A70175:39
Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty, or, The true resolution of a present controversy…Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty, or, The true resolution of a present controversie…
Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty, or, The true resolution of a present controversy concerning liberty of conscience here you have the question stated, the middle way betwixt popish tyranny and schismatizing liberty approved and also confirmed from Scripture and the testimonies of divines, yea of whole churches : the chief arguments and exceptions used in the bloody tenet, The compassionate Samaritan, M.S. to A.S. &c., examined : eight distinctions added for qualifying and clearing the whole matter : and in conclusion a parænetick to the five apologists for choosing accommodation rather than toleration.Wholesome severity reconciled with Christian liberty, or, The true resolution of a present controversie concerning liberty of conscience here you have the question stated, the middle way betwixt popish tyrannie and schismatizing liberty approved and also confirmed from Scripture and the testimonies of divines, yea of whole churches : the chiefe arguments and exceptions used in the bloudy tenent, The compassionate samaritane, M.S. to A.S. &c., examined : eight distinctions added for qualifying and clearing the whole matter : and in conclusion a parænetick to the five apologists for choosing accommodation rather than toleration.
London: printed for Christopher Meredith, 1645
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum.
How satanical was Julians design to bring the Christians to nought, by granting liberty of conscience to all the heretics and sectaries that were among them? But suppose the Commonwealth to run no hazard by the toleration of Heresies and Schisms, I answer further, 1. The Text, Rom. 13. 4. speaketh generally, and we must not distinguish where the Scripture doth not distinguish. 2. Those that are in authority are to take such courses and so to rule, that we may not only lead a quiet and peaceable life, but further that it ⟨p. 14⟩be in all godliness and honesty, 1 Tim. 2. 2. The magistrate is keeper of both Tables, and is to punish the violation of the first Table, as well as of the second. 3. Will any man, saith Augustine, who is in his right wit, say to Kings, Do not care by whom the Church of God in your Kingdom be maintained or opposed: it doth not concern you in your Kingdom, who will be religious, who sacrilegious: to whom notwithstanding it cannot be said, It doth not concern you in your Kingdom, who be chaste, who whorish, &c. Is the souls keeping faith and truth to God a lighter matter, then that of a woman to a man? He confesseth in the same Epistle,1 that he and some other African Divines were sometime of that opinion, that the Emperor should not at all punish the Donatists for their heresy or error, but such of them only as should be found to commit any riot or breach of peace, especially the furious and violent Circumcellions. But afterward he confesseth that the Emperor had as good reason to repress their pernicious error, as their furious violence.