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

It was your mistake, when you too confidently affirmed, That the limiting of the Right and Pow•r of choosing Civil Officers unto free Burgesses that are Members of Churches, brought that Tyranny into the Romish Church, which all the Churches of Christ complain of. It would well have become you to have better digested your own thoughts, before such words had passed through your lips; for you will never be able to produce any good Author that will confirm what you say. The truth is quite contrary; for that I may instance in Rome it self: Had Churches been rightly managed▪ when the most considerable part in that City embraced the Christian Faith, in the ceasing of the Ten Persecutions, that only such as had been fit for the State, had been admitted into Church-fellowship, that they alone had had power, out of themselves to have chosen Magistrates, such Magistrates would not have been chosen, as would have given their Power to the Pope; not would those Churches have suffered their Pastors to become Worldly Princes and Rulers, as the Pope and his Cardinals are; nor would they have given up the Power of the Church from the Church into the Officers hands, but would have called upon them to fulfil their Ministry which they had received of the Lord; and if need were, would by the power of Christ have compelled them so to do: And then where had the Popes Supremacy been, which is made up of the Spoils of the Ecclesiastical and Civil State? but had by the course which now we plead for, been prevented.

It was your mistake, when you too confidently affirmed, That the limiting of the Right and Pow•r of choosing Civil O•ficers unto free Burgesses that are Members of Churches, brought that Tyranny into the Romish Church, which all the Churches of C•rist complain of. It would well have become you to have better digested your own thoughts, before such words had passed through your lips; for you will never be able to produce any good Author that will confirm what you say. The truth is quite contrary; for that I may instance in Rome it self: Had Churches been rightly managed▪ when the most considerable part in that City embraced the Christian Faith, in the ceasing of the Ten Persecutions, that onely such as had been fit for the State, had been admitted into Church-fllowship, that they alone had had power, out of themselves to have chosen Magstrates, such Magistrates would not have been chosn, as would have given their Power to the Pope; not would those Churches have suffered their Pastors to become Worldly Princes and Rulers, as the Pope and his Cardinals are; nor would they have given up the Power of the Church from the Church into the Officers hands, but would have called upon them to flfill their Ministry which they had rceived of the Lord; and if need were, would by the power of Christ have compelled them so to do: And then where had the Popes Supremacy been, which is made up of the Spoils of the Ecclesiastical and Civil State? but had by the course which now we plead for, been prevented.