' " Hie prorsus non intelligo Sanctum Spiritum in hoc concilio: hi omnes articuli fsenuni, stramen, ligna, stipulae fuerunt." — Luth.
* " In optimis illis teniporibus, eafuit nonnullorum ejiiscoporum, partim ambitio, partim fiitilitas et ignoraiitia," &c. — Beza, prsefat. ad Nov. Testa.
' " Ego, si vera scribere oportet, ita animo affectus sum, ut omnia episcoiiorum concilia fugiam, quoniam nuUius concilii finem ];etum f;iustumque vidi : nee quod depulsionem malorum polius quam accessionem et iucrenieutum liabuerit." — Greg. Naz. Ep. ad Procop.
* " Illi in vos saeviunt, qui nesciunt cum quo labore inveniantur, et quam difficile caveantur errores," &c Aug.
* " Apud nos sunt liieretici, apud se non sunt : quod ergo illi nobis sunt, lioc nos illis," &c.— Salv. de Prov. &c.
62 A COUNTRY ESSAY
Avith a good mind; and for this cause God shows patience towards them."
Now, if any should dissent from what I have before asserted con- cerning this particular, I would entreat him to lay down some notes whereby heresies may infallibly be discerned to be such ; and he shall not find me repugoiing.
6. That great consideration ought to be had of that sovereign dic- tate of nature, the sum of all moral duties, " Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris ;" — "Do not that unto others which you would not have done to you, were you in the same condition with them." In the business in hand, we are supposed by others to be in that estate wherein we suppose those to be of whom we speak ; those others be- ing to us what we are to them. Now truly, if none of the former inconveniences and iniquities which we recounted (assertion 2, 3, 4, or the like), do accompany erring persons, it will be something diffi- cult to make it appear how we may, if enjoying authority over them, impose any coercion, restraint, or punishment on them, which we would not acknowledge to be justly laid on us by others (supposing it should be laid) having authority over us, convinced that our per- suasion differing from them is false and erroneous. No sort of Chris- tians but are heretics and schismatics to some Christians in authority; and it may be their lot to live under the power and jurisdiction of men so persuaded of them, where they ought to expect that the same measure will be given unto them which, in other places, they have consented to mete out to others.
But men will say, and all men pleading the cause of non-toleration in its full extent do say. That they are heretics and erroneous persons whom we do oppose: we ourselves are orthodox; and no law of nature, no dictate of the Scriptures, requires that we should think it just to render unto them that are orthodox as unto them that are heretics, seducers, and false teachers. Because thieves are punished, shall honest men fear that they shall be so too ? — But a thief is a thief in all the world, unto all men : in opinions it is not so. — He is a heretic that is to be punished, — But to whom ? in whose judgment ? in his own ? — no more than we are in ours. — But he is so to them that judge him. — True. Put the case, a Protestant were to be judged by a Papist, as a thousand saints have been : is he not the Avorst of heretics to his judge ? These things turn in a circle: what we are to ourselves, that he is to himself: what he is to us, that we are unto others that may be our judges. But however, you will say, we are in the truth, and therefore ought to go free. Now, truly, this is the same paralogism : who says we are in the truth? others? no, ourselves. Who says erroneous persons (as so supposed) are heretics, or the Hke ? they themselves ? no, but we: and those that are to us as Ave are to them,
FOR THE PRACTICE OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT. 63
say no less of us. Let us not suppose that all the world will stoop to us, because we have the truth, as we affirm, but they do not believe. If we make the rule of our proceedings against others to be our con- viction that they are erroneous ; others will, or may, make theirs of us to be their rule of proceeding against us. We do thus to them, because Ave so judge of them; will not others, who have the same judgment of us as we of them, do the like unto us ? Now here I profess that I do not desire to extend any thing in this discourse to the patronizing of any error whatsoever, — I mean, any thing com- monly so esteemed in the reformed churches, — as myself owning any such ; much less to the procuring of a licentious immunity for every one in his way; and least of all, to countenance men walking dis- orderly in any regard, especially in the particulars before recounted ; — but only to show how warily, and upon what sure principles, that cannot be retorted on us, we ought to proceed, when any severity is necessarily required, in case of great danger ; and how in lesser things, if the unity of faith may in some comfortable measure be kept, then to assert the proposition in its full latitude, urging and pleading for Christian forbearance, even in such manner to be gi'anted as we would desire it from them whom we do forbear; for tinily in those disputable things, we must acknowledge ourselves in the same series with other men, unless we can produce express patents for our exemp- tions. But some, perhaps, will say, that even in such things as these Gamaliel's counsel is not good; better all go on with punishing that can ; truth will not be suppressed, but error will. Good God ! was not truth oppressed by antichristian tyranny ? was not outward force the engine that for many generations kept truth in corners ? But of this afterward.