Untitled article by G. E. FIFIELD

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · January 7, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 1

John Cotton’s Idea of Liberty of Conscience.

By G. E. FIFIELD

THE SENTINEL has again and again asserted the fact, that there is, and can be, no real liberty of conscience unless men are allowed the same civil right to think, and speak, and act wrong religiously, as to think, and speak, and act right religiously, in purely religious matters as distinguished from those purely civil. This is the point that so many honest, well-meaning people fail to see. Why, say they, should I permit my brother to do wrong, when I might restrain him by law? Will he not be punished for the wrong? and will I too, not be guilty? These people forget, that God knew in the beginning that some people would do wrong, and that misery, pain, and death would be the result of that wrong; and that He, while knowing this, still made them as free to do wrong as to do right.

God himself refused to use any compulsion, but even after men had sinned, in infinite love, he sent his own Son to win them to the right way. When men therefore attempt to use force in matters of conscience, even to restrain men from the wrong, they at once exalt themselves above God. The fact is no man, ever in any nation, sought to use force in religious matters, without thinking, and perhaps honestly, that he did it to restrain men from the wrong. Why did God make men free to do wrong in the beginning? Simply on account of this very truth so often stated by THE SENTINEL, because there can be no liberty and freedom in the choice of the right, unless that freedom also includes the choice of the wrong. The statement, that men may have perfect liberty of conscience to think and act right religiously, but they shall not have liberty to think and act wrong is contradictory, and self-destructive. It at once implies that some one besides the individual is to decide, with reference to every thought and act, whether it is right or wrong, and then give permission accordingly. But it was for this very purpose and only for this purpose, that conscience was given to the individual and if conscience is denied freedom of action in this sphere, and it has no other sphere of action, then the conscience is wholly and completely enslaved. There is no room left for any individual conscience, its duties and privileges being wholly usurped by the decisions of some dominant sect, in alliance with the civil power.

Thus is proven the fact that there can be absolutely no liberty of conscience, unless there is as much liberty to do wrong as to do right. The discussion between Roger Williams and John Cotton turned on this very point.

Failing to see this point John Cotton, perhaps honestly enough, justified the cruel banishment of Mr. Williams, and involved himself in a maze of contradiction. Roger Williams said:—

Mr. Cotton expecteth farre greater light than yet shineth . . . and yet, expecting more light, he must (according to his way of persecution) persecute Christ Jesus if he brings it.

To which John Cotton replies as follows:—

Doth Mr. Williams hold me so farre forsaken of common sense as to frustrate and destroy mine own expectations? If I expect more light, must I, (according to mine own way) needs persecute him that brings it, yea persecute Christ himself, if he brings it? But thus when a man’s head runneth round, he thinketh all the house runneth round about him.

But what is my way of persecution, according to which, I expecting more light must needs persecute him that brings it? 1. It is but a few days ago since there came to my hand a book published by Mr. Williams, and entitled “The Bludy Tenets,” in which Mr. Williams publishes a letter of mine, and therewith a confutation of it, touching Persecution for cause of Conscience. In my stating of the question, which he relateth on the seventh page of that book, he declareth my judgment to be so farre from persecuting any for cause of conscience, that he layeth it downe for my first conclusion; that it is not lawful to persecute any for conscience sake rightly informed (that is to say, bringing more and true light). 2. For an erroneous and blind conscience (even in fundamental and weighty points) it is not lawful to persecute any, till after admonition once or twice, according to the apostles direction. Titus 3: 10, 11. That so, such a man being convinced of the dangerous error of his way; if he still persist, it may appear that he is not persecuted for cause of conscience, but for sinning against his own conscience. 3. In things of less moment, whether point of doctrine, or worship, if a man hold them forth in a spirit of Christian meekness and love (though with zeal and constancy), he is not to be persecuted but tolerated till God may be pleased to manifest his truth to him. 4. But if a man hold forth or professe any error, or false way, with a boysterous and arrogant spirit, to the disturbance of civil peace, he may justly be punished according to the measure of the disturbance caused by him.

