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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30895	An apology for the true Christian divinity, as the same is held forth, and preached by the people, called, in scorn, Quakers being a full explanation and vindication of their principles and doctrines, by many arguments, deduced from Scripture and right reason, and the testimony of famous authors, both ancient and modern, with a full answer to the strongest objections usually made against them, presented to the King / written and published in Latine, for the information of strangers, by Robert Barclay ; and now put into our own language, for the benefit of his country-men.; Theologiae verè Christianae apologia. English	Barclay, Robert, 1648-1690.	1678 (1678)	Wing B721; ESTC R1740	415,337	436

him on whom God therefore truly accounteth Righteous and Just. This is so far from being the Doctrine of Papists that as the generality of them do not understand it so the learned among them oppose it and dispute against it and particularly Bellarmin Thus then as I may say the formal cause of Justification is not the works to speak properly they being but an effect of it but this inward Birth this Jesus brought forth in the heart who is the Well-beloved whom the Father cannot but accept and all those who thus are sprinkled with the Blood of Jesus and washed with it By this also comes that communication of the goods of Christ unto us by which we come to be made partakers of the Divine Nature as saith Peter ep 2. c. 1. v. 4. are made one with him as the Branches with the Vine and have a title and right to what he hath done and suffered for us So that his Obedience becomes ours his Righteousness ours his Death and Sufferings ours And by this nearness we come to have a sense of his Sufferings and to suffer with his Seed that yet lies pressed and crucified in the hearts of the ungodly and so travel with it and for its Redemption and for the repentance of those Souls that in it are crucifying as yet the Lord of Glory Even as the Apostle Paul who by his sufferings is said to fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ for his Body which is the Church Though this be a Mystery sealed up from all the wise men that are yet ignorant of this Seed in themselves and oppose it nevertheless some Protestants speak of this Justification by Christ inwardly put-on as shall hereafter be recited in its place Lastly though we place remission of sins in the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ performed by him in the flesh as to what pertains to the remote procuring cause and that we hold our selves formally justified by Christ Jesus formed and brought forth in us yet can we not as some Protestants have unwarily done exclude works from Justification for though properly we be not justified for them yet are we justified in them and they are necessary even as causa sine qua non i. e. the cause without which none are Justified For the denying of this as it 's contrary to the Scriptures Testimony so it hath brought a great scandal to the Protestant Religion opened the mouths of Papists and made many too secure while they have believed to be Justified without good works Moreover though it be not so safe to say they are meritorious yet seeing they are rewarded many of those called the Fathers have not spared to use the word merit which some of us have perhaps also done in a qualified sense but no ways to inferr the Popish abuses above mentioned And lastly if we had that notion of good works which most Protestants have we could freely agree to make them not only not necessary but reject them as hurtful viz. that the best works even of the Saints are defiled and polluted For though we judg so of the best works performed by man endeavouring a conformity to the outward Law by his own strength and in his own will yet we believe that such works as naturally proceed from this Spiritual Birth and formation of Christ in us are pure and Holy even as the Root from which they come and therefore God accepts them Justifies us in them and rewards us for them of his own Free Grace The state of the controversie being thus stated these following Positions do hence from arise in the next place to be proved § IV. First that the obedience sufferings and death of Christ is that by which the Soul obtains remission of sins and is the procuring cause of that Grace by whose inward workings Christ comes to be formed inwardly and the Soul to be made conformable unto him and so just and justified And that therefore in respect of this capacity and offer of Grace God is said to be reconciled not as if he were actually reconciled or did actually justifie or account any just so long as they remain in their sins really impure and unjust Secondly that it is by this inward Birth of Christ in man that man is made just and therefore so accounted by God wherefore to be plain we are thereby and not till that be brought forth in us formally if we must use that word justified in the sight of God because Justification is both more properly and frequently in Scripture taken in its proper signification for making one just and not reputing one meerly such and is all one with Sanctification Thirdly that since good works as naturally follow from this birth as heat from fire therefore are they of absolute necessity to Justification as causa sine qua non i. e. though not as the cause for which yet as that in which we are and without which we cannot be Justified And though they be not meritorious and draw no debt upon God yet he cannot but accept and reward them for