CHAP. XCVII.
Peace.The sixth question is this:—How far the church is subject to their laws?
“All those,” say they, “who are members of the commonweal are bound to be subject to all the just and righteous laws thereof, and therefore, membership in churches not cutting men off from membership in commonweals, they are bound to be subject, even every soul, Rom. xiii. 1, as Christ himself and the apostles were in their places wherein they lived. And therefore to exempt the clergy, as the papists do, from civil subjection, and to say thatgeneratio clericiiscorruptio subditi, is both sinful and scandalous to the gospel of God; and though all are equally subject, yet church members are more especially bound to yield subjection, and the most eminent most especially bound, not only because conscience doth more strongly bind, but also because their ill examples aremore infectious to others, pernicious to the state, and provoke God’s wrath to bring vengeance on the state.
“Hence, if the whole church, or officers of the church, shall sin against the state, or any person, by sedition, contempt of authority, heresy, blasphemy, oppression, slander, or shall withdraw any of their members from the service of the state without the consent thereof, their persons and estates are liable to civil punishments of magistrates, according to their righteous and wholesome laws, Exod. xxii. 20; Levit. xxiv. 16; Deut. xiii. 5, and xviii. 10.”
Truth.What concerns this head in civil things, I gladly subscribe unto: what concerns heresy, blasphemy, &c., I have plentifully before spoken to, and shall here only say two things.
First. Those scriptures produced concern only the people of God in a church estate, and must have reference only to the church of Christ Jesus, which, as Mr. Cotton confesseth,[210]is not national but congregational, of so many as may meet in one place, 1 Cor. xiv. [23.] and therefore no civil state can be the antitype and parallel: to which purpose, upon the eleventh question, I shall at large show the difference between the national church and state of Israel, and all other states and nations in the world.
The law of putting to death blasphemers of Christ, cuts off all hopes from the Jews of partaking in his blood.
Secondly. If the rulers of the earth are bound to put to death all that worship other gods than the true God, or that blaspheme (that is, speak evil of in a lesser or higher degree) that one true God: it must unavoidably follow, that thebeloved for the Father’s sake, the Jews, whose very religion blasphemeth Christ in the highest degree—I say,they are actually sons of death, and all to be immediately executed according to those quoted scriptures. And—
The direful effects of fighting for conscience.
Secondly. The towns, cities, nations, and kingdoms of the world, must generally be put to the sword, if they speedily renounce not their gods and worships, and so cease to blaspheme the true God by their idolatries. This bloody consequence cannot be avoided by any scripture rule, for if that rule be of force, Deut. xiii. and xviii., not to spare or show mercy upon person or city falling to idolatry, that bars out all favour or partiality; and then what heaps upon heaps in the slaughter-houses and shambles of civil laws must the world come to, as I have formerly noted; and that unnecessarily, it being not required by the Lord Jesus for his sake, and the magistrate’s power and weapons being essentially civil, and so not reaching to the impiety or ungodliness but the incivility and unrighteousness of tongue or hand.