Some speak much of the many disorders which will be uncured, if Violence do not more than Teaching and Love: But I humbly ask of them: First, are those disorders such as are curable in this life; or such as are the unavoidable miseries of our corrupt and imperfect state? Secondly, will force cure them better than evidence of truth, and Love will do? Thirdly, will they be so cured without a greater mischief! God telleth the Sabbath-breakers of Israel, that when they were rooted out, the land should keep her Sabbaths: Was that a mercy or a judgement? Would you so cure Sabbath-breaking and disorder? and take a solitude for Peace? Fourthly, is not the work to be done, the saving of mens souls? And shall any be saved against his will? And then should not all force be merely such as is subservient to the ends of Love? Fifthly, will stripes change the judgement in matters of Religion? Sixthly, is he any better than a Knave or an hypocrite, who will say or swear or do that through fear, which he verily thinketh God forbiddeth him, and is displeased for, and feareth it may damn his soul? Seventhly, Is it the honour and felicity of so•ls to be such? or of Church or Kingdom to be composed of such? Eighthly, is not a conscientious fear of sinning against God, a thing ⟨p. 380⟩well pleasing to him, and necessary to mens salvation, and to the Churches welfare, and to the safety of the lives of Kings, and of the Kingdoms peace? And is there not then great cause to cherish it (though not the errors that abuse it.) And should not all care be used to cure the ungodly world, of impiety and searedness of conscience, which makes them make a mock of sin. And if conscience were once debauched and mastered by fear, and the people be brought to prefer their their fleshly interest before their spiritual, and to fear mens punishment more than Gods, would not such debauched consciences have a great advantage, to make such men the masters of the estates and lives of others? And are the lives of Kings, and the estates of neighbours, and the peac• of Kingdoms, competently secured, where God is not feared more than fines or corporal penalties?
Some speak much of the many disorders which will be uncured, if Violence do not more than Teaching and Love: But I humbly ask of them: First, are those disorders such as are curable in this life; or such as are the unavoidable miseries of our corrupt and imperfect state? Secondly, will force cure them better than evidence of truth, and Love will do? Thirdly, will they be so cured without a greater mischief! God telleth the Sabbath-breakers of Israel, that when they were rooted out, the land should keep her Sabbaths: Was that a mercy or a judgement? Would you so cure Sabbath-breaking and disorder? and take a solitude for Peace? Fourthly, is not the work to be done, the saving of mens souls? And shall any be saved against his will? And then should not all force be meerly such as is subservient to the ends of Love? Fifthly, will stripes change the judgement in matters of Religion? Sixthly, is he any better than a Knave or an hypocrite, who will say or swear or do that through fear, which he verily thinketh God forbiddeth him, and is disple•sed for, and feareth it may damn his soul? Seventhly, Is it the honour and felicity of so•ls to be such? or of Church or Kingdome to be composed of such? Eighthly, is not a conscientious fear of sinning against God, a thing ⟨p. 380⟩well pleasing to him, and necessary to mens salvation, and to the Churches welfare, and to the safety of the lives of Kings, and of the Kingdoms peace? And is there not then great cause to cherish it (though not the errours that abuse it.) And should not all care be used to cure the ungodly world, of impiety and •earedness of conscience, which makes them make a mock of sin. And if conscience were once debauched and mastered by fear, and the people be brought to prefer their their fleshly interest before their spiritual, and to fear mens punishment more than Gods, would not such debauched consciences have a great advantage, to make such men the masters of the estates and lives of others? And are the lives of Kings, and the estates of neighbours, and the peac• of Kingdomes, competently secured, where God is not feared more than fines or corporal penalties?
