CHAPTER X.01

CHAPTER X.
THE POWER OF LEGISLATION, IN WHICH THE POPE AND HIS ADHERENTS HAVE MOST CRUELLY TYRANNIZED OVER THE MINDS, AND TORTURED THE BODIES, OF MEN.

We now proceed to the second branch of the power of the Church, which the Romanists represent as consisting in legislation—a source from which have issued innumerable human traditions, the most pestilent and fatal to wretched souls. For they have made no more scruple than the scribes and Pharisees to “lay on other men’s shoulders burdens which they themselves would not touch with one of their fingers.”

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I have shown in another place the extreme cruelty of their injunctions concerning auricular confession. None of their other laws discover such enormous violence; but those which appear the most tolerable of them all, are tyrannically oppressive to the conscience. I forbear to remark how they adulterate the worship of God, and despoil God himself, who is the sole Legislator, of the right which belongs to him. This power is now to be examined—whether the Church has authority to make laws which shall bind the consciences of men. This question has nothing to do with political order; the only objects of our present attention are, that God may be rightly worshipped according to the rule he has prescribed, and that our spiritual liberty which relates to God may be preserved entire. Whatever edicts have been issued by men respecting the worship of God, independently of his word, it has been customary to call human traditions. Against such laws we contend, and not against the holy and useful constitutions of the Church, which contribute to the preservation of discipline, or integrity, or peace. The object for which we contend, is, to restrain that overgrown and barbarous empire, which is usurped over men’s souls by those who wish to be accounted the pastors of the Church, but who in reality are its most savage butchers. For they say that the laws which they make are spiritual, pertaining to the soul, and they affirm them to be necessary to eternal life. Thus, as I have lately hinted, the kingdom of Christ is invaded; thus the liberty given by him to the consciences of believers is altogether subverted and destroyed. I forbear to remark at present with what great impiety they enforce the observance of their laws, while they teach men to seek the pardon of their sins and righteousness and salvation from it, and while they make the whole of religion and piety to consist in it. I only contend for this one point, that no necessity ought to be imposed upon consciences in things in which they have been set at liberty by Christ; and without this liberty, as I have before observed, they can have no peace with God. They must acknowledge Christ their Deliverer as their only King, and must be governed by one law of liberty, even the sacred word of the gospel, if they wish to retain the grace which they have once obtained in Christ; they must submit to no slavery; they must be fettered by no bonds.

II. These sapient legislators, indeed, pretend that their constitutions are laws of liberty, an easy yoke, a light burden. But who does not see that these are gross falsehoods? The hardship of their laws is not at all felt by themselves, who have rejected the fear of God, and securely and boldly disregard all laws, human and divine. But persons who are impressed with any concern for their salvation, are far from considering themselves at liberty as long as they are entangled in these snares. We see what great caution Paul used in this respect, to avoid “casting a snare upon” men in a single instance;

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and that not without cause; for he saw what a deep wound would be made in their consciences, by the imposition of any necessity upon them in those things in which the Lord had left them at liberty. On the contrary, it is scarcely possible to enumerate the constitutions, which these men have most rigorously enforced with the denunciation of eternal death, and which they require to be most minutely observed as necessary to salvation. Among these, there are many exceedingly difficult to be fulfilled; but when they are all collected together in one body, so immense is the accumulation, the observance of the whole is utterly impracticable. How, then, can it be possible for those who are loaded with such a vast weight of difficulty, not to be perplexed and tortured with extreme anxiety and terror? My design at present, then, is, to oppose constitutions of this kind, which tend to bind souls internally before God, and to fill them with scruples, as if they enjoined things necessary to salvation.

III. The generality of men, therefore, are embarrassed with this question, for want of distinguishing with sufficient exactness between the outward judgment of men and the court of conscience. The difficulty is increased by the injunction of Paul, that the magistrate is to be obeyed, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake;”

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whence it follows, that consciences are bound by political laws. If this were the case, all that we said in the last chapter, and are about to say in this, on the subject of spiritual government, would fall to the ground. To solve this difficulty, it is first of all necessary to understand what is conscience. The definition may be derived from the etymology of the word. Science, or knowledge, is the apprehension which men have of things in their mind and understanding. So, when they have an apprehension of the judgment of God, as a witness that suffers them not to conceal their sins, but forces them as criminals before the tribunal of the judge, this apprehension is called conscience. For it is something between God and man, which permits not a man to suppress what he knows within himself, but pursues him till it brings him to a sense of his guilt. This is what Paul means, when he speaks of men’s “conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing, one another”

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before God. A simple knowledge might remain in man, as it were, in a state of concealment. Therefore this sentiment, which places men before the tribunal of God, is like a keeper appointed over man to watch and observe all his secrets, that nothing may remain buried in darkness. Hence that old proverb, that conscience is equal to a thousand witnesses. For the same reason, Peter speaks of “the answer of a good conscience towards God,”

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to denote our tranquillity of mind, when, persuaded of the grace of Christ, we present ourselves before God without fear. And the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of persons “having no more conscience of sins,”

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to signify their being liberated, or absolved, so as to feel no more remorse or compunction for sin.