it is contrary to his Nature to deny his own Since they may be perfect in their kind as proceeding from a Pure Holy Birth and Root Wherefore their judgment is false and against the Truth that say that the holyest works of the Saints are defiled and sinful in the sight of God For these good works are not the works of the Law excluded by the Apostle from Justification § V. As to the first I prove it from Rom. 3.25 Whom God hath set forth to be a Propitiation through Faith in his Blood to declare his Righteousness for the remission of sins that are past through the forbearance of God Here the Apostle holds forth the extent and efficacy of Christs death shewing that thereby and by Faith therein remission of sins that are past is obtained as being that wherein the forbearance of God is exercised towards mankind So that though men for the sins they daily commit deserve Eternal Death and that the Wrath of God should lay hold upon them yet by virtue of that most satisfactory Sacrifice of Christ Jesus the Grace and Seed of God moves in love towards them during the day of their visitation yet not so as not to strike against the evil for that must be burned up and destroyed but to redeem man out of the evil Secondly if God were perfectly reconciled with men and did esteem them just while they are actually unjust and do continue in their sins Then should God have no Controversie with them How comes he then so often to complain to expostulate so much throughout the whole Scripture with such as our Adversaries confess to be Justified telling them that their sins separate betwixt him and them Isa. 59.2 For where there is a perfect and full reconciliation there there is no separation Yea from this Doctrine it necessarily follows either that such for whom Christ died and whom he hath

was no other than of unjust to be made just through the Grace of God for Christ. He mentioneth more but this may suffice to our purpose § VIII Having thus sufficiently proved that by justification is to be understood a really being made righteous I do boldly affirm and that not only from a notional knowledg but from a real inward experimental feeling of the thing that the immediate nearest or formal cause if we must in condescendence to some use this word of a man's justification in the sight of God is the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Soul changing altering and renewing the mind by whom even the Author of this inward work thus formed and revealed we are truly justified and accepted in the sight of God For it is as we are thus covered and cloathed with him in whom the Father is alwaies well pleased that we may draw near to God and stand with confidence before his throne being purged by the blood of Jesus inwardly poured into our Souls and cloathed with his Life and Righteousness therein revealed And this is that order and method of Salvation held forth by the Apostle in that Divine saying Rom. 5.10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his Life For the Apostle first holding forth the reconciliation wrought by the death of Christ wherein God is near to receive and redeem man holds forth his Salvation and Justification to be by the Life of Jesus Now that this Life is an inward Spiritual thing revealed in the Soul whereby it is renewed and brought forth out of death where it naturally has been by the fall and so quickned and made alive unto God The same Apostle shews Eph. 2.5 Even when we were dead in sins and trespasses he hath quickened us together in Christ by whose Grace ye are saved and hath raised us up together Now this none will deny to be the inward work of renovation and therefore the Apostle gives that reason of their being saved by Grace which is the inward Vertue and Power of Christ in the Soul but of this place more hereafter Of the Revelation of this inward Life the Apostle also speaketh 2 Cor. 4.10 That the Life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our Bodies and ver 11. That the Life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal Flesh. Now this inward Life of Jesus is that whereby as is before observed he saith We are saved Secondly That it is by this revelation of Jesus Christ and the new Creation in us that we are justified doth evidently appear from that excellent saying of the Apostle included in the Proposition it self Tit. 3.5 according to his mercy he hath saved us by the washing of Regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost c. Now that whereby we are saved that we are also no doubt justified by which words are in this respect synonimous Here the Apostle clearly ascribes the immediate cause of Justification to this inward work of Regeneration which is Jesus Christ revealed in the Soul as being that which formerly states us in a capacity of being reconciled with God the washing or regeneration being that inward Power and Vertue whereby the Soul is cleansed and cloathed with the Righteousness of Christ so as to be made fit to appear before God Thirdly This Doctrin is manifest from 2 Cor. 13.5 Examine your own selves whether ye be in the faith prove your own selves know ye not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates First it appears here how earnest the Apostle was that they should know Christ in them so that he presses this exhortation upon them and inculcates it three times Secondly he makes the cause of reprobation or not-justification the want of Christ thus revealed and known in the Soul whereby it necessarily follows by the rule of contraries where the parity is alike as in this case it is evident that where Christ is inwardly known