Persecutors It is true, nor one nor other seldom dare to plead the Christ, but mighty Prince Christ Jesus for their author, yet both seldom plead Moses, for their author. (both protestant and papist) pretend they have spoke with Moses and the prophets, who all, say they, before Christ came, allowed such holy persecutions [and] holy wars against the enemies of holy church. Truth. Dear Peace, to case thy first complaint, it is true, thy dearest sons, most like their mother, peacekeeping, peace-making sons of God, have borne and still must bear the blurs of troublers of Israel, and turners of the world upside down. And it is true again, what [Prov. xvii. Solomon once spake: The beginning of strife is as when one letteth out water, therefore, saith he, leave off contention before it be meddled with. This caveat should keep the banks and sluices firm and strong, that strife, like a breach of waters, break not in upon the sons of men. 141 Strife distinguished. 1. Ungodly strife. 2. Godly strife. Yet strife must be distinguished: it is necessary, or unnecessary, godly or ungodly, Christian or unchristian, &c. It is unnecessary, unlawful, dishonourable, ungodly, unchristian, in most cases in the world: for there is a possibility of keeping sweet Peace in most cases, and, if it be possible, it is the express command of God that Peace be kept, Rom. xii. [18.] Again, it is necessary, honourable, godly, &c., with civil and earthly weapons to defend the innocent, and to rescue the oppressed from the violent paws and jaws of oppressing, persecuting Nimrods, Psal. Ixxiii. Job xxix. It is as necessary, yea, more honourable, godly, and Christian, to fight the fight of faith, with religious and spiritual artillery, and to contend earnestly for the faith of Jesus, once delivered to the saints, against all opposers, and the gates of earth and hell, men or devils, yea, against Paul himself, or an angel from heaven, if he bring any other faith or doctrine, Jude 4, 9; Gal. i. 8. Peace. With a clashing of such arms am I never wakened. Speak once again, dear Truth, to my second complaint of bloody persecution, and devouring wars, marching under the colours of upright justice and holy zeal, &c. A threefold Truth. Mine ears have long been filled with a threefold doleful cry. doleful outcry Christ's worship is his bed, Cant. i. 16. ship, there false bed. the souls un First. Of one hundred forty-four thousand virgins, Rev. False worxiv., forced and ravished by emperors, kings, governors, fore, is a to their beds of worship and religion; set up, like Ab salom's, on high, in their several states and countries. Secondly. The cry of those precious souls under the The cry of altar, Rev. vi. [9,] the souls of such as have been per- der the altar. secuted and slain for the testimony and witness of Jesus, whose blood hath been spilt like water upon the earth; and that because they have held fast the truth and witness of Jesus, against the worship of the states and times, compelling to an uniformity of state religion. These cries of murdered virgins, who can sit still and hear? Who can but run, with zeal inflamed, to prevent the deflowering of chaste souls, and spilling of the blood of the innocent? Humanity stirs up and prompts the sons of men to draw material swords for a virgin's chastity and life, against a ravishing murderer; and piety and Christianity must needs awaken the sons of God to draw the spiritual sword, the word of God, to preserve the chastity and life of spiritual virgins, who abhor the spiritual defilements of false worship, Rev. xiv. whole earth. Thirdly. The cry of the whole earth, made drunk with A cry of the the blood of its inhabitants slaughtering each other in their blinded zeal for conscience, for religion, against the catholics, against the Lutherans, &c. What fearful cries, within these twenty years, of hundred thousands, men, women, children, fathers, women, The wonderful provi mothers, husbands, wives, brethren, sisters, old and young, high and low, plundered, ravished, slaughtered, murdered, famished! And hence these cries, that men fling away the spiritual sword and spiritual artillery, in spiritual and religious causes, and rather trust, for the suppressing of each other's gods, conscience, and religion, as they suppose, to an arm of flesh and sword of steel. Truth. Sweet Peace, what hast thou there? Peace. Arguments against persecution for cause of conscience. Truth. And what there? Peace. An answer to such arguments, contrarily maintaining such persecution for cause of conscience. Truth. These arguments against such persecution, and the answer pleading for it, [are] written, as Love hopes, from godly intentions, hearts, and hands, yet in a marvellously different style and manner-the arguments against persecution in milk, the answer for it, as I may say, in blood. The author of these arguments against persecution, as dence of God I have been informed, being committed by some then in in the writ ing of the against per milk. arguments power close prisoner to Newgate, for the witness of some secution in truths of Jesus, and having not the use of pen and ink, wrote these arguments in milk, in sheets of paper brought to him by the woman, his keeper, from a friend in London as the stopples of his milk bottle. In such paper, written with milk, nothing will appear; but the way of reading it by fire being known to this friend who received the papers, he transcribed and kept together the papers, although the author himself could not correct, nor view what himself had written. It was in milk, tending to soul nourishment, even for babes and sucklings in Christ : It was in milk, spiritually white, pure and innocent, like those white horses of the word of truth and meekness, and the white linen or armour of righteousness, in the army of Jesus, Rev. vi. and xix.: It was in milk, soft, meek, peaceable, and gentle, tending both to the peace of souls, and the peace of states and kingdoms. writ in blood. Peace. The answer, though I hope out of milky pure The answer intentions, is returned in blood-bloody and slaughterous conclusions-bloody to the souls of all men, forced to the religion and worship which every civil state or commonweal agrees on, and compels all subjects to, in a dissembled uniformity: Bloody to the bodies, first of the holy witnesses of Christ Jesus, who testify against such invented worships:Secondly, of the nations and peoples slaughtering each other for their several respective religions and consciences. CHAP. III. Truth. In the answer, Mr. Cotton first lays down several distinctions and conclusions of his own, tending to prove persecution. Secondly. Answers to the scriptures and arguments proposed against persecution. tinction dis cussed. Peace. The first distinction is this: by persecution for The first discause of conscience, "I conceive you mean either for professing some point of doctrine which you believe in conscience to be the truth, or for practising some work which you believe in conscience to be a religious duty." Truth. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew Definition of or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practising persecution discussed. will not be worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him; and such a person, whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or false, suffereth persecution for conscience. But withal I desire it may be well observed, that this distinction is not full and complete. For beside this, that a man may be persecuted because he holdeth or practiseth what he believes in conscience to be a truth, as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions' den, Dan. vi. 16, and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practise what they believed was by God commanded, as the apostles answered, Acts iv. and v., I say, besides this, a man may also be persecuted because he Conscience dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such docrestrained trines and worships as are by men invented and appointed. constrained So the three famous Jews, who were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to fall down, in a nonconformity to the whole conforming world, before the golden image, Dan. iii. 21.5 So thousands of Christ's witnesses, and of late in those bloody Marian days, have rather chosen to yield their bodies to all sorts of torments, than to subscribe to doctrines, or practise worships, unto which the states and times (as Nebuchadnezzar to his golden image) have compelled and urged them. from its own worship, nor to another. A chaste soul in God's a chastewife. A chaste wife will not only abhor to be restrained from worship, like her husband's bed as adulterous and polluted, but also abhor (if not much more) to be constrained to the bed of a stranger. And what is abominable in corporal, is much more loathsome in spiritual whoredom and defilement. The spouse of Christ Jesus, who could not find her soul's beloved in the ways of his worship and ministry, 5 ["Thus a man may find a knot in a bulrush, yea, thus a man that were disposed might find fault with the comforts of God for not being full and complete." Reply of Cotton in The Bloudy Tenent Wash'd and made White in the Bloud of the Lambe, p. 4, edit. 1647.] |