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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 or 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 the 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 heresy, 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' sake." How, for conscience' sake 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 tyranny over the state; now, against Erastus and state-tyranny over the church. If from such uncertain, or rather such improbable grounds as these, they endue magistracy 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, Jerom and Austin, whom Erasmus and others, in their notes on the New Testament, have cited to interpret that cutting off which St. Paul wished to them who had brought back the

Galatians to circumcision, no less than the amercement of their whole virility; and Grotius adds, that this concising punishment of circumcisers became a penal law thereupon among the Visigoths-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 honour 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. 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 authority than to be called the church, and above Scripture believed,-which renders his practice both contrary 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

The

to himself, ought, by the common doctrine of Protestants, to be forced or molested for religion.

But as for Popery and Idolatry, 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 principality 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 heresy 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 voluntary servitude to man's law, forfeits her Christian liberty. 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 Popery in the most Popish point. Lastly, for Idolatry, who knows it not to be evidently against all Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, and therefore a true heresy, or rather an impiety, 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, though 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 with.

out 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 charity, 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 charity, 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 in religion. If, then, both our belief and 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 endued with freedom, but from love and charity 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 hypocrisy, 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. I 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 adversary, not his aid or instrument in governing the church. 2 Cor. x. 3-6 : 66 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 captivity 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 boisterous 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 begun and spread over the whole