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death_n	law_n	punishment_n	sin_n	9,072	5	5.3449	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A70175	Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty, or, The true resolution of a present controversie concerning liberty of conscience here you have the question stated, the middle way betwixt popish tyrannie and schismatizing liberty approved and also confirmed from Scripture and the testimonies of divines, yea of whole churches : the chiefe arguments and exceptions used in the bloudy tenent, The compassionate samaritane, M.S. to A.S. &c., examined : eight distinctions added for qualifying and clearing the whole matter : and in conclusion a parænetick to the five apologists for choosing accommodation rather than toleration.	Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.	1645 (1645)	Wing G765; ESTC R21730	38,146	48

with a spirit of meeknesse and such as ought not to separate betwixt brethren others not to be tolerated but to be suppressed with a certaine degree of severity a third sort so abominable and pestiferous that they are to be cut off by the highest punishments And lest it be thought that this is but the opinion of some few that the magistrate ought thus by a strong hand and by civill punishments suppresse Hereticks and Sectaries let it be observed what is held forth and professed concerning this businesse by the Reformed Churches in their publicke Confessions of Faith In the latter Confession of Helvetia cap. 30. it is said that the magistrate ought to root out lies and all superstition with all impiety and idolatry And after Let him suppresse stubborne Hereticks In the French Confession art 39. Therefore he hath also delivered the sword into the hands of the Magistrates to wit that offences may be repressed not only those which are committed against the second Table but also against the first In the Belgick Confession art 36. Therefore hath he armed the Magistrate with the sword for punishing them that doe evill and for defending such as doe well Moreover it is their duty not only to be carefull and watchfull for the preservation of the civill government but also to defend the holy Ministery and to abolish and overthrow all Idolatry and counterfeit worship of God Beza de haeret à magistr. puniend tells us in the beginning that the Ministers of Helvetia had declared themselves to be of the same judgement in a booke published of that Argument And toward the end he citeth the Saxon Confession Luther Melancthon Brentius Bucerus Wolfangus Capito and Bullinger The Synod of Dort Ses 138. in their sentence against the Remonstrants doth not only interdict them of all their Ecclesiasticall and Academicall functions but also beseech the States Generall by the secular power further to suppresse and restrain them The Arguments whereby this third or middle opinion is confirmed that we may not build upon humane authority are these First the law Deut. 13. 6 7 8 9. concerning the stoning and killing of him who shall secretly intice people saying Let us go after other gods If it be said that this law did bind the Jews only and is not morall nor perpetuall I answer Jacobus Acontius though he be of another opinion concerning this question then I am yet he candidly and freely confesseth that he seeth nothing in that law which doth not belong to the New Testament as well as the Old for saith he the reason and ground of the law the use and end of it is morall and perpetuall ver. 11. All Israel shall hear and fear and shall doe no more any such wickednesse as this is among you But yet saith Acontius this law doth not concern Hereticks who beleeve and teach errors concerning the true God or his worship but only Apostates who fall away to other gods * In this I shall not much contend with him only thus far if Apostates are to be stoned and killed according to that law then surely seducing Hereticks are also to receive their measure and proportion of punishment The morall equity of the law requireth thus much at least that if we compare Heresy and Apostasy together look how much lesse the evill of sin is in Heresy so much and no more is to be remitted of the evill of punishment especially the danger of contagion and seducement being as much or rather more in Heresy then in Apostasy yea that which is called Heresy being oftentimes a reall following after other gods But the Law Deut. 13. for punishing with death as well whole Cities as particular persons for falling away to other gods is not the only law for punishing even capitally grosse sins against the first Table See Exod. 22. 20. He that sacrificeth unto any god save unto the Lord only he shall be utterly destroyed Exod. 31. 14. Every one that defileth the Sabbath shall surely be put to death Levit. ●4 16. And he that blasphemeth the Name of the Lord he shall surely be put to death Deut. 17. 