there the persons subjected to him are approved and justified For there can be nothing more plain than this that if we must know Christ in us except we be reprobates ortunjustified persons that if we know him in us we are not reprobates and consequently justified ones Like unto this is that other saying of the same Apostle Gal. 4.19 My little Children of whom I travel in Birth again until Christ be formed in you and therefore the Apostle terms this Christ within the hope of Glory Col. 1.27.28 Now that which is the hope of Glory can be no other than that which we immediately and most nearly relie upon for our Justification and that whereby we are really and truly made Just. And as we do not hereby deny but the Original and Fundamental cause of our Justification is the Love of God manifested in the appearance of Jesus Christ in the flesh who by his Life Death Sufferings and Obedience made a way for our Reconciliation and became a Sacrifice for the remission of sins that are past and purchased unto us this Seed and Grace from which this birth arises and in which Jesus Christ is inwardly received formed and brought forth in us in his own pure and Holy Image of Righteousness by which our Souls live unto God ond are cloathed with him and have put him on even as the Scripture speaks Eph. 4.23 24. Gal. 3.27 We stand justified and saved in and by him and by his Spirit and Grace Rom. 3.24 1 Cor. 6.11 Tit. 3.7 So again reciprocally we are hereby made partakers of the fulness of his merits and his cleansing blood is near to wash away every sin and infirmity and to heal all our back-slidings as often as we turn towards him by unfeigned Repentance and become renewed by his Spirit Those then that find him thus raised and ruling in them have a true ground of hope to believe that they are Justified by his Blood But let not any deceive themselves so as to foster themselves in a vain hope and confidence that by the Death and Sufferings of Christ they are Justified so long as sin lies at their door Gen. 4. v. 7. Iniquity prevails and they remain yet unrenewed and unregenerate lest it be said unto them I know you not Let that saying of Christ be remembred not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter but he that doth the will of my Father Matth. 7.21 To which let these excellent sayings of the beloved Disciple be added Little Children let no man deceive you he that doth Righteousness is Righteous even as he is Righteous He that committeth sin is of the Devil because if our heart condemn us God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things 1 Joh. 3.7 20. Many Famous Protestants bear witness to this inward Justification by Christ inwardly revealed and formed in man as 1. M. Borrhaeus In the Imputation saith he wherein Christ

deeds but only of his own pleasure and if he hath also decreed long before they were in being or in any capacity to do good or evil that they should walk in those wicked waies by which as by a secondary means they are led to that end who I pray is the first author and cause thereof but God who so willed and decreed This is as natural a consequence as any can be And therefore although many of the Preachers of this doctrine have sought out various strange strained and intricate distinctions to defend their opinion and evite this horrid consequence yet some and that of the most eminent of them have been so plain in the matter as they have put it beyond all doubt Of which I shall instance a few among many passages I say that by the ordination and will of God Adam fell God would have man to fall Man is blinded by the will and commandment of God We refer the causes of hardening us to God The highest or remote cause of hardening is the will of God It followeth that the hidden counsel of God is the cause of hardning These are Calvin's expressions God saith Beza hath predestinated not only unto damnation but also unto the causes of it whomsoever he saw meet The degree of God cannot be excluded from the causes of corruption It is certain saith Zanchius that God is the First cause of obduration Reprobates are held so fast under Gods Almighty decree that they cannot but sin and perish It is the opinion saith Paraeus of our Doctors that God did inevitably decree the temptation and fall of Man The creature sinneth indeed necessarily by the most just Judgment of God Our men do most rightly affirm that the fall of man was necessary and inevitable by accident because of Gods decree God saith Martyr doth incline and force the wills of wicked men into great sins God saith Zwinglius moveth the robber to kill He killeth God forcing him thereunto But thou wilt say he is forced to sin I permit truly that he is forced Reprobate Persons saith Piscator are absolutly ordained to this twofold end to undergo everlasting punishment and necessarily to sin and therefore to sin that they may be justly punished If these sayings do not plainly and evidently import that God is the Author of Sin we must not then seek these Mens opinions from their words but some way else it seems as if they had assumed to themselves that monstrous and twofold will they feign of God one by which they declare their minds openly and another more secret and hidden which is quite contrary to the other Nor doth it at all help them to say that man sins willingly since that willingness proclivity and propensity to evil is according to their judgment so necessarily imposed upon him that he cannot but be willing because God hath willed and decreed him so Which shift is just as if I should take a Child uncapable to resist me and throw it down from