The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

In recovering a people, in a ⟨p. 253⟩reeling and staggering time, a Magistrate may engage them to formerly received truth, and interpose his authority for this end, as is recorded of Josiah, 2 Chron. 34. 31, 32, 33. Also, 10. He may and ought to remove all false worships, and endure no corrupt preaching, or writing, or meetings for that end, or administrating of corrupted Sacraments, or any Ordinance other than what is allowed; for, Josiah did cause the people stand to the Covenant that was made, and having removed all Idolatrous worship, he made Israel to serve the Lord, that is, he made them abandon corrupt worship, and wait on pure Ordinances, as keeping of the Sabbaths, offering of sacrifices, &c. and that according to the manner prescribed by the Lord. Neither was it a wronging of their liberty, to do so: Because, 1. it was the preservation of their liberty, to keep them from the abominable bondage of these evils. 2. It was their duty to abstain from these, and to follow the Ordinances purely, and the Magistrate may well put people to that. 3. It is one thing by force to keep folks from dishonouring God in a corrupt Religion, (as Josiah did) another to force them to a Religion; the one belongeth to the ordering of the outward man, the other to the inward. 4. He might order them to keep the Ordinances, and in going about them to keep the rule, because that is but a constraining of them to the means whereby Religion worketh, and a making them, as it were, to give God a hearing, leaving their yielding and consenting to him, when they have heard him, to their own wills, which cannot be forced; yet it is reason that when God cometh by His Ordinances to treat with a people, that a Magistrate should so far respect His glory and their good, as to interpose His Authority to make them hear. 5. Also, there is a difference between the constraining of a circumcised or baptized people, to worship God in the purity of Ordinances, as they have been engaged thereto, which ⟨p. 254⟩was Josia's practice, and the constraining of a people to engage and be baptized, which were not formerly engaged; because, actual members of a Church have not even that liberty as others have, to abandon Ordinances: and this putteth them to no new engagement in Religion, but presseth them to continue under former engagements, and accordingly to perform: