as foon apprehended as defined, fuch things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and fervice 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 reafon, or fuch things as are eujoined or forbidden by divine precept, which elfe by the light of reafon would feem indifferent to be done or not done; and fo likewife nuft needs appear to every man as the precept is underftood. Whence I here mean by coufcience or religion that full perfuafion, whereby we are affured, 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 reafon tells us. Acts iv. 19. "Whether it be right in the fight of God, to hearken to you more than to God, judge ye." That for belief or practice in religion, according to this confcientious perfuafion, no man ought to be punished or molefted by any outward force on earth whatfoever, I diftruft not, through God's implored affiftance, to make plain by these tollowing arguments.

Firft, it cannot be denied, being the main foundation of our proteftant religion, that we of thefe 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 fpirit fo interpreting that fcripture as warrantable only to ourselves, and to fuch whofe confciences we can fo perfuade, can have no other ground in matters of religion but only from the Scriptures. And thefe being not poffible to be underfood without this divine illumination, which no man can know at all times to be in himfelf, much lefs to be at any time for certain in any other, it follows clearly, that no man or body of men in thefe times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters of religion to any other men's confciences but their own. And therefore thofe Bercans are commended, Acts xvii. 11. who after the preaching even of St. Paul, fearched the Scriptures

Scriptures daily, whether thofe things were fo." Nor did they more than what God himfelf in many places commands us by the fame Apoftle, to fearch, to try, to judge of these things ourfelves: and gives us reafon alfo, Gal. vi, 4, 5. "Let every man prove his own work, and then fhall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another: for every man fhall bear his own burden." If then we count it fo ignorant and irreligious in the papift, to think himself difcharged in God's account, believing only as the Church believes, how much greater condemnation will it be to the protestant his condemner, to think himfelf juftified, believing only as the ftate believes? With good caufe, therefore, it is the general confent of all found proteftant writers, that neither traditions, councils, nor canons of any vifible church, much lefs edicts of any magiftrate or civil feffion, but the fcripture only, can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, and that only in the confcience of every chriftian to himself. Which

proteftation made by the firft public reformers of our religion against the imperial edicts of Charles the fifth, impofing church-traditions without fcripture, gave first beginning to the name of Proteftant; and with that name hath ever been received this doctrine, which prefers the fcripture before the church, and acknowledges none but the fcripture fole interpreter of itself to the confcience. For if the church be not fufficient to be implicitly believed, as we hold it is not, what can there elfe be named of more authority than the church_but the confcience, than which God only is greater, 1 John iii, 20? But if any man fhall pretend that the fcripture judges to his confcience for other men, he makes himself greater not only than the church, but also than the fcripture, than the confciences of other men : a prefumption too high for any mortal, fince every true christian, able to give a reafon of his faith, hath the word of God before him, the promised holy fpirit, and the mind of Chrift 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 impofed upon him by others, whom VOL. III,

Y

he

he inwardly neither knows nor can know; at leaft knows nothing of them more fure than this one thing, that they cannot be his judges in religion. 1 Cor. ii, 15, "The spiritual man judgeth all things, but he himfelf is judged of no man." Chiefly for this caufe do all true proteftants account the pope Antichrift, for that he affumes to himfelf this infallibility over both the confcience and the fcripture; "fitting in the temple of God," as it were oppofite to God, "and exalting himself above all that is called God, or is worshipped, 2 Theff. ii, 4. That is to fay, not only above all judges and magiftrates, who though they be called Gods, are far beneath infallible; but also above God himself, by giving law both to the fcripture, to the confcience, and to the fpirit itself of God within us. Whenas we find, James iv, 12, "There is one lawgiver, who is able to fave and to deftroy: Who art thou that judgeft another?" That Chrift is the only lawgiver of his church, and that it is here meant in religious matters, no wellgrounded chriftian will deny. Thus alfo St. Paul, Rom. xiv, 4, "Who art thou that judgeft the fervant of another? to his own lord he ftandeth or falleth: but he fhall ftand; for God is able to make him ftand." As therefore of one beyond expreffion bold and prefumptuous, both thefe Apoftles demand, "Who art thou," that prefumeft to impose other law or judgment in religion than the only lawgiver and judge Chrift, who only can fave and deftroy, gives to the confcience? And the forecited place to the Theffalonians, by compared effects, refolves us, that be he or they who or wherever they be or can be, they are of far lefs authority than the church, whom in these things as protestants they receive not, and yet no lefs Antichrift in this main point of Antichriftianifm, no less a pope or popedom than he at Rome, if not much more, by fetting up fupreme interpreters of fcripture either thofe doctors whom they follow, or, which is far worfe, them, felves as a civil papacy affuming unaccountable fupremacy to themfelves, not in civil only, but in ecclefiaftical caufes. Seeing then that in matters of religion, as hath been proved, none can judge or determine here

