by violating the fundamental privilege of the gospel, the new
birthright of every true believer, christian libertie. (2 Cor. iii.
17.) “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is libertie.” (Gal. iv.
26.) “Jerusalem which is above, is free; which is the mother of us
all;” and (31.) “we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the
free. It will be sufficient in this place to say no more of
christian libertie, than that it sets us free, not only from the
bondage of those ceremonies, but also from the forcible imposition
of those circumstances, place and time, in the worship of God,
which, though by him commanded in the old law, yet in respect of
that veritie and freedom which is evangelical, St. Paul comprehends
both kinds alike, that is to say, both ceremonie and circumstance,
under one and the same contemptuous name of “weak and beggarly
rudiments,” (Gal. iv. 3, 9, 10. Col. ii. 8. with 16.) conformable to
what our saviour himself taught, (John iv. 21.) “neither in this
mountain nor yet at Jerusalem. In spirit in truth: for the Father
seeketh such to worship him.” That is to say, not only sincere of
heart, for such he sought ever, but also, as the words here chiefly
import, not compelled to place, and by the same reason, not to any
set time, as his apostle by the same spirit hath taught us, (Rom.
xiv. 6, &c.) “one man esteemeth one day above another, another, &c.”
(Gal. iv. 10.) “Ye observe days and months, &c.” (Col. ii. 16.)
These, and other such places of scripture, the best and learnedest
reformed writers have thought evident enough to instruct us in our
freedom, not only from ceremonies, but from those circumstances
also, though imposed with a confident persuasion of moralitie in
them, which they hold impossible to be in place or time. By what
warrant then our opinions and practices are of late turned quite
against all other protestants, and that which is to them orthodoxal,
to us become scandalous and punishable by statute, I wish were once
again better considered; if we mean not to proclaim a schism, in
this point, from the best and most reformed churches abroad.
They who would seem more knowing, confess that these things are
indifferent, but for that very cause by the magistrate may be
commanded. As if God of his special grace in the gospel had to this
end freed us from his own commandments in these things, that our
freedom should subject us to a more grievous yoke, the commandments of
men. As well may the magistrate call that common or unclean which God
hath cleansed, forbidden to St. Peter; (Acts x. 15.) as well may he
loosen that which God hath straitened, or straiten that which God
hath loosened, as he may enjoin those things in religion which God
hath left free, and lay on that yoke which God hath taken off. For
he hath not only given us this gift as a special privilege and
excellence of the free gospel above the servile law, but strictly
also hath commanded us to keep it and enjoy it. (Gal. v. 13.) “You
are called to libertie.” (1 Cor. vii. 23.) “Be not made the servants
of men.” (Gal. v. 14.) “Stand fast, therefore, in the libertie
wherewith Christ has made us free; and be not entangled again with
the yoke of bondage.” Neither is this a mere command, but for the
most part, in these foresighted places, accompanied with the very
weightiest and inmost reasons of the christian religion. (Rom. xiv.
9. 10.) “For to this end, Christ both died, and rose and revived,
that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. But why dost thou
judge thy brother, &c?” how presumest thou to be his lord, to be
whose only lord, at least in these things, Christ both died, and
rose and lived again? “We shall all stand before the judgment seat
of Christ.” Why then dost thou not only judge, but persecute in
these things for which we are to be accountable to the tribunal of
Christ only, our Lord and lawgiver? (1 Cor. vii. 23.) “Ye are bought
with a price; be not made the servants of men.” Some trivial price
belike, and for some frivolous pretences paid in their opinion, if
bought and by him redeemed who is God, from what was once service of
God, we shall be enthralled again, and forced by men to what now is
but the service of men. (Gal. iv. 31, with v. 1.) “We are not
children of the bondwoman, &c. stand fast therefore, &c.” (Col. ii.
8.) “Beware lest any man spoil you, &c. after the rudiments of the
world, and not after Christ.” Solid reasons whereof are continued
through the whole chapter. Verse 10, “Ye are complete in him, which
is the head of all principalitie and power.” Not completed
therefore, or made the more religious, by those ordinances of civil
power, from which Christ their head hath discharged us; “blotting
out the hand-writing of ordinances, that was against us, which was
contrary to us; and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
ver. 14. blotting out ordinances written by God himself, much more
those so boldly written over again by men: ordinancies which were
against us, that is, against our frailtie, much more those that are
against our conscience. “Let no man therefore judge you in respect
of, &c. ver. 16. (Gal. iv. 3, &c.) “Even so we, when we were
children, were in bondage under the rudiments of the world: but when
the fulness of time were come, God sent forth his son, &c. to redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of
sons, &c. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son, &c. But
now, &c. how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly rudiments,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, &c.”
