Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

A

TREATISE

OF

Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes;

SHOWING,

That it is not lawful for any Power on Earth to compel in Matters of Religion.*

To the Parliament of the Commonwealth of ENGLAND, with the Dominions thereof.

I

Have prepared, Supreme Council! against the muchexpected time of your fitting, this treatife; which, though to all chriftian magiftrates equally belonging, and therefore to have been written in the common language of Chriftendom, natural duty and affection hath confined, and dedicated firft to my own nation; and in a feafon wherein the timely reading thereof, to the eafier accomplishment of your great work, may fave you much labour and interruption: of two parts ufually proposed, civil and ecclefiaftical, recommending civil only to your proper care, ecclefiaftical to them only from whom it takes both that name and nature. Yet not for this caufe only do I require or truft to find acceptance, but in a twofold refpect befides: first, as bringing clear evidence of fcripture and proteftant maxims to the parliament of England, who in all their late acts, upon occafion, have profeffed to affert only the true proteftant chriftian religion, as it is contained in the holy fcriptures: next, in regard that your power being but for a time, and having in yourfelves a chriftian liberty of your own, which at one time or other may be oppreffed, thereof truly fenfible, it will concern you

* First printed 1659.

while you are in power, fo to regard other men's consciences, as you would your own fhould be regarded in the power of others; and to confider that any law against confcience is alike in force against any confcience, and fo may one way or other juftly redound upon yourselves. One advantage I make no doubt of, that I fhall write to many eminent perfons of your number, already perfect and refolved in this important article of chriftianity. Some of whom I remember to have heard often for feveral years, at a council next in authority to your own, fo well joining religion with civil prudence, and yet fo well diftinguishing the different power of either; and this not only voting, but frequently reafoning why it should be fo, that if any there present had been before of an opinion contrary, he might doubtless have departed thence a convert in that point, and have confeffed, that then both commonwealth and religion will at length, if ever, flourish in Chriftendom, when either they who govern difcern between civil and religious, or they only who fo difcern fhall be admitted to govern. Till then, nothing but troubles, perfecutions, commotions can be expected; the inward decay of true religion among ourselves, and the utter overthrow at laft by a common enemy. Of civil liberty I have written heretofore by the appointment, and not without the approbation of civil power of christian liberty I write now, which others long fince having done with all freedom under heathen emperors, I fhould do wrong to fufpect, that I now fhall with lefs under chriftian governors, and fuch especially as profefs openly their defence of chriftian liberty; although I write this, not otherwife appointed or induced, than by an inward perfuafion of the chriftian duty, which I may usefully discharge herein to the common lord and mafter of us all, and the certain hope of his approbation, first and chiefeft to be fought in the hand of whofe providence I remain, praying all fuccefs and good event on your public councils, to the defence of true religion and our civil rights. JOHN MILTON.

A TREATISE OF CIVIL POWER

IN ECCLESIASTICAL CAUSES.

TWO things there be, which have been ever found working much mifchief to the Church of God, and the advancement of truth; force on one fide restraining, and hire on the other fide corrupting the teachers thereof. Few ages have been fince the afcenfion of our Saviour, wherein the one of these two, or both together, have not prevailed. It can be at no time, therefore, unfeasonable to fpeak of these things; fince by them the church is either in continual detriment and oppreffion, or in continual danger. The former fhall be at this time my argument; the latter as I fhall find God difpofing me, and opportunity inviting. What I argue, fhall be drawn from the Scripture only; and therein from true funda- . mental principles of the gospel, to all knowing chriftians undeniable. And if the governors of this commonwealth, fince the rooting out of prelates, have made leaft ufe of force in religion, and most have favoured chriftian liberty of any in this ifland before them fince the firft preaching of the gofpel, for which we are not to forget our thanks to God, and their due praife; they may, I doubt not, in this treatife, find that which not only will confirm them to defend ftill the chriftian liberty which we enjoy, but will incite them alfo to enlarge it, if in aught they yet ftraiten it. To them who perhaps hereafter, lefs experienced in religion, may come to govern or give us laws, this or other fuch, if they pleafe, may be a timely inftruction: however, to the truth it will be at all times no unneedful teftimony, at least fome discharge of that general duty, which no chriftian, but according to what he hath received, knows is required of him, if he have aught more conducing to the advancement of religion, than what is ufually endeavoured, freely to impart it.

