VVholesome 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 then toleration. Imprimatur. Ia. Cranford. Decemb 16. 1644.

To the Christian and courteous Reader.

IT cannot be unknown to any, except such as are ignorant of Satans devices, and altogether strangers to the Histories of former times, that when the Church commeth out of Idolatry, and out of bit∣ter servitude and grievous pressures of conscience, all her storms are not over her head, but she begins to be as∣saulted and afflicted more then before with heresies, schismes, and home-bred disturbances. Which through the manifold wisdome and over-ruling dispensation of God, who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will, is Englands lot this day, that this may be to those in whom the Lord hath no pleasure, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, that they may goe and fall back ward, and be broken; & sna∣red, and taken: that others, who are approved, may be made manifest; yea, that many may be purified, and tried, and made white; and that in the issue God may have the greater glory in making a soveraign remedy out of poysonfull Ingredients, and his

people may say, blessed be the Lord God of Israel who only doth wondrous things.

But now will the Sectaries be contented (as Christs witnesses in former times were) to be examined and judged according to the word of God, and if they be found to be what they are accused to be, then to suffer accordingly? Nay, if so, they fear they shall run too great a hazard. Therefore they cry out for toleration and liberty of conscience, hereby going about not only themselves to fish in troubled waters, but to improve at once the manifold advantages of sympathising with the principles of the most part of men amongst us; for as it is a common plea and bond of union among all hereticks and sectaries, how many soever their divisions and sub∣divisions be among themselves;* 1.1 yea, they give (in this) the right hand of fellowship to the Prelaticall and ma∣lignant party, for they also put in for liberty of consci∣ence: and as carnall and prophane men desire nothing more then that they may not be compelled to any religi∣ous duty, but permitted to doe what seem good in their own eies. So liberty of conscience is a sweet and taking word among the lesse discerning sort of godly people, newly come out of the house of bondage, out of the popish and Prelaticall tyranny; I say the lesse discerning sort, because those of the godly who have their senses exerci∣sed to discern good and evill, know that liberty of here∣sie

and schisme is no part of the liberty of conscience which Christ hath purchased to us at so dear a rate. But is there no golden book and taking bait for the Magistrate? yes sure; for his part he is told that he may punish any breach of peace or civill justice, or a trespasse against the State and against civill authority, but yet not put forth his power against any man for heresie or schisme, being matters of religion and of conscience. As if both Polititians and Divines had been in a great error when they said that the end and use of Magistra∣cy is to make bonum hominem, as well as bonum civem, a good man as well as a good commonwealths man. Shall I adde further, that all who wish well to the publike from principles either of religion or policy, want not here their own tentations, perswading to a to∣leration of sectaries, in regard of the necessity of an u∣nion against the common adversary, and the great ha∣zard, if not certain ruine, of the cause, by our own rup∣tures?

Vnder these fair colours and handsome pretexts doe sectaries infuse their poyson, I mean their pernicious, God-provoking, Truth-defacing, Church ruinating, & State-shaking toleration. The plain english of the que∣stion is this: whether the Christian Magistrate be kee∣per of both Tables: whether he ought to suppresse his own enemies, but not Gods enemies, and preserve his

own ordinances, but not Christs Ordinances frō violation. Whether the troublers of Israel may be troubled. Whe∣ther the wilde boars and beasts of the forest must have leave to break down the hedges of the Lords vineyard; and whether ravening wolves in sheeps clothing must be permitted to converse freely in the flock of Christ. Whether after the black Devil of Idolatry and tyranny is trod under our feet, a white Devill of heresie and schisme, under the name of tender consciences, must be admitted to walk up and down among us. Whether not only pious and peaceable men, (whom I shall never con∣sent to persecute) but those also who are as a pestilence or a Gangrene in the body of Christ, men of corrupt minds and turbulent spirits, who draw factions after them, make a breach and rent in Israel, resist the truth and reformation of religion, spread abroad all the ways they can their pernicious errors, and by no other means can be reduced; whether those also ought to be spared and let alone. I have endeavoured in this following discourse to vindicate the lawfull, yea necessary use of the coer∣cive power of the Christian Magistrate in suppressing and punishing hereticks and sectaries, according as the degree of their offence and of the Churches danger shal require: Which when I had done, there came to my hands a book called The storming of Antichrist. Indeed, The recruting of Antichrist, and the

storming of Zion, (if so be that I may anabaptize an Anabaptists book) Take one passage for instance, pa. 25. And for Papists, saith he, though they are least to be borne of all others, because of the uncertainty of their keeping faith with Here∣ticks, as they call us, and because they may be absolved of securements that can arise from the just solemn oaths, and because of their cru∣elty against the Protestants in divers Countries where they get the upper hand, and because they are profest Idolaters, yet may they be born with (as I suppose with submission to better judgments) in Protestant government, in point of religion, because we have no command to root out any for conscience, &c. Why then? is this to storm Antichrist? or is it not rather a storming of this party, in the prevailing whereof God will have far more glory then in the prevailing of the Popish and Prelaticall party, as himself speaketh, pa. 34. And if he will storm, sure some of his Ladders are too short. If any one rail against Christ (saith he, p. 23.) or deny the Scriptures to be his word, or affirm the Epistles to be only letters written to particular Churches, and no rule for us, and so unsettle our faith, this I take may be punish∣ed by the Magistrate, because all or most Na∣tions

in the world doe it. That all the Nations in the world doe punish for these things, I am yet to learn: and those that doe, doe they not also punish men for o∣ther ways of unsetling the grounds of faith besides these? The declining of some of the Epistles as being letters written upon particular occasions, and no rule for us, is an error which hath been pretended to be no lesse con∣scientious then those errors which now he will have in∣dulged. Lastly, if he would needs storm, why would he not make some new breach? I find no materiall ar∣guments in him for liberty of conscience, but what I found before in the bloudy Tenent, the compas∣sionate Samaritane, and M. S. to A. S. so that my ensuing answers to them shall serve his turn. And now Reader buy the truth, and sell it not. Search for knowledge as for hid treasures. If thou readest with a unprejudiced mind, I dare promise thee through Gods blessing a satisfied mind.

Notes

• * 1.1

  See the Review of the Cove∣nant.