The Primitive Practice for Preserving Truth, Section 20
SECT. XX.
HOw shall these sober minded and moderate Papists rise up in judgement at the last day against all loose, ignorant and prophane Protestants of both orders, who for the smallest offences and for the very tendernesse of conscience it self, vex, molest, cite, sue, imprison, fine, suspend, deprive, and utterly undo their innocent, godly and peaceable fellow Christians? For if it be neither warranted by the practice of the Primitive Church, nor consonant to reason, policie, or the property of the true Church, to kill an Heretique by a long and noysome imprisonment, or to adjudge and put him to a violent death. If persecution for conscience sake be accounted, and that justyl, a brand of the Antichristian Church, and that Luther and his followers had even necessary cause in the yeer 1517. in that respect only to depart out of the Romish Babylon, as from a Malignant Synagogue; how is it possible that Protestant Prelates should persecute any at all with imprisonment and despoiling them of their goods, though convicted of Schisme it self, but much more such sober and innocent Christians, who by their own confession hold nothing in matter of doctrine contrary to the truth, live inoffensively and vertuously in respect of their conversation, and are ready in all humility to submit to any particulars in matters supposed to be indifferent, which they shall be convinced out of Gods Word to be so? It is confessed on all hands, that it is a most dangerous sin to do any thing, yea, a lawfull act, against the dictate and perswasion of Conscience; and shall pious Christians in all other respects, for this alone be persecuted, and followed with greater violence, then Adulterers, Swearers, or Fornicators themselves? The authority and glory of a Prince had been as fully extended in removing those particulars which made the breach, as in retaining them, it being acknowledged on all hands, that the removall of them is, and was alwayes as lawfull as the retention of them; but if the wisdome of any Church conceive it self upon great and sound motives rather obliged to retain them, and to adde new burthens rather then to abolish or change the old; yet doubtlesse withall some course may be considered of, how those who in all main and fundamentall truths are the true servants of God, the humble and obedient children of the Church, and of innocent and vertuous lives, might in the mean time enjoy the Ordinances of God in peace and quiet: For doubtlesse, if one Protestant may lawfully vex, cite, fine, suspend, deprive, excommunicate, and imprison another (which in some cases necessitates a lingring death) for things accounted by themselves no way essentiall to Gods worship normans salvation: then is all we have said against the Romists Synagogue of no validity at all; nay, there being no Magis and Minus in persecution, it will follow necessarily, that for the same causes one Protestant may as well put to death another, as imprison him; and so Samaria shall of necessity justisie her sister Sodome. That the supreme Magistrate in things lawfull ought to be obeyed for Conscience sake, is a certain truth: But yet it is too apparent that such as are more violent for these lesser matters, so to ravage and trample on the weaker and more humble Christians, by pressing obedience to the Magistrate, are commonly themselves the most outrageously disobedient; for though they seeme most eager to obey him in these formall and outward commands, yet where the commands of God himself and the Magistrates meet together, forbidding Adultery, Fornication, swearing, blaspheming, unlawfull gaming, starving of souls, maintaining erroneous doctrines, and divers other horrible and Atheisticall offences; here neither God nor Prince, Law nor Gospel, heaven nor hell, can restrain their lustful practices or scandalous lives. Did Cardinall Sadolet himself intercede with Francis the first the Grandfather, and the Arcbishop of Vienne, and Bishop of Valence, with Francis the second, the Grandchilde, two of the French Kings, for the Protestants of their times, whom yet they accounted Heretiques; and is it possible any Protestant Prelate or Divine, should stir up any Protestant Prince or State to ruine their Protestant-fellow-Ministers, and other Christians, because they cannot submit to such particulars, as in themselves can no way hinder or impeach the unity of faith, nor could breake (if Gods glory were only aimed at) the bond of love? The Apostle Paul having left the true Church that incomparable Catholike Rule; That the stronger Christians should beare with the weaker, and that the weaker Christians should not condemn the stronger.