Hence it plainly appears, that if we be not free we are not sons,
but still servants unadopted; and if we turn again to those weak and
beggarly rudiments, we are not free; yea, though willingly, and with
a misguided conscience, we desire to be in bondage to them; how much
more then if unwillingly and against our conscience? Ill was our
condition changed from legal to evangelical, and small advantage
gotten by the gospel, if for the spirit of adoption to freedom,
promised us, we receive again the spirit of bondage to fear; if our
fear which was then servile towards God only, must be now servile in
religion towards men: strange also and preposterous fear, if when
and wherein it hath attained by the redemption of our saviour to be
filial only towards God, it must be now servile towards the
magistrate. Who, by subjecting us to his punishment in these things,
brings back into religion that law of terror and satisfaction,
belonging now only to civil crimes; and thereby in effect abolishes
the gospel, by establishing again the law to a far worse yoke of
servitude upon us than before.
It will, therefore, not misbecome the meanest christian to put in
mind christian magistrates, and so much the more freely, by how much
the more they desire to be thought christian, (for they will be
thereby, as they ought to be in these things, the more our brethren
and the less our lords,) that they meddle not rashly with christian
libertie, the birthright and outward testimonie of our adoption:
lest, while they little think it, nay think they do God service,
they themselves, like the sons of that bondwoman, be found
persecuting them who are freeborn of the spirit; and, by a sacrilege
of not the least aggravation, bereaving them of that sacred libertie
which our saviour with his own blood purchased for them.
A fourth reason why the magistrate ought not to use force in
religion, I bring from the consideration of all those ends which he
can likely pretend to the interposing of his force therein: and
those hardly can be other than, first the glory of God; next, either
the spiritual good of them whom he forces, or the temporal
punishment of their scandal to others. As for the promoting of God’s
glory, none, I think, will say that his glory ought to be promoted
in religious things by unwarrantable means, much less by means
contrarie to what he hath commanded. That outward force is such, and
that God’s glory in the whole administration of the gospel according
to his own will and counsel ought to be fulfilled by weakness, at
least so refuted, not by force; or if by force, inward and
spiritual, not outward and corporeal, is already proved at large.
That outward force cannot tend to the good of him who is forced in
religion, is unquestionable. For in religion whatever we do, under
the gospel, we ought to be thereof persuaded without scruple; and
are justified by the faith we have, not by the work we do. (Rom.
xiv. 5.) “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” The
other reason which follows necessarily, is obvious, (Gal. ii. 16.)
and in many other places of St. Paul, as the groundwork and
foundation of the whole gospel, that we are “justified by the faith
of Christ, and not by the works of the law.” If not by the works of
God’s law, how then by the injunctions of man’s law? Surely force
cannot work persuasion, which is faith; cannot therefore justify,
nor pacify, the conscience; and that which justifies not in the
gospel, condemns; is not only not good, but sinful to do. (Rom. xiv.
23.) “Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.” It concerns the
magistrate then to take heed, how he forces in religion
conscientious men: left, by compelling them to do that whereof they
cannot be persuaded, that wherein they cannot find themselves
justified, but by their own consciences condemned, instead of aiming
at their spiritual good, he force them to do evil; and while he
thinks himself Asa, Josiah, Nehemiah, he be found Jeroboam, who
caused Israel to sin; and thereby draw upon his own head all those
sins and shipwrecks of implicit faith and conformitie, which he hath
forced, and all the wounds given to those little ones, whom to
offend he will find worse one day than that violent drowning
mentioned Matt. xviii. 6.
Lastly, as a preface to force, it is the usual pretence, that
although tender consciences shall be tolerated, yet scandals thereby
given shall not be unpunished, prophane and licentious men shall not
be encouraged to neglect the performance of religious and holy
duties, by colour of any law giving libertie to tender consciences.
By which contrivance, the way lies ready open to them hereafter who
may be so minded, to take away by little and little, that libertie
which Christ and his gospel, not any magistrate, hath right to give:
though this kind of his giving be but to give with one hand and take
away with the other, which is a deluding not a giving.