It will require no great labour of expofition, to unfold what is here meant by matters of religion; being

as

t

as foon apprehended as defined, fuch things as belong chiefly to the knowledge and fervice of God; and are either above the reach and light of nature without revelation from above, and therefore liable to be variously understood by human reafon, or fuch things as are enjoined or forbidden by divine precept, which else by the light of reafon would feem indifferent to be done or not done; and fo likewife muft needs appear to every man as the precept is understood. Whence I here mean by confcience or religion that full perfuafion, whereby we are affured, that our belief and practice, as far as we are able to apprehend and probably make appear, is according to the will of God and his holy fpirit within us, which we ought to follow much rather than any law of man, as not only his word every where bids us, but the very dictate of reafon tells us. Acts iv. 19. "Whether it be right in the fight of God, to hearken to you more than to God, judge ye." That for belief or practice in religion, according to this confcientious perfuafion, no man ought to be punished or molefted by any outward force on earth whatsoever, I diftruft not, through God's implored affiftance, to make plain by thefe following arguments.

Firft, it cannot be denied, being the main foundation of our proteftant religion, that we of thefe ages, having no other divine rule or authority from without us, warrantable to one another as a common ground, but the Holy Scripture, and no other within us but the illumination of the holy spirit fo interpreting that fcripture as warrantable only to ourfelves, and to fuch whofe confciences we can fo perfuade, can have no other ground in matters of religion but only from the Scriptures. And thefe being not poffible to be understood without this divine illumination, which no man can know at all times to be in himself, much lefs to be at any time for certain in any other, it follows clearly, that no man or body of men in thefe times can be the infallible judges or determiners in matters of religion to any other men's confciences but their own. And therefore thofe Bercans are commended, Acts xvii. 11. who after the preaching even of St. Paul, fearched the

Scriptures

Scriptures daily, whether thofe things were fo." Nor did they more than what God himfelf in many places commands us by the fame Apoftle, to fearch, to try, to judge of these things ourselves: and gives us reafon alfo, Gal. vi, 4, 5 "Let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another: for every man thall bear his own burden." If then we count it fo ignorant and irreligious in the papift, to think himfelf discharged in God's account, believing only as the Church believes, how much greater condemnation will it be to the protestant his condemner, to think himfelf juftified, believing only as the state believes? With good caufe, therefore, it is the general confent of all found proteftant writers, that neither traditions, councils, nor canons of any vifible church, much lefs edicts of any magiftrate or civil feffion, but the fcripture only, can be the final judge or rule in matters of religion, and that only in the confcience of every chriftian to himself. Which

protestation made by the first public reformers of our religion against the imperial edicts of Charles the fifth, impofing church-traditions without fcripture, gave first beginning to the name of Proteftant; and with that name hath ever been received this doctrine, which prefers the fcripture before the church, and acknowledges none but the fcripture fole interpreter of itfelf to the confcience. For if the church be not fufficient to be implicitly believed, as we hold it is not, what can there elfe be named of more authority than the church but the confcience, than which God only is greater, 1 John iii, 20? But if any man fhall pretend that the fcripture judges to his confcience for other men, he makes himself greater not only than the church, but alfo than the fcripture, than the confciences of other men: a prefumption too high for any mortal, fince every true chriftian, able to give a reafon of his faith, hath the word of God before him, the promifed holy fpirit, and the mind of Chrift within him, 1 Cor. ii, 16; a much better and fafer guide of confcience, which as far as concerns himself he may far more certainly know than any outward rule impofed upon him by others, whom VOL. III.

Y

he

« AnteriorContinuar »