Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…

You will say, The nature of the thing spoken of will require that it must be restrained to those things that belong to his cognisance.

Such a limitation must of necessity be granted; therefore ⟨p. 26⟩it is true that the Magistrate cannot command every good thing, nor punish every evil; the abstruse controversies in Religion come not under the cognisance of a Magistrate, as a Magistrate; only such things as are against the rules of common justice and equity, and the common light of Christianity, where he is to govern Christians, for he is to enjoin and punish such things only as if he were not; the community of people which sets him up, ought to enjoin and punish, for he hath his power from them: but of this more in the next Principle.

Such a limitation must of necessity be granted; therefore ⟨p. 26⟩it is true that the Magistrate cannot command every good thing, nor punish every evill; the abstruse controversies in Religion come not under the cognisance of a Magistrate, as a Magistrate; only such things as are against the rules of common justice and equity, and the common light of Christianity, where he is to govern Christians, for he is to enjoyn and punish such things only as if he were not; the community of people which sets him up, ought to enjoyn and punish, for he hath his power from them: but of this more in the next Principle.

If you shall say, But those Scriptures speaking of Civill Magistrates, we must understand them to be meant only of civill things.