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Discussion of George Gillespie's Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty
GWS-12 <text> 
Subject: GWS-12 
From: Richard Bacon 
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 13:39:15 -0500

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Discussion: GWS. Post 12.
George Gillespie's Wholesome Severity 
Reconciled with Christian Liberty
The true resolution of a present controversy 
concerning liberty of conscience.
All text for this discussion taken from the 
edition of this work, Copyright (c) Naphtali 
Press 1996.  Full text available at: 
http://www.naphtali.com/naphtali
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[Part II.  Point 3, Proof from the NT]

3. The third argument is drawn from the 
New Testament. The Magistrate beareth not 
the sword in vain, for he is the minister of 
God, a revenger to execute wrath on him 
that doth evil (Rom. 13:4). But I assume, 
heretics and sectaries do evil, yea, much 
evil, especially when they draw many others 
after them in their pernicious ways. It was 
the observation of one of the greatest 
politicians of this kingdom, "That heresies 
and schisms are of all others the greatest 
scandals: yea, more than corruption of 
manners" (Bacon's Essays on Councils Civil 
and Moral (London 1597; augment. edit. 
1612; 1624), pp. 11-12). One of his reasons 
is, because "every sect of them has a diverse 
posture or cringe by themselves, which 
cannot but move derision in worldlings, and 
depraved politics, who are apt to contemn 
holy things." I know it will be answered, "If 
any sectary makes a breach of peace, or 
disturbs the State, then indeed the 
Magistrate ought to redress it by a coercive 
power." So John the Baptist (p. 57). So Mr. 
Williams (ch. 52) answers Rom. 13:4 is not 
meant of evil against the Christian estate, 
but of evil against the civil state. M.S. (pp. 
53-54), tells us that he is not for the 
toleration of sects and schisms, except "only 
upon this supposition, that the professors 
and maintainers of them be otherwise 
peaceable in the State, and every way 
subject to the laws and lawful power of the 
civil Magistrate." I answer, the experience 
of former times may make us so wise as to 
foresee that heresy and schism tend to the 
breach of civil peace, and to a rupture in the 
State as well as in the Church. What 
commotions did the Arians make in all the 
Eastern parts? the Macedonians in Greece? 
the Donatists in Africa? How did the 
Anabaptists raise and foment the bloody war 
of the Boores in Germany, wherein were 
killed above 10,000 men? Tantum religio 
potuit suadere malorum [Religion has had 
the power to urge men to such great evil].
How fanatical was Julian's design to bring 
Christians to nought, by granting liberty of 
conscience to all the heretics and sectaries 
that were among them? 

But suppose the Commonwealth to run no 
hazard by the toleration of heresies and 
schisms, I answer further, 1. The text (Rom. 
13:4) speaks generally, and we must not 
distinguish where the Scripture does not 
distinguish. 2. Those that are in authority are 
to take such courses and so to rule, that we 
may not only lead a quiet and peaceable 
life, but further that it be in all godliness and 
honesty (1 Tim. 2:2). The magistrate is 
keeper of both tables, and is to punish the 
violation of the first table, as well as of the 
second. 3. "Will any man," says 
Augustine,#13 "who is in his right wit, say 
to Kings, `Do not care by whom the Church 
of God in your Kingdom is maintained or 
opposed; it does not concern your Kingdom, 
who will be religious, who sacrilegious:' to 
whom, notwithstanding, it cannot be said, `It 
does not concern you in your Kingdom, who 
is chaste, who whorish,' etc. Is the soul's 
keeping faith and truth to God a lighter 
matter, than that of a woman to a man?" He 
confesses in the same epistle, that he and 
some other African divines were sometime 
of that opinion, that the Emperor should not 
at all punish the Donatists for their heresy or 
error, but such of them only as should be 
found to commit any riot or breach of peace, 
especially the furious and violent 
Circumcellions. But afterward he confesses 
that the Emperor had as good reason to 
repress their pernicious error, as their 
furious violence.

Footnotes:

13. Epistle 50. It used to seem to several 
brothers, and I too used to be among them, 
that although the madness of the Donatists 
was raging everywhere, one was not to ask 
the rulers to order that heresy to cease to 
exist entirely by establishing a system of 
punishment for those who wished to be in it; 
but rather to establish this system so that 
their harsh violence should not be permitted. 
Notwithstanding he acknowledges a great 
mercy of God in inclining the Emperors 
heart another way. For this reason, then, it 
was brought about that the righteous and 
religious Emperor, in such cases as came to 
his attention, entirely preferred to correct 
the error of that impiety by means of his 
most righteous laws, and to return to 
catholic unity those who carry the banners 
of Christ against Christ by frightening them 
and applying force, rather than only taking 
away their freedom to vent their fury and 
allowing them to go astray and perish.


Dick Bacon
Poster of the text and keeper of the order.