2 3 4 5. If there be found among you within any of thy gates which the Lord thy God giveth thee man or woman that hath wro●ght wickednesse in the sight of the Lord thy God in transgressing his Covenant and hath gone and served other gods and worshipped them c. Thou shalt bring forth that man or that woman unto thy gates even that man or that woman and shalt stone them with stones till they die It will be asked But how doth it appear that these or any other Judiciall Laws of Moses doe at all appertain to us as rules to guide us in like cases I shall wish him who scrupleth this to read Piscator his Appendix to his Observations upon the 21 22 23. Chapters of Exodus where he excellently disputeth this question Whether the Christian Magistrate be bound to observe the Judicial laws of Moses as well as the Jewish Magistrate was He answereth by the common distinction he is obliged to those things in the Judiciall law which are unchangeable common to all Nations but not to those things which are mutable or proper to the Jewish Republike But then he explaineth this distinction that by things mutable and proper to the Jews he understandeth the emancipation of an Hebrew servant or handmaid in the seventh year a mans marying his brothers wife and raising up seed to his brother the forgiving of debts at the Jubilee marying with one of the same Tribe and if there be any other like to these also Ceremoniall trespasses as touching a dead body c. But things immutable and common to all Nations are the laws concerning Morall trespasses Sins against the Morall law as murther adultery theft enticing away from God blasphemy striking of Parents Now that the Christian Magistrate is bound to observe these Judiciall lawes of Moses which appoint the punishments of sins against the Morall law he proveth by these reasons 1. If it were not so then it is free and arbitrary to the Magistrate to appoint what punishments himself pleaseth But this is not arbitrary to him for he is the Minister of God Rom. 13. 4. and the judgement is the Lords Deut. 1. 7. 2 Chron. 19. 6. And if the Magistrate be Keeper of both Tables he must keep them in such manner as God hath delivered them to him 2. Christs words Mat. 5. 17. Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets I am not come to destroy but to fulfill are comprehensive of the Judiciall law it being a part of the law of Moses Now he could not fulfill the Judiciall law except either by his practice or by teaching others still to observe it not by his own practice for he would not condemn the Adulteresse Joh. 8. 11. nor divide the Inheritance Luke 12. 13 14. Therefore it must be by his doctrine

the very Courtizans yea besides their certain tribute he doth sometimes impose on them a subsidy of ten thousand crownes extraordinary for some service of the State as Europae speculum pag. 221 222. hath represented to us And whether the States of the united Provinces do not grant tolerations upon the like interests of their own profit I leave it to the judgement of their own consciences The third is the toleration pleaded for here by Mr Williams the compassionate Samaritane c. as if justice equity duty and conscience should make the Magistrate forbear all coercive power in matters of religion All these three I utterly condemn and the former arguments doe strongly militate against them The fourth kinde of toleration arising from necessity which hath no law may well be mourned for as an affliction it cannot be condemned as the Magistrates fault Even a David may have cause to complain that the sons of Zerviah are too strong for him In such cases as these our Divines have given a relief to the conscience of the Christian Magistrate purging him of the guilt of this kind of toleration provided always that he hath endeavoured so farre as he can to extirpate heresies and to establish the true religion only Which hath nothing to doe with that principle now defended that the Magistrate though he may never so easily yet he ought not nor cannot without sin exercise a coercive power in matter of religion The fifth and last is that kind of toleration whereby the Magistrate when it is in the power of his hand to punish and extirpate yet having to doe with such of whom there is good hope either of reducing them by convincing their judgments or of uniting them to the Church by a safe accommodation of differences he granteth them a Supersedeas or though there be no such grounds of hope concerning them yet while he might crush them with the foot of power in Christian pity and moderation he forbeareth so far as may not be destructive to the peace and right government of the Church using his coercive power with such mixture of mercy as createth no mischief to the rest of the Church I speak not only of bearing with those who are weak in the faith Rom. 15. 1. but of sparing even those who have perverted the faith so far as the word of God and rules of Christian moderation would have severity tempered with mercy that is as hath been said so far as is not destructive to the Churches peace nor shaketh the foundations of the established form of Church government and no further these last two kinds of toleration are allowed the first three are wholy condemned My second distinction is concerning the punishments inflicted by the Magistrate upon Hereticks They are either exterminative or medicinall Such as blaspheme God or Jesus Christ or who fall away themselves and seduce others to Idolatry ought to be utterly cut off according to the law of God But as for other Hereticks they are to be chastened with medicinall punishments as mulcts imprisonments banishment by which through Gods blessing they may be humbled ashamed and reduced Not that I think the proper end of civill and coercive punishments to be the conversion and salvation of the Delinquent which is the end of Church censures of Excommunication it self but that the right method of proceeding doth require that the Magistrate inflict the smaller punishments first that there may be place for the offenders bringing forth of fruits worthy of repentance and he may be at least reduced to externall order and obedience being perswaded