it would be contrary to a general law we have from CHRIST; Gal. 5. 1. Be not intangled again with the Yoke of Bondage; which not only shows Christians are not subjected to that particular yoke, but also that their yoke is not to be so heavy as that was; so that if they should increase their injunctions to make religion now so burdensome, as the Jewish was, it would be contrary to this superior law.” Be it so, but then remember this is true upon their principles, that if they stop but one hair short, they will tell you, their injunctions are not contrary to this general law. If the burden they lay upon you be at all less, by your principle you confess yourself under the obligation of obedience; and how miserable Christians would be if human lawgivers might go near such a length, I need not spend any time to show, it is so very obvious. But farther, suppose civil rulers should go still beyond; who are the judges whether they go contrary to this law or not? Are the rulers the judges, or have private Christians a right of judgment in this case? If the rulers only are to judge, we may be sure thay will judge in favour of their own laws: if they exceed this bound you suppose set to them by this general law; they will never judge that law of CHRIST to be contrary to their laws: and if so, more miserable yet is the Christian’s condition. But if you say, private Christians have a right of judgment for themselves in this case; I then ask, if they judge the rulers in their injunctions exceed the bounds allowed by this law of CHRIST, whether they are to be tollerated by the rulers in their not conforming to those injuctions they judge contrary to this law? They have gone as far (it is to be supposed) in conforming, as their consciences will suffer them: Are they then to be indulged to stop there according to their own judgments, or must they still conform farther, or else be subjected to a penalty for not going farther? If they must be subjected to penalties for not conforming in this case; how deplorable is the condition of Christians? Obey the inventions of men or dye! You will doubtless answer; they must be tollerated, since it is supposed they have a right of judging for themselves, when a human injunction in religion is contrary to a divine law. This is undoubtedly true: for to suppose they have a right of judgment for themselves, is to suppose they have a right to act according to their judgment: and therefore none (not the civil magistrate) can have any right to hinder them. A right that in this case is dependent on the will of another, is no right at all. Suppose then, private Christians should judge that it is contrary to the will of CHRIST express’d in that text, Gal. 5. 1. that the civil magistrate should make any legal injunction at all in religion (which is the truth of the case); I then ask, whether these who so judge are not to be allowed to act according to their judgment, as well as the former? This surely can’t be denied them; since the right of private judgment belongs to the latter as well as the former. If then Christians have a right to adhere strictly to the will of CHRIST delivered in the sacred scriptures in every thing relating to their faith and practice in religion, exclusive of all human legal injunctions; then no power on earth can have any right to make a law to restrain them therefrom, or to add the least thing thereto. For to have a right to adhere to the sacred scriptures alone as a rule in this case, and not to have such a right is a contradiction: and to suppose the civil magistrate has a right to restrain them, or to add any one law to CHRIST’S in this case, is to suppose Christians have not a right to adhere to the sacred scriptures as their alone rule. The supposition therefore of any rightful power in the civil ruler to make any one law in matters of religion, involves in it as plain a contradiction to truth, as a right to a thing and no right to it does. The rule therefore which you would set up, by which to try what humane laws in matters of religion are to be obeyed, is justly to be rejected; not only because it subjects Christians to an intollerable yoke (if admitted), but because it can in no instance be admitted, but at the expence of a Christian’s natural and unalienable right of private judgment in matters of religion. It may do well enough to amuse men with a pretence they have found out a rule how far Christians ought to obey the laws of civil rulers in matters of religion, and where they may safely stop; where they can find persons so weak as to think that civil rulers have some power to make laws in these matters: But if that be the truth that they have no power at all to make any law in these cases, then the setting up such a rule is a grand absurdity. Now I have shown evidently before, that the civil magistrate can have no such power, that his power relates to the civil interests of a people, and is bounded thereby—that the sacred scriptures are the alone rule of faith and practice in religion to a Christian; that the right of private judgment, what the Christian is to believe and do in religion according to that rule, is his natural and unalienable right; so that he neither really may nor can give up his soul, his conscience in these matters to the controul of human laws. And the truth is, the civil magistrate is so far from having a rightful power in these cases, to make laws for CHRIST’S subjects; that in doing so, he violates the fundamental priviledge of the gospel, the birthright of believers, Christian liberty. 2 Cor. 3. 17. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty. Gal. 4. 31. We are not Children of the Bondwoman, but of the Free. It is impossible to suppose that GOD by his special grace in the gospel should free us from the bondage of ceremonies, his own commandments, in these things, and subject us to a more grievous yoke, the commandments of men. Nor has he given us his gift only as a special priviledge and excellence of the free gospel above the servile law; but has strictly commanded us to keep and enjoy it. You are called to Liberty, Gal. 5. 13. 1 Cor. 7. 23. Be not ye the Servants of Men. Gal. 5. 1. Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. A command accompany’d with the weightiest reasons. Rom. 14. 9, 10. For to this End CHRIST both died and rose and revived; that he might be Lord, both of the Dead and Living: But why dost thou judge thy Brother, &c. How presumest thou to be his Lord? To be whose only Lord, at least in these things, CHRIST both died and rose and lived again—We shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of CHRIST. Why pretend you then to be a Lord, a Judge, in these things, for which we are to be accountable to the tribunal of CHRIST only, our Lord and lawgiver? Who in so many express words, has told us we shall have himself only our Master in religion, Math. 23. 8, 9, 10. One is your Master, even CHRIST. By all which I think it is evident; that for men to exercise such a power in religious matters as you have been pleading for, is not only a violation of the rights of Christians, whose souls in matters of religion are subject to none but Christ and his laws; but an invasion of the royal power of CHRIST, who is the sole legislator in his own kingdom.
To illustrate and clear this point, let me bring it down to a plain and familiar instance. Let it be supposed a humane law is made, that the sign of a cross shall be made upon a person’s forehead, after the use of water &c. in baptism, so that none shall be admitted to baptism but who submit to this manner of administration of it: or a law requiring all who attend the ordinance of the Lord’s supper to do it in a kneeling posture: and let it be supposed, that there is no particular law to the contrary in the gospel forbidding those actions. Now according to the rule you plead for (on the supposition now made), Christians are bound to obey these laws. But the contrary is evident. For it has been already demonstrated, that every Christian has a right to adhere to the sacred scriptures as the only rule of his faith and practice in religion; and that the right of private judgment, what he is to believe and do in religion according to that rule, is really unalienable: he can’t therefore be bound to yield any obedience to such laws of man, unless he be obliged to yield up an unalienable right, which is a contradiction. Besides—if the making such laws are an invasion of CHRIST’S authority; how is it possible the proposition should be true, that a Christian is obliged to obey them, unless the Christian has two masters in religion, contrary to Mat. 23. 8, 9, 10. Where there is no authority to command in matters of religion, there a Christian is under no obligation from such laws to obey: But in the case before us, such laws are not only enjoined without authority, but they interfere with CHRIST’S authority: So that a Christian is indeed very far from being bound to obey them.
Unto what has been already said that will shew this, I shall add but a few words. CHRIST has in the gospel charter made a grant of certain privileges to those who would be, and do approve themselves his subjects. To them he has granted the privilege of attending on him in the ordinances he has instituted, for the conveying the sanctifying graces of his spirit to their souls, to prepare them for the inheritance he has purchased and secured by promise to such as believe in and obey him. As this is clear and certain in the nature of the thing itself, that the grantor of a privilege has the sole right of fixing the condition on which the privilege shall be enjoyed by the grantee; so it is equally certain,
