The magistrates authority, in matters of religion; and the souls immortality,: vindicated in two sermons preach'd at York. / By Christopher Cartvvright, B.D. and Minister of Gods Word there.

To the Christian Reader.

READER,

I Present thee here with two Ser∣mons which I wish may prove as profitable for thee as they are seasonable for these times; One is concer∣ning the power of the Magistrate in spi∣ritual things and matters of Religion; the other is to prove the immortality of the soul. The first was occasioned by the con∣trary tenet of some which had relation to the Army, who being in the City of York (where this worthy Minister Mr Cart∣wright resides) there indeavored to maintain, that the Magistrate hath no power to punish or restrain any that shal vent never so false doctrines & heretical opinions; which stirred up the zeal of this Reverend Divine to choose that Text, Rom. 13.4. of purpose, and to handle the

point ex professo, as thou mayst perceive by the ensuing Sermon, which he fitted not for the Press, but for his Auditory, aim∣ing chiefly at their edification and sta∣blishing in the truth. If these Sermons therfore be not so elaborate as they would have been if put out by the Author, let that be imputed unto me who presu∣med, upon that interest I have in him, to publish without his privity those Ser∣mons. Thou shalt find them (like himself) solid and judicious, and J hope the world shal shortly by a learned Treatise upon Genesis, have ample experience of the abilities of this my worthy Friend, and of his skil in the Oriental tongues and Rabbines. The second Sermon was prea∣ched to confute that most pestilent book, ipso titulo execrabilis (as K. James said of Bertius his book de Apostasia sanctorum) concerning the mortali∣ty of the Soul, though that writer que∣stions

the very being of the Soul. M^r. Coleman preaching before the Parlia∣ment said, none but they had to do in the government of the Church; M. Dell told them, they had nothing at all to do in re∣forming the Church; M. Arrowsmith said before them, some took the middle way between these two extreams; I have declared my opinion elswhere concerning the power of the Civil Magistrate in these things; I shal only here add the determi∣nation of two reverend Divines, who can∣not but be Authentick with the opposers of this truth. The first is D^r Ames who propounding this question, An Haere∣tici sint a Magistratu civili puniendi, whether Hereticks be to be punisht by the civil Magistrate; thus answers, 1. That Hereticks are to be suppressed by all god∣ly men according to that calling & power which they have received from God. 2. That the place and office of the Magi∣strate

requires that he suppress wicked disturbers with the sword or the publick and external power, if need be; quoting those two places Rom. 13.4. 1 Tim. 2.2.

3. If the Hereticks be manifest and publickly noxious, they ought by the Ma∣gistrate publickly to be punished. 4. Jf they be manifestly blasphemous and obsti∣nate in those blasphemies, they may also be capitally punisht; for although that Law, Lev. 24.15, 16. doth not oblige Christians as it is a law, yet as it is a do∣ctrine proceeding from God it belongs to the direction of Christians in causes of the same kind. The other is M^r Cotton of New England, who saith, in all civil Nations, whose acts are recorded either in sacred or prophane Authors, their Ma∣gistrates have had not only a due care of justice and honesty, but a reverend care of Religion also; Jn Athens they had a law against irreligion, upon which suffred

three famous Philosophers, Socrates, Theodorus and Protagoras: The rea∣son of the law Deu. 13.9, 10. (which is the life of the law saith he) is of eternal force and equity in all ages, Thou shalt sure∣ly kil him, becaus he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God; This reason is of universal & perpetual equity to put to death any Apostate, seducing Idolater or Heretick who seeketh to thrust away the souls of Gods people from the Lord their God. For that other opinion of the Souls Immortality, recitasse est refutasse; and here J may apply what the Apostle saith of those which deny the Resurrection, 1 Cor. 15. if the Soul be not immortal, then is the Ministers prea∣ching and our faith also vain; but as one saith wittily of the Sadduces who denyed the Resurrection, that at the day of Judg∣ment the Sadduces shal rise in that body in which they denyed the Resurrection of

the body, so shal these live with that soul in w^ch they denyed the immortality of the soul, & find, if not afore, yet at death that the soul lives when the body dyes, and that man then ceaseth not to be, as the beast; but only exchangeth his being, and shal be either everlastingly happy or mi∣serable.

Thy faithful Wel-wisher, EDVVARD LEIGH.

Notes

• In my Pro∣legomena to my three-fold Treatise of Divinity.
• L. 4. de con∣scientia c. 4. quest. 61.
• The bloody Tenet washed Co. 58.
• Gen. 47.22. Dan. 3.29 & 6.26 Ezra 7.26. & 6.11.
• Mr Cotton biid. C. 33.