As for scandals, if any man be offended at the conscientious
libertie of another, it is a taken scandal, not a given. To heal one
conscience, we must not wound another: and man must be exhorted to
beware of scandals in christian libertie, not forced by the
magistrate; lest while he goes about to take away the scandal, which
is uncertain whether given or taken, he take away our libertie,
which is the certain and the sacred gift of God, neither to be
touched by him, nor to be parted with by us. None more cautious of
giving scandal than St. Paul. Yet, while he made himself “servant to
all, that he might gain the more,” he made himself so of his accord,
was not made so by outward force, testifying at the same time that
he “was free from all men:” (1 Cor. ix. 19.) and thereafter exhorts
us also, (Gal. V. 13.) “Ye were called to libertie, &c. but by love
serve one another:” then not by force.
As for that fear, lest prophane and licentious men should be
encouraged to omit the performance of religious and holy duties, how
can that care belong to the civil magistrate, especially to his
force? For, if prophane and licentious persons must not neglect the
performance of religious and holy duties, it implies, that such
duties they can perform; which no protestant will affirm. They who
mean the outward performance, may so explain it, and then it will
appear more plainly, that such performance of religious duties,
especially by prophane and licentious persons, is a dishonouring,
rather than a worshiping of God, and not only by him not required,
but detested: (Pro. xxi. 27.) “The sacrifice of the wicked is an
abomination: how much more when he bringeth it with a wicked mind?
To compel, therefore, the prophane to things holy in his
prophaneness, is all one under the gospel, as to have compelled the
unclean to sacrifice in his uncleanness under the law.
And I add withal, that to compel the licentious in his
licentiousness, and the conscientious against his conscience, comes
all to one; tends not to the honour of God, but to the multiplying
and the aggravating of sin to them both. We read not that Christ
ever exercised force but once; and that was to drive prophane ones
out of his temple, not to force them in: and if their being there was
an offence, we find, by many other scriptures, that their praying
there was an abomination: and yet to the jewish law that nation, as
a servant, was obliged; but to the gospel, each person is left
voluntary, called only, as a son, by the preaching of the word; not
to be driven in by edicts and force of arms. For, if by the apostle,
(Rom. xii. 1) “we are beseeched, as brethren, by the mercies of God,
to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God,
which is our reasonable service” or worship, then is no man to be
forced by the compulsive laws of men, to present his body a dead
sacrifice, and so, under the gospel, most unholy and unacceptable,
because it is his unreasonable service, that is to say, not only
unwilling, but unconscionable. But if prophane and licentious
persons may not omit the performance of holy duties, why may they
not partake of holy things? Why are they prohibited the lord’s
supper; since both the one and the other action may be outward; and
outward performance of duty may attain at least an outward
participation of benefit? The church denying them that communion of
grace and thanksgiving, as it justly doth, why doth the magistrate
compel them to the union of performing that which they neither truly
can, being themselves unholy, and to do, seemingly is both hateful
to God, and perhaps no less dangerous to perform holy duties
irreligiously, than to receive holy signs or sacraments unworthily.
All prophane and licentious men, so known, can be considered but
either so without the church as never yet within it, or departed
thence of their own accord, or excommunicate: if never yet within
the church, whom the apostle, and so consequently the church, have
nought to do to judge them, (as he professes 1 Cor. v. 12.) by what
authoritie doth the magistrate judge, or, which is worse, compel, in
relation to the church? If departed of his own accord, like that
lost sheep Luke xv. 4, &c. the true church either with her own, or
any borrowed force, worries him not in again, but rather in all
charitable manner sends after him; and if she find him, lay him
gently on her shoulders; bears him, yea bears his burdens, his
errors, his infirmities any way tolerable, “so fulfilling the law of
Christ:” (Gal. vi. 2.) if excommunicate, whom the church hath bid go
out, in whose name doth the magistrate compel to go in? The church
indeed hinders none from hearing in her public congregation, for the
doors are open to all: nor excommunicates to destruction, but as
much as in her lies, to a final saving. Her meaning therefore must
needs be, that as her driving out brings on no outward penaltie, to
no outward force or penaltie of an improper and only a destructive
power, should drive in again her infectious sheep; therefore sent
out, because infectious, and not driven in, but with the danger not
only of the whole and sound, but also of his own utter perishing.
