to fhew us the divine excellence of his fpiritual king- we we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds ; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivitie every thought to the obedience of Chrift: and having in a readiness to avenge all disobedience.” It is evident by the first and second verses of this chapter, that the apostle here speaks of that spiritual power by which Christ governs his church, how all sufficient it is, how powerful to reach the conscience and the inward man, with whom it chiefly deals, and whom no power else can deal with. In comparison of which, as it is here thus magnificently described, how uneffectual and weak is outward force with all her boitrous tools, to the shame of those christians, and especially those churchmen, who to the exercising of church discipline never cease calling on the civil magiftrate to interpose his fleshly force; an argument that all true ministerial and spiritual power is dead within them: who think the gospel, which both began and spread over the whole world for above three hundred years under heathen and persecuting emperors, cannot stand or continue, fupported by the same divine presence and protection to the world's end, much easier under the defensive favour only of a christian magistrate, unless it be enacted enacted and fettled, as they call it, by the state, a ftatute or a state-religion: and understand not that the church itself cannot, much less the state, settle or impose one tittle of religion upon our obedience implicit, but can only recommend or propound it to our free and confcientious examination : unless they mean to fet the ftate higher than the church in religion, and with a grofs contradiction give to the state in their fettling petition that command of our implicit belief, which they deny in their fettled confeffion both to the ftate and to the church. Let them ceafe then to importune and interrupt the magiftrate from attending to his own charge in civil and moral things, the fettling of things juft, things honeft, the defence of things religious fettled by the churches within themselves; and the repreffing of their contraries determinable by the common light of nature; which is not to constrain or to reprefs religion, probable by fcripture, but the violators and perfecutors thereof: of all which things he hath enough and more than enough to do, left yet undone; for which the land groans and juftice goes to wrack the while: let him alfo forbear force where he hath no right to judge; for the confcience is not his province: leaft a worse woe arrive him, for worfe offending, than was denounced by our faviour, (Matt. xxiii. 23.) against the pharifees: ye have forced the confcience, C which 1 which was not to be forced; but judgment and mercy ye have not executed: this ye fhould have done, and the other let alone. And fince it is the counfel and fet purpofe of God in the gospel by fpiritual means which are counted weak, to overcome all power which refifts him; let them not go about to do that by worldly ftrength, which he hath decreed to do by thofe means which the world counts weakness, left they be again obnoxious to that faying, which in another place is alfo written of the pharifees, (Luke vii. 30.) " that they fruftrated the counsel of God." The main plea is, and urged with much vehemence to their imitation, that the kings of Judah, as I touched before, and especially Jofiah, both judged and used force in religion; (2 Chr. xxxiv. 33.) " he made all that were present in Ifrael to serve the Lord their God." An argument, if it be well weighed, worse than that used by the false prophet Shemaiah to the high priest, that in imitation of Jehoiada he ought to put Jeremiah in the ftocks, (Jer. xxix. 24, 26, &c.) for which he received his due denouncement from God. But to this befides I return a three-fold anfwer: first, that the state of religion under the gofpel is far differing from what it was under the law then was the state of rigour, childhood, bondage and works, to all which force was not unbefitting; now is the ftate of grace, manhood, free dom . dom and faith; to all which belongs willingnefs and reason, not force: the law was then written on tables of stone, and to be performed according to the letter, willingly or unwillingly; the gofpel, our new covenant, upon the heart of every believer, to be interpreted only by the fenfe of charitie and inward perfuafion: the law had no distinct government or governors of church and commonwealth, but the priests and levites judged in all caufes not ecclefiaftical only but civil, (Deut. xvii. 8, &c.) which under the gospel is forbidden to all church minifters, as a thing which Chrift their master in his minifterie difclaimed, (Lu.xii. 14.) as a thing beneath them; (1 Cor. vi. 4.) and by many of our ftatutes, as to them who have a peculiar and far differing government of their own. If not, why different the governors? why not church minifters in ftate affairs, as well as ftate minifters in church affairs? If church and state shall be made one flesh again as under the law, let it be withal confidered, that God who then joined them hath now fevered them; that which he fo ordaining, was then a lawful conjunction; to fuch on either fide as join again what he hath fevered, would be nothing now but their own prefumptuous fornication. Secondly, the kings of Judah, and those magiftrates under the law, might have recourfe, as I faid before, to divine infpiration; which our magiftrates C 2 |