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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 80: CHAP. LXXII.
By Roger Williams
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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. LXXII.

Man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience.

Peace. “Brentius, whom you next quote,” saith he,[189] “speaketh not to your cause. We willingly grant you, that man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience; but this hinders not, but men may see the laws of God observed which do bind conscience.”

Truth. I answer, In granting with Brentius that man hath not power to make laws to bind conscience, he overthrows such his tenent and practice as restrain men from their worship according to their conscience and belief, and constrain them to such worships, though it be out of a pretence that they are convinced, which their own souls tell them they have no satisfaction nor faith in.[190]

Secondly. Whereas he affirmeth that men may make laws to see the laws of God observed:—

I answer, as God needeth not the help of a material sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit in the affairs of conscience, so those men, those magistrates, yea, that commonwealth which makes such magistrates, must needs have power and authority from Christ Jesus to sit as judge, and to determine in all the great controversies concerning doctrine, discipline, government, &c.

Desperate consequences unavoidable.

And then I ask, whether upon this ground it must not evidently follow, that—

Either there is no lawful commonwealth, nor civil state of men in the world, which is not qualified with this spiritual discerning: and then also, that the very commonweal hath more light concerning the church of Christ, than the church itself.

Or, that the commonweal and magistrates thereof, must judge and punish as they are persuaded in their own belief and conscience, be their conscience paganish, Turkish, or anti-christian. What is this but to confound heaven and earth together, and not only to take away the being of Christianity out of the world, but to take away all civility, and the world out of the world, and to lay all upon heaps of confusion?