To gather up, now, what hath been spoken : — considering the gos- pel's right and title to be propagated, with all its concernments, in every nation under heaven ; the blessing, peace, prosperity, and pro- tection wherewith it is attended when and where received; and the certain destruction and desolation which accompanies the rejection and contempt thereof; — considering the duty that, by God's appoint- ment, is incumbent on them that rule over men, — that in the fear of the Lord they ought to seek the good, peace, and welfare and pros- perity of them committed to their charge ; to prevent, obviate, re- move, revenge, that which tends to their hurt, perturbation, dissolu- tion, destruction, immediate from heaven, or from the hand of men ; and in the whole administration to take care that the worshippers of God in Christ may lead a quiet and peaceable hfe, in all godliness and honesty; — let any one, who hath the least sense upon his spirit, of the account which he must one day make to the great King and Judge of all the world, of the authority and power wherewith he was in- trusted, determine whether it be not incumbent on him — by all the protection he can afiford, by all the privileges he can indulge, the supportment that he can grant, by all that encouragement which, upon the highest account imaginable, he is required or allowed to give to any person whatsoever — to further the propagation of the gos- pel; which upon the matter is the only thing of concernment, as well unto this life as that which is to come. And if any thing be allowed in a nation, which in God's esteem may amount to a con- tempt and despising thereof, men may be taught by sad experience what will be the issue of such allowance.
3i)4< CHRIST S KINGDOM AND
Hhly. I shall only propose one thing more to your consideration. A Ithough the institutions and examples of the Old Testament, of the duty of magistrates in the things and about the luorship of God, are not, in their whole latitude and extent, to he draiun into mdes that should be obligatory to all magistrates now, under the administration of the gospel, — and that because the magistrate then was " custos, vin- dex, et administrator legis judicialis, et politic Mosaicee," from which, as most think, we ai'e freed ; — yet, doubtless, there is something moral in those institutions, which, being unclothed of their Judaical form, is still binding to all in the like kind, as to some analogy and propor- tion. Subduct from those administrations what was proper to, and lies upon the account of, the church and nation of the Jews, and what remains upon the general notion of a church and nation must be ever- lastingly binding. And this amounts thus far, at least, that judges, rulers, and magistrates, which are promised under the New Testa- ment to be given in mercy, and to be of singular usefulness, as the judges were under the Old, are to take care that the gospel chm-ch may, in its concernment as such, be supported and promoted, and the truth propagated wherewith they are intrusted ; as the others took care that it might be well with the Judaical church as such. And on these, and such like principles as these are, may you safely bot- tom yourselves in that undertaking wherein you seek for direction from God this day.
[3.] For the rules which I intimated, I shall but name them, hav- ing some years since delivered my thoughts to the world at large on this subject;^ and I see no cause as yet to recede from any thing then so delivered. Take, then, only, for the present, these brief directions following : —
1st. Labour to be fully persuaded in your oivn minds, that you he not carried up and down with every wind of doctrine, and be tempted to hearken after every spirit, as though you had received no truth as it is in Jesus. It is a sad condition, when men have no zeal for truth, nor against that which is opposite to it, whatever they seem to profess; because, indeed, having not taken in any truth in the power and principle of it, they are upon sad thoughts, wholly at a loss whe- ther there be any truth or no. This is an imhappy frame indeed; — the l^roper condition of them whom God will spue out of his mouth.
''Idly. Know that error and falsehood have no right or title, either from God or man, unto any privilege, protection, advantage, liberty, or any good tiling you are intrusted withal. To dispose that imto a lie, which is the right of aiid due to truth, is to deal trt'at'hcrously •with Him by whom you are employed. All the tenderness and for- bearance unto such persons as are infected with such abominations is ' Discourse on Toleration.
THE magistrate's POWER. 395
solely upon a civil account, and that plea which they have for tran- quillity whilst neither directly nor morally they are a disturbance unto others.
2dly. Know that in things of practice, so of persuasion, that are impious and wicked, either in themselves or in their natural and un- constrained consequences, the plea of conscience is an aggravation of the crime. If men's consciences are seared, and themselves given up to a reprobate mind, to do those things that are not convenient, there is no doubt but they ought to suffer such things as to such practices are assigned and appointed.