WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered cover

The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered

Chapter 37: CHAP. XXIX.
By Roger Williams
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)Philosophy & EthicsReligion/Spirituality

About This Book

The work mounts a sustained argument against using civil power to enforce religious conformity, grounding its case in scriptural interpretation and practical reasoning. It critiques claims that magistrates should punish religious dissent, examines and replies to a contemporary minister's published letter, and offers addresses aimed at lawmakers and general readers. Interleaving theological exegesis, legal and moral reasoning, and polemical rejoinders, the text advocates freedom of conscience and the separation of church authority from state coercion, while outlining a defense of toleration as consistent with Christian principles.

CHAP. XXIX.

Matt. xv. 14, the second scripture controverted in this cause.

Peace. The second scripture brought against such persecution for cause of conscience, is Matt. xv. 14; where the disciples being troubled at the Pharisees’ carriage toward the Lord Jesus and his doctrines, and relating how they were offended at him, the Lord Jesus commanded his disciples to let them alone, and gives this reason—that the blind lead the blind, and both should fall into the ditch.

Unto which, answer is made, “That it makes nothing to the cause, because it was spoken to his private disciples, and not to public officers in church or state: and also, because it was spoken in regard of troubling themselves, or regarding the offence which the Pharisees took.”

Christ Jesus never directed his disciples to the civil magistrate for help in his cause.

Truth. I answer,—to pass by his assertion of the privacy of the apostles, in that the Lord Jesus commanding to let them alone, that is, not only not to be offended themselves, but not to meddle with them—it appears it was no ordinance of God, nor Christ, for the disciples to have gone further, and have complained to, and excited, the civil magistrate to his duty: which if it had been an ordinance of God and Christ, either for the vindicating of Christ’s doctrine, or the recovering of the Pharisees, or the preserving of others from infection, the Lord Jesus would never have commanded them to omit that which should have tended to these holy ends.[124]