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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 62: CHAP. LIV.
By Roger Williams
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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. LIV.

Peace. It will yet be said, it pleaseth God to permit adulteries, murders, poisons: God suffers men, like fishes, to devour each other, Hab. i. 14; the wicked to flourish, Jer. xii. 1; yea, sends the tyrants of the world to destroy the nations, and plunder them of their riches, Isa. x. [5, 6.] Should men do so, the world would be a wilderness; and beside we have command for zealous execution of justice, impartially, speedily.

Two sorts of commands, both by Moses and Christ.

Truth. I answer, we find two sorts of commands, both from Moses and from Christ, the two great prophets and messengers from the living God, the one the type or figure of the later. Moses gave positive rules, both spiritual and civil; yet also, he gave some not positive but permissive, for the common good. So the Lord Jesus expoundeth it.

Matt. xix. 7, 8.

For whereas, the Pharisees urged it, that Moses commanded to give a bill of divorcement and to put away, the Lord Jesus expoundeth it, Moses for the hardness of your hearts suffered, or permitted, Matt. xix. 7, 8.

The permission of divorce in Israel.

This was a permissive command, universal to all Israel, for a general good, in preventing the continual fires of dissensions and combustions in families: yea, it may be murders, poisons, adulteries, which that people, as the wisdom of God foresaw, was apt, out of the hardness of their heart, to break out into, were it not for this preventing permission.

Hence it was, that for a further public good sake, and the public safety, David permitted Joab, a notorious malefactor, and Shimei and Adonijah, &c. And civil states and governors, in like cases, have and do permit and suffer what neither David nor any civil governors ought to do or have done, were it not to prevent the hazard of the whole, in the shedding of much innocent blood, together with the nocent, in civil combustions.

Peace. It may be said, Joab, Shimei, Adonijah, &c., were only, as it were, reprieved for a time, and proves only that a season ought to be attended for their punishment.

Truth. Answ. I answer, I produce not these instances to prove a permission of tares—anti-christians, heretics—which other scriptures abundantly prove, but to make it clear, against the answerer’s allegation, that even in the civil state permission of notorious evil doers, even against the civil state, is not disapproved by God himself and the wisest of his servants in its season.