a great precipice the weight of the Childs body indeed makes it go readily down and the violence of the fall upon some rock or stone beats out its Brains and kills it Now then I pray though the body of the Child goes willingly down for I suppose it as to its mind is uncapable of any will and the weight of its body and not any immediate stroak of my hand who perhaps am at a great distance makes it die whether is the Child or I the proper cause of its death Let any man of reason judg if Gods's part be with them as great yea more immediate in the sins of men as by the testimonies above brought doth appear whether doth not this make him not only the Author of sins but more unjust than the unjustest of men § III. Secondly This Doctrine is injurious to God because it makes him delight in the death of sinners yea and to will many to die in their sins contrary to these Scriptures Ezek. 33.11 1 Tim. 2.3 2 Pet. 3.9 For if he hath created men only for this very end that he might show forth his Justice and Power in them as these men affirm and for effecting thereof hath not only with-held from them the means of doing good but also predestinated the evil that they might fall into it and that he inclines and forces them into great sins certainly he must necessarily delight in their death and will them to die seeing against his own will he neither doth nor can do any thing § IV. Thirdly It is highly injurious to Christ our Mediator and to the efficacy and excellency of his Gospel for it renders his mediation ineffectual as if he had not by his sufferings throughly broken down the middle wall nor yet removed the wrath of God or purchased the love of God towards all mankind if it was afore-decreed that it should be of no service to the far greater part of mankind It is to no purpose to alledg that the death of Christ was of efficacy enough to have saved all mankind if in effect its vertue be not so far exended as to put all mankind into a capacity of Salvation Fourthly It makes the preaching of the Gospel a meer mock and illusion if many of theseto whom it is preached be by an irrevocable decree excluded from being benefited by it it wholly makes useless the preaching of Faith and Repentance and the whole tenor of the Gospel promises and threatnings as being all relative to a former decree and means before appointed to such which because they cannot fail man needs do nothing but wait for that irresistible snatch which will come though it be but at the last hour of his Life if he be in the decree of Election And be his diligence and waiting what it can he shall never attain it if he belong to the decree of Reprobation Fifthly It makes the coming of Christ and his propitiatory Sacrifice which the Scripture affirms to have been the fruit of Gods love to the world and transacted for the sins and Salvation of all men to have been rather a testimony of Gods wrath to the world and one of the greatest judgments and severest acts of Gods indignation towards mankind it being only ordain'd to save a very few and for the hardening obduring and augmenting the condemnation of the far greater number of men because they believe not truly in it the cause of which unbelief again as the Divines so called above assert is the hidden counsel of God certainly the coming of Christ was never to them a testimony of Gods love but rather of his implacable wrath And if the World may be taken for the far greater number of such as live in it God never loved the world according to this Doctrine but rather hated it greatly in sending his Son to be crucified in it § V. Sixthly This Doctrine is highly injurious to mankind for it renders them in a far

by some citations out of them hereafter to be mentioned will appear though this Doctrine hath not since the Apostacy so far as ever I could observe been so distinctly and evidently held forth according to the Scriptures Testimony as it hath pleased God to reveal it and preach it forth in this day by the witnesses of his Truth whom he hath raised to that end Which Doctrine though it be briefly held forth and comprehended in the Thesis it self yet I shall a little more fully explain the state of the Controversie as it stands betwixt us and those that now oppose us § III. First then as by the explanation of the former Thesis appears we renounce all natural power and ability in our selves in order to bring us out of our lost and faln condition and first Nature and confess that of our selves we are able to do nothing that is good so neither can we procure remission of sins or justification by any act of our own so as to merit it or draw it as a debt from God due unto us but we acknowledg all to be of and from his Love which is the original and fundamental cause of our acceptance Secondly God manifested this love towards us in the sending of his Beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ into the world who gave himself for us an Offering and a Sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savour and having made peace through the blood of his Cross that he might reconcile us unto himself and by the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God and suffered for our sins the Just for the unjust that he might bring us unto God Thirdly then forasmuch as all men who have come to man's estate the Man Jesus only excepted have sinned therefore all have need of this Saviour to remove the Wrath of God from them due to their offences in this respect he is truly said to have born the Iniquities of us all in his Body on the Tree and therefore is the Only Mediator having qualified the Wrath of God towards