by the terror of civill power which may and doth when blessed of God prove a preparation to free obedience as the needle is to the thread or the law to the Gospell servile fear to filiall fear and that the Magistrate step not up to the highest justice till other punishments have proved ineffectuall which made Constantine punish the Hereticks of his time not with death but with banishment as is manifest by the Proem of the Councell of Nice In such cases it may be said to the Heretick of the Magistrate He is the Minister of God to thee for good more good I am sure then if the golden reins of civill justice should be loosed and he suffered to doe what he list Therefore Augustine likeneth this coercive punishing of Hereticks to Sarah her dealing roughly with Hagar for her good and humiliation I conclude connivence and indulgence to Hereticks is a cruell mercy correction is a mercifull severity and a wholesome medicine as well to themselves as to the Church Thirdly we must distinguish betwixt the coercive power of the Magistrare in matters of religion and the abuse of that power when we justifie the power we justifie not the abuse of it and when we condemn the abuse we must not therefore condemn the power Acontius Stratag. Stat. li 3. pag. 147. buildeth much upon this notion let a man imagine that his lot is fallen in those times when the truth is persecuted by authority when the Magistrate justifieth the wicked and condemneth the godly which hath been the more ordinary condition of the Church and then let him accordingly shape the resolution of the question concerning the Magistrates punishing of Hereticks Will not a man think saith he it had been better that Hereticks had not been punished then that upon pretence of coercive power against Hereticks the edge of the Civill sword be turned towards the Preachers and Professors of the truth But notwithstanding of all this truth must be truth and justice must be justice abuse it who will Parliaments and Synods have been many times enemies to the truth and have abused their power in matters of religion must we therefore deny the power of Parliaments and Synods or must we cast off any ordinance of God because of the abuse of it If the thing were indifferent the abuse might take away the use not so when the thing is necessary I adde which is well observed by Calvin when Jeremiah was accused and arraigned as worthy to die his defence is not this You ought not to vindicate religion with the sword nor put any man to death for the cause of conscience but this is it Know ye for a certain that if ye put me to death ye shall surely bring innocent bloud upon your selves and upon this city and upon the inhabitants thereof for of a truth the Lord hath sent me unto you to speak all these words in your ears Jer. 26. 15. Neither did ever the Apostles though often persecuted plead the unlawfulnesse of persecuting men for heresie but they pleaded the goodnesse of their cause and that they were no Hereticks Fourthly I distinguish betwixt bare opinions or speculations and scandalous or pernicious practices as Mr Burton doth in his Vindication of the Independent Churches pag. 70. You must distinguish saith he betwixt mens consciences and their practises The conscience simply

for our observing it 3. If Christ in his Sermon Mat. 5. would teach that the Morall law belongeth to us Christians in so much as he vindicateth it from the false glosses of the Scribes Pharisees then he meant to hold forth the Judiciall law concerning Morall trespasses as belonging to us also for he vindicateth and interpreteth the Judiciall law as well as the Morall Mat. 5. 38. An eye for an eye c. 4. If God would have the Morall law transmitted from the Jewish people to the Christian people then he would also have the Judiciall law transmitted from the Jewish Magistrate to the Christian Magistrate There being the same reason of immutability in the punishments which is in the offences Idolatry and Adultery displeaseth God now as much as then and Theft displeaseth God now no more then before 5. Whatsoever things were written af●retime were written for our learning Rom. 15. 4. and what shall the Christian Magistrate learn from those Judiciall laws but the will of God to be his rule in like cases The Ceremoniall law was written for our learning that we might know the fulfilling of all those Types but the Judiciall law was not Typicall 6. Doe all to the glory of God 1 Cor. 10. 31. Mat. 5. 16. How shall Christian Magistrates glorifie God more then by observing Gods own laws as most just and such as they cannot make better 7. Whatsoever is not of faith is sin Rom. 14. 23. Now when the Christian Magistrate punisheth sins against the Morall law if he doe this in faith and in assurance of pleasing God he must have his assurance from the Word of God for faith can build upon no other foundation it is the Word which must assure the Conscience God hath commanded such a thing therefore it is my duty to doe it God hath not forbidden such a thing therefore I am free to doe it But the will of God concerning Civill justice and punishments is no where so fully and cleerly revealed as in the Judiciall law of Moses This therefore must be the surest prop and stay to the conscience of the Christian Magistrate These are not my reasons if it be not a word or two added by way of explaining and strengthning but the substance of Piscators reasons Unto which I adde 1. Though we have clear and full scriptures in the New Testament for abolishing the Ceremoniall law yet we no where reade in all the new Testament of the abolishing of the Judicial law so far as it did concern the punishing of sins against the Morall law of which Heresy and seducing of souls is one and a great one Once God did reveal his will for punishing those sins by such and such punishments He who will hold that the Christian Magistrate is not bound to inflict such punishments for such sins is bound to prove that those former lawes of God are abolished and to shew some scripture for it 2. That Iudiciall law for having two or three witnesses in judgement Deut. 19. 