power is not to force men against their wills, but to make them willing. The Spirit of God that brings them to this kingdom, makes them willing to obey God there, and gives them pleasure in that obedience, by shedding abroad the love of God in their hearts. They that are not a willing people, belong not to Christ's kingdom, but to the world.

3. By this forceable reformation, human institution is set up; for the power of the world reforms by the prudence of the world; and'men never use human power in the church, but they first make human laws in it; and human laws are the rule of human power. And so, by this means the authority of men is made to have power, not in the things of men, but in the things of God; which is the great dishonour of God, and his authority.

4. It brings men into blind obedience, and makes them obey what is commanded on pain of punishment, though they know not whether it be right or wrong, with the word, or against the word: So that a man shall say, that which I do I am constrained to do, and therefore I do it because I am constrained.

I read in Frith's answer to the bishop of Rochester, that a youth being present at his father's burning, the officers seeing him, resolved to examine him also, to try if they might find him a sectary or an heretic: but the youth dismayed at the sad sight of his father's death, and fearing the like end himself, being asked of one of them, how he believed? Answered, sir, I believe even as it pleaseth you. And so, the more outward and violent power is used upon men, the more of this kind of faith and obedience you shall have: When men shall see prisons, and banishments, and loss of goods, and death, walking up and down the kingdom for the reformation of the church, you shall at last have men say, sirs, we will believe and do, even as it pleaseth you: We will believe as the state pleaseth, or

we will believe as the council pleaseth; and let them make what confession they will, we had rather believe them, than endure them.

And thus by fear and punishment, many men are brought to say and do that which they neither believe nor understand: and how acceptable such popish faith and obedience is unto God, all spiritual Christians know, and every man's conscience, methinks, should be convinced.

5. It makes men hypocrites and not saints; for it forceth the body, and leaves the heart as it was; for the heart cannot be forced by outward power, but by the inward efficacy of the truth: Now the hearts of men being corrupt, what are all outward duties they are forced to, but so much hypocrisy? So that forceable reformation makes only hypocrites and gilded sepulchres, putting a form of godliness upon the outward man, when there is no power of godliness in the inner man, but a power of ungod

liness.

That reformation, with which the uncleanness of the heart stands, is none of Christ's reformation.

What is the reformation of the outward man, when the heart is full of atheism, ignorance of God, adultery, pride, murder, &c. and all the corruptions of nature? Call you this a reformation of the church of Christ? This reformation makes none saints, but all hypocrites, forcing men's actions contrary to their natures.

6. It causes disturbances and tumults in the world; when men are forced by outward power to act against their inward principles, in the things of God, what disturbances and tumults this hath bred in states and kingdoms, who knows not? So that they that lay hold on the power of men, and go about to reform hearts and consciences by outward violence, are never the cause of reformation, but always of tumult: And this renders the

cause of the gospel grievous and odious to the world, rather than commends it. And therefore, let all that love the gospel of Christ, abstain from outward violence; for they that use the sword in this kind, shall in the end perish by the sword.

A man, when he sins not against the state, may justly stand for his state freedom; and to deprive a man of his state liberties for the kingdom of Christ's sake, as it causeth disturbances in the world, so let any man shew me any such thing in the gospel.

7. Christ useth no such outward force himself, for he is meek and lowly in spirit; and not boisterous and furious in the flesh. And it was foretold of him, that he should not strive, nor cry, nor lift up his voice in the streets, to call in outward and secular aid, and power. He never used the power of the world, but did all by the power of the word; even his very punishments and destructions he executes by the word; He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked: And antichrist himself, his greatest enemy, he de. stroys by the spirit of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming.

2. Neither did Christ command his apostles to use any such outward power, but he sent his disciples to preach, and bid them say, into what house soever they entered, peace be to this house; and if men would not receive peace, and the doctrine of peace, not to force them, but to depart thence, and to shake off the dust of their feet, as a witness against them, that they had been there, according to the will of Christ and the Father, and offered them mercy and salvation, which they refused. And this is all that the ministers of the gospel can do to any that refuse their doctrine; and not to go presently to the secular magistrate to ask power to punish them, or imprison them, or sell their goods, as is now practised in some parts of the king

dom, even upon the saints: and if men be wicked, is it not misery enough for them to refuse eternal life, except also they inflict on them temporal death? Is it not misery enough for men to refuse the good things of heaven, except they also deprive them of the good things of this present life? and yet, as Luther said of the clergy, Quando non invocat brachium seculare, & morte utraque terret mundum? When doth it not call upon the secular power, and terrify the world with both deaths? Surely, Christ and the word approve not these ways. For, Matt. xvii. Christ imposeth no other punishment on them that would not hear the church, than that he should be reckoned as a heathen; and Paul, Titus iii. teacheth us, after once and twice admonition, to avoid an heretic, but not to imprison him, or kill him, or banish him and again, they that do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God; and again, he that believeth not, shall be damned; but not one word of outward or corporal punishment in all the gospel.

3. Yea, Christ reproveth his disciples for discovering such a spirit of tyranny, as to punish men for not receiving him, Luke ix. when the apostles, of a prelatical and antichristian spirit in that particular, desired fire to come down from heaven upon them that would not receive him, Christ did severely rebuke them, saying, Ye know not of what spirit ye are; not of Christ's Spirit, which is meek, but of Satan's, who was a murderer from the beginning, and of antichrist's, his first begotten in the world: and he adds, the Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them; and therefore to go about to turn the gospel, not to save men's lives, but to destroy them, and so to change Christ himself, from a Saviour into a destroyer; this is antichrist triumphant.

All these things shew that worldly power hath no place at all in the reformation of the gospel.

T

Now I should have proceeded here to answer some ob

jections, as namely:

Objection 1. That of Luke xiv. compel them to come in: this, I forgetting, named not.

Object. 2. May a Christian then live as he list?

Answ. No, by no means; for he hath the word and Spirit in him, to keep him from living as he list; and he knows that no man in God's kingdom may live as he wills, but as God wills.

Object. 3. But would you have no law?

Answ. No laws in God's kingdom, but God's laws; and these are a thousand times better than all the laws of men: and they are these three:

The law of a new nature.

The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ.

The law of love.

Object. 4. But would you have no government?

Ausw. Yes, but the government of Christ the head, and the Holy Ghost the Spirit, in and over the church the body. They that would govern the faithful, the members of Christ's own body, make themselves the head of those members; and so antichrist may as well be found in a combination of men, as in one single person.

Object. 5. But would you have no order?

Answ. Yes, the best that is; even such an order as is in the body of Christ; where every member is placed by Christ, and none by itself; the order of the spiritual church, is a spiritual order, and not a carnal.

Object. 6. But would you have sin suffered?

Answ. No, but more truly and thoroughly destroyed than any power of the world can destroy it; even by the Spirit of judgment and burning.

Object. 7. But would you have sinners suffered ?

Answ. No, but punished more severely than any powers of the world can punish them: For he shall smite the earth