Since force neither instructs in religion, nor begets repentance or
amendment of life, but, on the contrarie, hardness of heart,
formalitie, hypocrisie, and, as I said before, every increase of
sin; more and more alienates the mind from a violent religion
expelling out and compelling in, and reduces it to a condition like
that which the Britons complain of in our story, driven to and
fro between the Picts and the sea. If, after excommunion he be found
intractable, incurable, and will not hear the church, he becomes as
one never yet within her pale, “a heathen or a publican,” (Matt
xviii. 17.) not further to be judged, no not by the magistrate,
unless for civil causes; but left to the final sentence of that
judge, whose coming shall be in flames of fire; that
Maran-athà, (1 Cor. xvi. 22) than which to him so left, nothing
can be more dreadful, and ofttimes to him particularly nothing more
speedy, that is to say, the Lord cometh: In the meanwhile, delivered
up to satan, (1 Cor. v. 5. 1 Tim. i. 20.) that is, from the fold of
Christ and kingdom of grace, to the world again, which is the kingdom
of satan: and as he was received “from darkness to light, and from the
power of satan to God,” (Acts xxvi. 18;) so now delivered up again
from light to darkness, and from God to the power of satan; yet so,
as is in both places manifested, to the intent of saving him,
brought sooner to contrition by spiritual, than by any corporal
severity.
But grant it belonging any way to the magistrate, that prophane and
licentious persons omit not the performance of holy duties, which in
them were odious to God even under the law, much more now under the
gospel, yet ought his care both as a magistrate and a christian, to
be much more that conscience be not inwardly violated, than that
licence in these things be made outwardly conformable: since his
part is undoubtedly as a christian, which puts him upon this office
much more than as a magistrate, in all respects to have more care of
the conscientious than of the prophane; and not for their sakes to
take away, (while they pretend to give,) or to diminish the rightful
libertie of religious consciences.
On these four scriptural reasons, as on a firm square, this truth,
the right of christian and evangelic libertie, will stand immovable
against all those pretended consequences of license and confusion,
which, for the most part, men most licentious and confused
themselves, or such as whose severity would be wiser than divine
wisdom, are ever aptest to object against the ways of God: as if God
without them, when he gave us this libertie, knew not of the worst
which these men in their arrogance pretend will follow: yet, knowing
all their worst, he gave us this libertie, as by him judged best.
As to those magistrates who think it their work to settle religion,
and those ministers or others, who so oft call upon them to do so, I
trust, that having well considered what hath been here argued,
neither they will continue in that intention, nor these in that
expectation from them: when they shall find that the settlement of
religion belongs only to each particular church by persuasive and
spiritual means within itself, and that the defence only of the
church belongs to the magistrate. Had he once learnt, not further to
concern himself with church affairs, half his labour might be
spared, and the commonwealth better tended. To which end, that which
I premised in the beginning, and in due place treated of more at
large, I desire now concluding, that they would consider seriously
what religion is: and they will find it to be in sum, both our
belief and our practice depending upon God only. That there can be
no place then left for the magistrate, of his force, in the
settlement of religion, by appointing either what we shall believe
in divine things, or practice in religious, (neither of which things
are in the power of man either to perform himself, or to enable
others,) I persuade me, in the christian ingenuitie of all religious
men, the more they examine seriously, the more they will find
clearly to be true: and find, how false and deceivable that common
saying is, which is so much relied upon, that the christian
magistrate is “custos utriusque tabulae,” keeper of both tables;
unless is meant by keeper, the defender only: neither can that maxim
be maintained, by any proof or argument which hath not in this
discourse, first or last, been refuted. For the two tables, or ten
commandments, teach our duty to God and our neighbour, from the love
of both; give magistrates no authority to force either: they seek
that from the judicial law; though on false grounds, especially in
the first table, as I have shewn; and both in first and second
executes that authoritie, for the most part, not according to God’s
judicial laws, but their own.
As for civil crimes, and of the outward man, which all are not, no
not of those against the second table, as that of covering; in them
what power they have, they had from the beginning, long before Moses
of the two tables were in being. And whether they be not now as
little in being to be kept by any christian, as they are two legal
tables, remains yet as undecided, as it is sure they never were yet
delivered to the keeping of any christian magistrate. But, of these
things, perhaps more some other time; what may serve the present
hath been above discoursed sufficiently out of the scriptures; and
to those produced, might be added testimonies, examples, experiences
of all succeeding ages to these times, asserting this doctrine but
having herein the scripture so copious and so plain, we have all
that can be properly called true strength and nerve; the rest would
be but pomp and incumbrance.
Pomp and oftentation of reading is admired among the vulgar: but
doubtless, in matters of religion, he is learnedest who is plainest.
The brevity I use, not exceeding a small MANUAL, will not,
therefore, I suppose, be thought the less considerable, unless with
them, perhaps, who think that great books only can determine great
matters. I rather chose the common rule, not to make much ado, where
less may serve; which, in controversies, and those especially of
religion, would make them less tedious, and by consequence read
oftener, by many more, and with more benefit.
THE END.