Fire from heaven. What the fire from heaven is which the false prophet bringeth down. and quiet of the place and people under him, he is bound to suffer no man to break the civil peace, by laying hands of violence upon any, though as vile as the Samaritans, for not receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is indeed the ignorance and blind zeal of the second Rev. xiii. 13. beast, the false prophet, Rev. xiii. 13, to persuade the civil powers of the earth to persecute the saints, that is, to bring fiery judgments upon men in a judicial way, and to pronounce that such judgments of imprisonment, banishment, death, proceed from God's righteous vengeance upon such heretics. So dealt divers bishops in France, and England too in Queen Mary's days, with the saints of God at their putting to death, declaiming against them in their sermons to the people, and proclaiming that these persecutions, even unto death, were God's just judgments from heaven upon these heretics. 26, ex CHAP. XXXVIII. Peace. Doubtless such fiery spirits, as the Lord Jesus 2 Tim. li. 25, said, are not of God. I pray, speak to the second place out of Timothy, 2 Epist. ii. 25, 26. amined. Truth. I acknowledge this instruction, to be meek and patient, &c., is properly an instruction to the ministers of the gospel. Yet divers arguments from hence will truly and fairly be collected, to manifest and evince how far the civil magistrate ought to be from dealing with the civil sword in spiritual cases. And first, by the way I desire to ask, what were these unconverted Christians in Crete, which the answerer compareth with the Samaritans, whom Titus, saith he, as an evangelist, was to seek to convert; and whether the Lord Jesus have any such disciples and followers, who yet are visibly in an unconverted state? Oh! that it may please the Father of mercies, the Father of lights, to awaken and open the eyes of all that fear before him, that they may see whether this be the language of Canaan, or the language of Ashdod. what the means by verted What is an unconverted Christian, but in truth an A quære unconverted convert? that is in English, one unturned answerer turned; unholy holy; disciples, or followers of Jesus, not his unconfollowing of him: in a word, that is, Christians, or anointed Christian in by Christ, anti-christians, not anointed with the Spirit of Jesus Christ.7 Crete. of Chris tians. Certain it is, such they were not unto whom the Spirit The original of God gives that name, Acts ii. [26.] And, indeed, whither can this tend but to uphold the blasphemy of so many as say they are Jews, that is, Christians, but are not? Rev. ii. 2. But as they are not Christians from Christ, but from the beast and his picture, so their proper name from anti-christ, is anti-christians.8 er yet in the churches ships. How sad yet and how true an evidence is this, that the The an wersoul of the answerer (I speak not of his outward soul and unconverted person, but of his worship), hath never yet heard the call and wor of the Lord Jesus to come out from those unconverted churches, from that unconverted, anti-christian Christian world, and so from anti-christ, Belial, to seek fellowship 7 ["Let it not seem strange to hear tell of unconverted Christians or unconverted converts. There is no contradiction at all in the words. When the Lord saith, that Judah turned unto him, not with all her heart, but feignedly, was she not then an unconverted convert? converted in show and profession, but unconverted in heart and truth?" Cotton's Reply, p. 78.] 8 ["I have not yet learned that the children of believing parents born in the church, are all of them pagans, and no members of the church: or that being members of the church, and so holy, that they are all of them truly converted. And if they be not always truly converted, then let him not wonder, nor stumble at the phrase of unconverted Christians." Ib. p. 78.] God's people sleepy in the matters of Christ's kingdom, Cant. v. 2. with Christ Jesus and his converted Christians, disciples after the first pattern. : Again, I observe the haste and light attention of the answerer to these scriptures, as commonly the spirits of God's children in matters of Christ's kingdom are very sleepy for these persons here spoken of were not, as he speaks, unconverted Christians in Crete, whom Titus as an evangelist was to convert, but they were such opposites as Timothy, to whom Paul writes this letter at Ephesus, should not meet withal. 1 Cor. xiv. Patience and meek ness re quired in all that open Christ's CHAP. XXXIX. Peace. But what is there in this scripture of Timothy alleged concerning the civil magistracy? Truth. I argue from this place of Timothy in particular, thus: First. If the civil magistrates be Christians, or members of the church, able to prophesy in the church of Christ, then, I say as before, they are bound by this command of mysteries. Christ to suffer opposition to their doctrine, with meekness and gentleness, and to be so far from striving to subdue their opposites with the civil sword, that they are bound with patience and meekness to wait, if God peradventure will please to grant repentance unto their opposites. So also it pleaseth the answerer to acknowledge in these words: : "It becomes not the spirit of the gospel to convert aliens to the faith (such as the Samaritans, and the unconverted Christians in Crete) with fire and brimstone." Secondly. Be they oppositions within, and church members, as the answerer speaks, become scandalous in snare. sword may tion of hypo tians, but Christian. doctrine, (I speak not of scandals against the civil state, which the civil magistrate ought to punish), it is the Lord only, as this scripture to Timothy implies, who is able to give them repentance, and recover them out of Satan's To which end also, he hath appointed those holy and dreadful censures in his church or kingdom. True it is, the sword may make, as once the Lord complained, The civil Isa. x., a whole nation of hypocrites; but to recover a make a nasoul from Satan by repentance, and to bring them from anti-chrisanti-christian doctrine or worship to the doctrine or wor- not one ship Christian in the least true internal or external submission, that only works the all-powerful God, by the sword of his Spirit in the hand of his spiritual officers.9 What a most woeful proof hereof have the nations of Wonderful the earth given in all ages? And to seek no further religion in than our native soil, within a few scores of years, how many wonderful changes in religion hath the whole kingdom made, according to the change of the governors thereof, in the several religions which they themselves embraced! Henry the Seventh finds and leaves the kingdom absolutely popish. Henry the Eighth casts it into a mould half popish, half protestant. Edward the Sixth brings forth an edition all protestant. Queen Mary within few England's years defaceth Edward's work, and renders the kingdom, point of after her grandfather Henry the Seventh's pattern, all popish. Mary's short life and religion end together; and ["If opposition rise from within, from the members of the church, I do not believe it to be lawful for the magistrate to seek to subdue and convert them to be of his mind by the civil sword; but rather to use all spiritual means for their conviction and conversion. But if the opposition still continue in doctrine and worship, and that against the vitals and fundamentals of religion, whether changes of England. changes in religion. Elizabeth reviveth her brother Edward's model, all protestant. And some eminent witnesses of God's truth against anti-christ have inclined to believe, that before the downfall of that beast, England must once again bow down her fair neck to his proud usurping yoke and foot. Peace. It hath been England's sinful shame, to fashion and change their garments and religions with wondrous ease and lightness, as a higher power, a stronger sword hath prevailed; after the ancient pattern of Nebuchadnezzar's bowing the whole world in one most solemn uniformity of worship to his golden image, Dan. iii.' of opposites truth. CHAP. XL. But it hath been thought, or said, Shall oppositions against the truth escape unpunished? will they not prove mischievous? &c. Truth. I answer, as before, concerning the blind guides, The misery in case there be no civil offence committed, the magisagainst the trates, and all men that by the mercy of God to themselves discern the misery of such opposites, have cause to lament and bewail that fearful condition wherein such are entangled to wit, in the snares and chains of Satan, with which they are so invincibly caught and held, that no power in heaven or earth but the right hand of the Lord, in the meek and gentle dispensing of the word of truth, can release and quit them. Those many false Christs, of whom the Lord Jesus 1 ["Yet it is not more than befell the church of Judah, in the days of Ahaz and Hezekiah, Manasseh and Josiah; yet the prophets never up braided them with the civil magistrate's power in causes of religion, as the cause of it." Cotton's Reply, p. 82.] |