A discourse about civil government in a new plantation whose design is religion written…

Answ. I Answer, The fear of God, and Faith of those men, may be justly doubted, whose settled abode is in a place where Churches are gathered and ordered according to Christ, and yet are not after a convenient time joined to them: For if in those times and places where the Name of Christ was a Reproach, men were no sooner converted, then they were added to the Church, and their being added to the Church, was made an evidence of their conversion; what may we think of those men, who living in times and places where the Ordinances of the Gospel may be enjoyed in purity, with peace in Church-fellowship, do yet live without the Church? 2. Though there be sundry degrees of distance from the Church, to be found among men that are out of Church fellowship, as the Heathen are further off then moral Christians, yet the same Spirit of unrighteousness and enmity against Christ, worketh and bears rule in an unconverted Christian, as doth in an unbaptized Heathen: He is unsanctified as the other is, and so unsuitable to Gods ends in civil Administrations; and therefore it will not be safe, nor according to the Rule, that where a Church is gathered according to Christ, the Members should be neglected, and such men entrusted with managing the Public Affairs, as are not in fellowship with them.

Answ. I Answer, The fear of God, and Faith of those men, may be justly doubted, whose setled abode is in a place where Churches are gather'd and order'd according to Christ, and yet are not after a convenient time joyned to them: For if in those times and places where the Name of Christ was a Reproach, men were no sooner converted, then they were added to the Church, and their being added to the Church, was made an evidence of their conversion; what may we think of those men, who living in times and places where the Ordinances of the Gospel may be enjoyed in purity, with peace in Church-fellowship, do yet live without the Church? 2. Though there be sundry degrees of distance from the Church, to be found among men that are out of Church fellowship, as the Heathen are further off then moral Christians, yet the same Spirit of unrighteousness and enmity against Christ, worketh and bears rule in an unconverted Christian, as doth in an unbaptized Heathen: He is unsanctified as the other is, and so unsutable to Gods ends in civil Administrations; and therefore it will not be safe, nor according to the Rule, that where a Church is gathered according to Christ, the Members should be neglected, and such men intrusted with managing the Publick Affairs, as are not in fellowship with them.