on

on earth, no not Church-governors themfelves against the confciences of other believers, my inference is, or rather not mine but our Saviour's own, that in those matters they neither can command nor ufe constraint, left they run rafhly on a pernicious confequence, forewarned in that parable, Matt. xiii, from the 29th to the 31ft verfe: "Left while ye gather up the tares, ye root up alfo the wheat with them. Let both grow

together until the harveft: and in the time of harvest I will fay to the reapers, gather ye together firft the tares," &c. Whereby he declares, that this work neither his own minifters nor any elfe can difcerningly. enough or judgingly perform without his own immediate direction, in his own fit feafon, 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 apoftles had no dominion or conftraining power over faith or confcience, much lefs have ordinary minifters, 1 Pet. v, 2, 3, "Feed the flock of God, &c. not by constraint, neither as being lords over God's heritage." But fome will object, that this overthrows all church-difcipline, all cenfure of errours, if no man can determine. My anfwer is, that what they hear is plain fcripture, which forbids not church-fentence or determining, but as it ends in violence upon the confcience unconvinced. Let whofo will interpret or determine, fo it be according to true church-discipline, which is exerciled on them only who have willingly joined themselves in that covenant of union, and proceeds only to a feparation from the reft, proceeds never to any corporal inforcement or forfeiture of money, which in all fpiritual things are the two arms of Antichrift, not of the true church; the one being an inquifition, the other no better than a temporal indulgence of fin for money, whether by the church exacted or by the magiftrate; both the one and the other a temporal fatisfaction for what Chrift hath fatisfied eternally; a popith commuting of penalty, corporal for fpiritual: a fatisfaction to man, efpecially to the magiftrate, for what and to whom we owe none: thefe and more are the injuftices of force and fining in religion,

Y 2

religion, befides what I moft infift on, the violation of God's exprefs commandment in the gospel, as hath been shewn. Thus then, if church-governors cannot ufe force in religion, though but for this reafon, because they cannot infallibly determine to the confcience without convincement, much lefs have civil magiftrates authority to use force where they can much lefs judge; unless they mean only to be the civil executioners of them who have no civil power to give them fuch commiffion, no nor yet ecclefiaftical, to any force or violence in religion. To fum up all in brief, if we must believe as the magiftrate appoints, why not rather as the church? If not as either without convincernent, how can force be lawful? But fome are ready to cry out, what fhall then be done to blafphemy? Them I would firft exhort not thus to terrify and pofe the people with a Greek word; but to teach them better what it is, being a moft ufual and common word in that language to fignify any flander, any malicious or evil fpeaking, whether againft God or man, or any thing to good belonging: Blafphemy or evil fpeaking against God maliciously, is far from confcience in religion, according to that of Mar. ix, 39, "There is none who doth a powerful work in my name, and can likely speak evil of me." If this fuffice not, I refer them to that prudent and well-deliberated act, August 9, 1650, where the parliament defines blafphemy against God, as far as it is a crime belonging to civil judicature, plenius ac melius Chryfippo & Crantore; in plain Englifh, more warily, more judicioufly, more orthodoxally than twice their number of divines have done in many a prolix volume: although in all likelihood they whole whole ftudy and profeffion these things are, fhould be moft intelligent and authentic therein, as they are for the most part, yet neither they nor thefe unerring always, or infallible. But we fhall not carry it thus; another Greek apparition ftands in our way, Herefy and Heretic; in like manner alfo railed at to the people as in a tongue unknown. They fhould firft interpret to them, that Herefy, by what it fignifies in that language, is no word of evil note, meaning only the choice

or