us so that our former sins stand not in our way being by vertue of his most satisfactory Sacrifice removed and pardoned Neither do we think that remission of sins is to be expected sought or obtained any other way or by any works or Sacrifice whatsomever though as has been said formerly they may come to partake of this remission that are ignorant of the History So then Christ by his death and sufferings hath reconciled us to God even while we are Enemies that is he offers reconciliation unto us we are put into a capacity of being reconciled God is willing to forgive us our iniquities and to accept us as is well expressed by the Apostle 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath put in us the Word of Reconciliation And therefore the Apostle in the next verses treats them in Christs stead to be reconciled to God intimating that the Wrath of God being removed by the obedience of Christ Jesus he is willing to be reconciled unto them and ready to remit the sins that are past if they repent We consider then our Redemption in a two fold respect or state both which in their own Nature are perfect though in their application to us the one is not nor cannot be without respect to the other The first is the Redemption performed and accomplished by Christ for us in his Crucified Body without us The other is the Redemption wrought by Christ in us which no less properly is called and accounted a Redemption than the former The first then is that whereby man as he stands in the fall is put into a capacity of Salvation and hath conveighed unto him a measure of that Power Vertue Spirit Life and Grace that was in Christ Jesus which as the free Gift of God is able to counter-ballance overcome and root out the Evil Seed wherewith we are naturally as in the fall leavened The second is that whereby we witness and know this pure and perfect Redemption in our selves purifying cleansing and redeeming us from the power of Corruption and bringing us into unity Favour and Friendship with God By the first of these two we that are lost in Adam plunged in the bitter and corrupt Seed unable of our selves to do any good thing but naturally joyned and united to evil forward and propense to all iniquity servants and slaves to the Power and Spirit of Darkness are notwithstanding all this so far reconciled to God by the death of his Son while Enemies that we are put into a capacity of Salvation having the glad tidings of the Gospel of peace offered unto us and God is reconciled unto us in Christ calls and invites us to himself in which respect we understand these Scriptures He stew the enmity in himself He loved us first seeing us in our blood he said unto us live he who did not sin his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree and he died for our sins the just for the unjust By the second we witness this capacity brought into act whereby receiving and not resisting the purchase of his death to wit the Light Spirit and Grace of Christ revealed to us we witness and possess a real true and inward Redemption from the power and prevalency of sin and so come to be truly and really redeemed justified and made righteous and to a sensible union and friendship with God Thus he died for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and thus we know him and the Power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable to us This last follows the first in order and is a consequence of it proceeding from it as an effect from its cause So as none could have enjoyed the last without the first had been such being the will of God so also can none now partake of the first but as he witnesseth the last Wherefore as to us they are both causes of our Justification The first the procuring efficient the other the formal cause Fourthly we understand not by this Justification by Christ barely the good works even as wrought by the Spirit of Christ for they as Protestants truly affirm are rather an effect of Justification than the cause of it But we understand the formation of Christ in us Christ born and brought forth in us from which good works as naturally proceed as Fruit from a Fruitful Tree It is this inward Birth in us bringing forth Righteousness and Holyness in us that doth Just●fie us which having removed and done away the contrary Nature and Spirit that did bear rule and bring condemnation now is in dominion over all in our hearts Those then that come to know Christ thus formed in them do enjoy him wholly and undivided who is The LORD our RIGHTEOVSNESS Jer. 23.6 This is to be cloathed with Christ and to have put

and authorizing his commandmens by the miracles of his heavenly works he wills not that any should confess him with a forced will c. He is the God of the whole Vniverse he needs not a forced ebedience nor requires a constrained confession Christ saith Ambrose sent his Apostles to sow Faith not to constrian but to teach not to exercise coercive power but to extoll the Doctrine of Humility Hence Cyprian comparing the Old Covenant with the New saith then were they put to death with the outward sword but now the proud and contumacious are cut off with the Spiritual sword by being cast out of the Church and this answers very well that objection before observed taken from the practice of the Jews under the Law See saith Tertullian to the Heathens if it be not to contribute to the renown of irreligion to seek to take away the liberty of Religion and to hinder men their choice of God that I may not be admitted to adore whom I will but must be constrained to serve him whom I will not There is none nay not a man that desires