15. Heb. 10. 28. is transferred even with an obligation to us Christians and it concerneth all judgement as well Ecclesiasticall as Civill Mat. 18. 16. 2 Cor. 13. 1. and some other particulars might be instanced in which are pressed and enforced from the Iudiciall law by some who yet mind not the obligation of it To conclude therefore this point though other judiciall or forensecall laws concerning the punishments of sins against the Morall law may yea must be allowed of in Christian Republikes and Kingdomes Provided always they be not contrary or contradictory to Gods own Iudiciall laws yet I fear not to hold with Junius de Politia Mosis cap. 6. that he who was punishable by death under that Iudiciall law is punishable by death still and he who was not punished by death then is not to be punished by death now And so much for the first argument from the Law of God A second argument we have from divers laudable examples in the Old Testament Moses drew the sword against Idolaters Exod. 32. 27. the children of Israel resolved to go out to war against the Reubenites and Gadites when they understood that they were building another Altar Jos. 22. 12. Elijah commanded to slay the Priests of Baal 1 Kings 18. 40. In Asa his time there was a Covenant for putting to death such as would not seek the Lord God of their Fathers 2 Chro. 15. 13. Iehu slew the Priests of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal 2 Kings 10. 11. 24. First searching and making sure that there were none of the servants of the Lord among them ver. 23. Iosiah sacrificed the Priests of Samaria upon their own altars 2 Kings 23. 20. Nebuchadnezzar though an Heathē being convinced that there was no god like the God of Israel made a Decree that whosoever speaketh blasphemy or uttereth any error against God shall be cut in pieces and their houses made a dunghill Dan. 3. 29. As for those whose errors and corruptions in religion were not so great there was some though not the highest severity used against them Moses was so angry with the people that were seduced into Idolatry that he burnt the ●alf which they had worshipped and ground it to powder and strewed it upon the water and made the Children of Israel to drinke of it Exod. 32. 20. Thereby teaching them as Hierome and others give the reason to abhorre that Idolatry while their Idoll did passe from them among their own excrements Asa did remove his mother Maachah from being Queen because of an Idoll which she had made in a grove 1 Kings 15. 13. Josiah caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin to stand to the Covenant 2 Chron. 34. 32. which could not be without either threatning or inflicting punishment upon the transgressors there being many at that time disaffected to the Reformation O but saith M. S. to A. S. pag. 51 52. Idolatry and Idolaters were the adaequate object of that coercive power in matters of religion whereof we reade in the Old Testament Nor doe we read that ever the Iewish Kings or Magistrates attempted any thing against Sectaries or Schismaticks I answer 1. The object of that coercive power of Josiah 2 Chron. 34. 32. was generally the matter of the Covenant that is the taking away not only of Idolatry but of all abominations and a walking after the Lord and keeping of his Testimonies and Statutes and Commandments ver. 31. 33. Nehemiah did drive away the son of Eliashib the high Priest not for Idolatry but for marying the daughter of Sanballat and thereby defiling the Covenant of the Priesthood Nehem. 13. 28 29. Ezra made the Chief Priests the Levites and all Israel to enter into a Covenant and to swear that they would put away the strange wives and that it should be done according to the Law Ezra 10. 3. 5. and whosoever would not come to Ierusalem for this thing was not only himself excommunicated from the Church but

all his goods forfeited v. 8. Artaxerxes decreed punishment for all who should oppose the Law of God and the building of the Temple wherein he is so far approved as that Ezra blesseth God for it Ezra 7. 26 27. Whosoever will not doe the law of thy God and the law of the King let judgement be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto death or unto banishment or to confiscation of goods or imprisonment c. which doth not concern Idolatry only but generally the laws of God v. 25. Set Magistrates and Iudges which may judge all the people all such as know the laws of thy God He who wrote Liberty of Conscience p. 27. 