suffer these incendiaries and disturbers of the public peace might
justly be wondered at if it did not appear that they have been invited
by them unto a participation of the spoil, and have therefore
thought fit to make use of their covetousness and pride as means
whereby to increase their own power. For who does not see that these
good men are, indeed, more ministers of the government than
ministers of the Gospel and that, by flattering the ambition and
favouring the dominion of princes and men in authority, they endeavour
with all their might to promote that tyranny in the commonwealth which
otherwise they should not be able to establish in the Church? This
is the unhappy agreement that we see between the Church and State.
Whereas if each of them would contain itself within its own bounds-
the one attending to the worldly welfare of the commonwealth, the
other to the salvation of souls- it is impossible that any discord
should ever have happened between them. Sed pudet hoec opprobria. etc.
God Almighty grant, I beseech Him, that the gospel of peace may at
length be preached, and that civil magistrates, growing more careful
to conform their own consciences to the law of God and less solicitous
about the binding of other men's consciences by human laws, may,
like fathers of their country, direct all their counsels and
endeavours to promote universally the civil welfare of all their
children, except only of such as are arrogant, ungovernable, and
injurious to their brethren; and that all ecclesiastical men, who
boast themselves to be the successors of the Apostles, walking
peaceably and modestly in the Apostles' steps, without intermeddling
with State Affairs, may apply themselves wholly to promote the
salvation of souls.

                                                 FAREWELL.

  PERHAPS it may not be amiss to add a few things concerning heresy
and schism. A Turk is not, nor can be, either heretic or schismatic to
a Christian; and if any man fall off from the Christian faith to
Mahometism, he does not thereby become a heretic or schismatic, but an
apostate and an infidel. This nobody doubts of; and by this it appears
that men of different religions cannot be heretics or schismatics to
one another.

  We are to inquire, therefore, what men are of the same religion.
Concerning which it is manifest that those who have one and the same
rule of faith and worship are of the same religion; and those who have
not the same rule of faith and worship are of different religions. For
since all things that belong unto that religion are contained in
that rule, it follows necessarily that those who agree in one rule are
of one and the same religion, and vice versa. Thus Turks and
Christians are of different religions, because these take the Holy
Scriptures to be the rule of their religion, and those the Alcoran.
And for the same reason there may be different religions also even
amongst Christians. The Papists and Lutherans, though both of them
profess faith in Christ and are therefore called Christians, yet are
not both of the same religion, because these acknowledge nothing but
the Holy Scriptures to be the rule and foundation of their religion,
those take in also traditions and the decrees of Popes and of these
together make the rule of their religion; and thus the Christians of
St. John (as they are called) and the Christians of Geneva are of
different religions, because these also take only the Scriptures,
and those I know not what traditions, for the rule of their religion.

  This being settled, it follows, first, that heresy is a separation
made in ecclesiastical communion between men of the same religion
for some opinions no way contained in the rule itself; and,
secondly, that amongst those who acknowledge nothing but the Holy
Scriptures to be their rule of faith, heresy is a separation made in
their Christian communion for opinions not contained in the express
words of Scripture. Now this separation may be made in a twofold
manner:

  1. When the greater part, or by the magistrate's patronage the
stronger part, of the Church separates itself from others by excluding
them out of her communion because they will not profess their belief
of certain opinions which are not the express words of the
Scripture. For it is not the paucity of those that are separated,
nor the authority of the magistrate, that can make any man guilty of
heresy, but he only is a heretic who divides the Church into parts,
introduces names and marks of distinction, and voluntarily makes a
separation because of such opinions.

  2. When any one separates himself from the communion of a Church
because that Church does not publicly profess some certain opinions
which the Holy Scriptures do not expressly teach.

  Both these are heretics because they err in fundamentals, and they
err obstinately against knowledge; for when they have determined the
Holy Scriptures to be the only foundation of faith, they
nevertheless lay down certain propositions as fundamental which are
not in the Scripture, and because others will not acknowledge these
additional opinions of theirs, nor build upon them as if they were
necessary and fundamental, they therefore make a separation in the
Church, either by withdrawing themselves from others, or expelling the
others from them. Nor does it signify anything for them to say that
their confessions and symbols are agreeable to Scripture and to the
analogy of faith; for if they be conceived in the express words of
Scripture, there can be no question about them, because those things
are acknowledged by all Christians to be of divine inspiration and
therefore fundamental. But if they say that the articles which they
require to be professed are consequences deduced from the Scripture,
it is undoubtedly well done of them who believe and profess such
things as seem unto them so agreeable to the rule of faith. But it
would be very ill done to obtrude those things upon others unto whom
they do not seem to be the indubitable doctrines of the Scripture; and