to be adored by any against their will And again It 's a thing that easily appears to be unjust to constrain and force men to sacrifice against their wills seeing to do the service of God there is required a willing heart And again It is an humane right and natural power that every one Worship what he esteems and one mans religion doth not profit nor hurt another Neither is it any piece of Religion to enforce religion which must be undertaken by consent and not by violence seeing that the Sacrifices themselves are not required but from a willing-mind Now how either Papists or Protestants that boast of Antiquity can get by these plain testimonies let any rational man judge And indeed I much question if in any one point owned by them and denyed by us they can find all the old Fathers and Writers so exactly unanimous Which shews how contrary all of them judged this to be to the nature of Christianity and that in the point of persecution lay no small part of the Apostacy which from little to more came to that that the Pope upon every small discontent would excommunicate Princes absolve their subjects from obeying them and turn them in and out at his pleasure Now if Protestants do justly abhor these things among Papists is it not said that they should do the like themselves A thing that at their first appearance when they were in their primitive innocency they did not think on as appears by that saying of Luther Neither Pope nor Bishop nor any other man hath power to oblige a Christian to one syllable except it be by his own consent And again I call boldly to Christians that neither man nor Angel can impose any Law upon them but so far as they will for we are free of all And when he appeared at the Diet of Spiers before the Emperor in a particular conference he had before the Arch bishop of Triers and Joachim Elector of Brandenburgh when there seem'd no possibility of agreeing him with his opposers they asking him what remedy seem'd to him most fit He answered the counsel that Gamaliel proposed to the Jews to wit that if this design was of God it would stand if not it would vanish which he said ought to content the Pope he did not say because he was in the right he ought to be spared For this counsel supposeth that those that are tolerated may be wrong and yet how soon did the same Luther ere he was well secure himself press the Elector of Saxony to banish poor Carolostadius because he could not in all things submit to his judgment and certainly it is not without ground reported that it smote Luther to the heart so that he needed to be comforted when he was informed that Carolostadius in his Letter to his Congregation stiled himself a man banished for Conscience by the procurement of Martin Luther And since both the Lutherans and Calvinists not admitting one another to worship in those respective Dominions sheweth how little better they are that either Papists or Arians in this particular And yet Calvin saith that the Conscience is free from the power of all men If so why then did he cause Castellio to be banisht because he could not for Conscience sake believe as he did that God had ordained men to be damned and Servetus to be burned for denying the Divinity of Christ if Calvin's report of him be to be credited which opinion though it was indeed to be abominated yet no less was Calvin's practice in causing him to be burned and afterwards defending that it was lawful to burn Hereticks by which he encouraged the Papists to lead his followers the more confidently to the Stake as having for their warrant the doctrin of their own Sect-master which they omitted not frequently to twit them with and indeed it was to them unanswerable Hence upon this occasion the judicious Author of the History of the Couneil of Trent in his fifth Book where giving an account of several Protestants that were burned for their Religion well and wisely observeth it as a matter of astonishment that those of the new Reformation did offer to punish in case of Religion And afterwards taking notice that Calvin justifies the punishing of Hereticks he adds But since the name of Heresie may be more or less restricted yea or diversly taken this Doctrin may be likewise taken in divers senses and may at one time hurt those whom at another time it may have benifited So that this Doctrin of Persecution cannot be mentioned by Protestants without strengthening the hands of Popish Inquisitors and indeed in the end lands in direct Popery Seeing if I may not profess and preach that Religion which I am perswaded of in my Conscience is true it is to no purpose to search the Scripture or to seek to chuse my own faith by convictions thence derived since whatever I there observe or am perswaded of I must either subject to the jungment of the Magistrate and Church of that place I am in or else resolve to remove or dye Yea doth not this heretical and Anti-christian Doctrine both of Papists and Protestants at last resolve into that cursed policy of Mahomet who prohibited all reason or discourse about Religion as occasioning factions and divisions And indeed those that press Persecution and deny Liberty of Conscience do thereby shew themselves more the Disciples of Mahomet than of Christ and that they are no ways followers of he Apostles Doctrine who desired the Thessalonians 1 Thess. 5.21 To prove all things and hold fast that which is good and also saith unto such as are otherwise minded God shall reveal it Phil. 3.15 not that by beatings and banishments it must be knocked into them § VI. Now the ground of Persecution as hath been above shewn is an unwillingness to