28. is so far confounded with this laudable Decree of Artaxerxes that he can say no more to it but that it was the commandment of God not an invention of men which Artaxerxes did thus impose which is as much as we desire But 2. Sects and Schismes are to be punished as well though not as much as Heresy and Idolatry There are degrees of faults and accordingly degrees of punishments Augustine wrote an Epistle to Bonifacius upon this occasion to shew that the Donatists had nothing to doe with the Arrians and so were not to be punished with such rigour and severity yet he adviseth that moderate mulcts and punishments may be laid upon them that their Bishops or Ministers may be banished In his 127 Epist. he intercedeth most earnestly with the proconsul of Africk that he might not put to death the Donatists but represse them some other ways We have also a scripture example for punishing Sectaries who are not Hereticks It is agreed among interpreters there were in Iudah two sorts of high places some on which God was worshipped others on which idols were worshipped it is most manifest from 2 Chro. 33. 17. and from the reconciling of 2 Chro. 15. 17. with ch. 14. 3. 5. the one sort was the high places of Idolatry the other the high places of wil-worship yet the Priests of the latter as well as of the former were punished by Iosiah as Tostatus proveth from 2 Kings 23. and the text it self is clear for he put to death the Priests of Sama●ia who had sacrificed in the high places of Idolatry vers. 20. but as for those who sacrificed in the high places of wil-worship because they sacrificed to the Lord only as the word is 2 Chron. 33. 17. therefore Iosiah did not put them to death only he caused them to goe out of all the Cities of Judah and to cease from the Priests office so that they durst not come up to the Altar of the Lord at Jerusalem only they were permitted to eat of the unleavened bread among their brethren ver. 8 9. which is parallel to that law Ezek. 44. ver 10 11 12 13 14. a prophecy concerning the Christian Temple and the times of the New Testament wch reacheth a blow to another silly short-sighted evasion used both in the Bloudy Tenent and in M. S. to A. S. that all this coercive power exercised in the Old Testament was typicall therefore not imitable now in the New Testament Whereunto I further reply 1. The reason of all that coercive severity was morall and perpetuall as was shewed before from Deut. 13. 11. Next why did they not prove that it was typicall shall we take their fancy for a certainty They have neither Scripture nor Interpreters for it 3. They confound the Judiciall lawes of Moses with the Ceremoniall making the Judicatories and Justice typicall no lesse then the Ceremonies 4. They doe utterly overthrow the investiture of Christian Princes and Magistrates with any power at all in matters of Religion from the Old Testament So that one may not argue thus The godly Kings of Judah did remove the monuments of Idolatry and Superstition therefore so should the Christian Magistrate doe The most arrant malignant may answer in the words of Mr. Williams chap. 109. that the Civill power or State of Israel so farre as it attended upon the spirituall was meerly figurative Or in the words of M. S. pag. 51. There are two reasons very considerable why the Kings of Judah might be invested by God with a larger power in matters of religion then Kings or Magistrates under the Gospel have any ground or warrant to claime from them First they were types of Christ but by the way how doth he prove that Asa Jehu and Josiah were types of Christ which no King under heaven at this day is Secondly not the people onely but the very land over which they ruled were typicall 5. The punishment of persons was a part of their reformation as well as the destruction of monuments and why must we follow their example in the one more then the other If we smart under both their diseases we must apply both their remedies or neither The third argument is drawne from the New Testament The magistrate beareth not the sword in vaine for he is the minister of God a revenger to execute wrath on him that doth evill Rom. 13. 4. But I assume Hereticks and Sectaries doe evill yea much evill especially when they draw many others after them in their pernicious wayes It was the observation of one of the greatest Politicians of this Kingdome That heresies and schismes are of all others the greatest scandalls yea more then corruption of manners One of his reasons is because every sect of them hath a diverse posture or cringe by themselves which cannot but move derision in worldlings and depraved politicks who are apt to contemne holy things I know it will be answered If any Sectary make a breach of peace or disturb the State then indeed the magistrate ought to redresse it by a coercive power So John the Baptist pag. 57. So Mr. Williams chap. 52. answereth Rom. 13. 4. is not meant of evill against the Christian estate but of evill against the Civill State M. S. pag. 53. 54. tells us that he is not for the toleration of Sects and Schismes except only upon this supposition that the professors or maintainers of them be otherwise peaceable in the State and every wayes subject to the lawes and lawfull power of the civill Magistrate I answer the experience of former times may make us so wise as to foresee that heresie and schisme tendeth to the breach of the civill peace and to a rupture in the State as well as in the Church What commotions did the Arrians make in all the Easterne parts the Macedonians in Greece the Donatists in Africke How did the Anabaptists raise and foment the bloudy warre of the Boores in Germany wherein were killed above 100000 men Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum How satanicall was Julians designe to bring the Christians to nought by granting liberty of conscience to all the hereticks and sectaries that were among them But suppose the Commonwealth to runne no hazard by the toleration of Heresies and Schismes