It is perfectly plain to us that in all of these propositions Mr. Cotton makes himself, or the dominant sect in alliance with the civil power, the absolute judge of conscience, not only as regards the truth of the opinion entertained, but (what is far worse) as regards the sincerity of the person in entertaining it. If he regards the opinion false, or the person insincere, he justifies his persecution, and this is all that any persecutor ever did. Mr. Williams saw this, and from these very words proved that Mr. Cotton justified persecution for conscience sake. But Mr. Cotton was so far from seeing it that he proceeds as follows:—

This is the way of persecution which Mr. Williams expresseth to be mine. In all which I durst appeal to Mr. Williams’s own conscience (were it not leavened with over deepe prejudice) whether in all this way there can be any crevice opening a dore for the persecution of Christ himself bringing further light?

It may be added right here that the people who persecuted Christ to death for bringing more light, did enter through the very door which John Cotton left open, and which Roger Williams so clearly saw that he left open. They said that Christ’s light was darkness, that he was a Samaritan and had a devil, and that he persisted in his blasphemy to the disturbance of the civil peace. Mr. Cotton did not see this, however, for he continues with much warmth:—

If extreme prejudice were not predominant in Mr. Williams’s mind, I should stand amazed how a man of understanding could, out of such conclusions, make up this inference, which he gives in the title of that chapter; page 7. “That I do professedly maintain persecution for cause of conscience.” I that do expressly, professedly, deny persecution of any, even of hereticks, unless it be when they come to persist in heresie after conviction against conscience; how can I be said to maintain persecution for cause of conscience? But oh, the perversity and blindness of a conscience when it is left of God to be so farre transported with prejudice, as to be able to judge a cause of conscience, and a cause against conscience, to be all one.

After this need it be wondered that the National Reformers and others, while they are making themselves the judge of other peoples’ consciences, and clamoring for laws to persecute all whose consciences differ from theirs, should so deny the intent to persecute? How near Mr. Cotton came to see that his theory made him the judge of other peoples’ consciences, and thus invaded the rights of conscience, will appear from the following:—

Mr. Williams saith, That I publickly taught body-killing, soul-killing, and State-killing doctrine of persecuting all other consciences and ways of worship but mine own, in the civill State, and consequently in the whole world, if the power or empire thereof were in mine own hand. Reply: Were it not that I have learned from the word of truth, that when men are cast out of the Church of

Christ they are delivered up to Satan, and so neither their wits nor their tongues are their own, I could not easily have believed that Mr. Williams would so confidently and openly have avouched such a notorious slander. Since the Lord taught me to know anything, what conscience or the worship of God meant, it hath been my constant judgment, and doctrine, and practice to the contrary. Besides to teach the killing of the bodies of all such consciences and ways of worship as are not mine own (italics his) is to make mine own conscience and way of worship the infallible rule and sovereign standard by which all consciences and ways of worship, throughout the world were to be regulated, yea, and as if this were a light measure of arrogance and usurpation, I make it a capital crime (a body-killing offense) for any man to swerve from my conscience and ways of worship.

This is good sound truth, even if it comes from the pen of John Cotton, but he immediately contradicts it all, and makes himself, or some one else as human or as weak as he, the infallible judge of other peoples’ consciences by saying:—

But I durst appeal even to the conscience of Mr. Williams himself (if it were now in the gracious keeping of Christ, or of himself as in former times) that himself knoweth, I doe not thinke it lawful to excommunicate an heretick, much less to persecute him with the civill sword till it may appear, even by just and full conviction, that he sinneth not out of conscience, but against the very light of his own conscience.

From all this the conclusion stated at the beginning is evident. There can be no liberty of conscience unless it includes as much liberty to do wrong as to do right.

These quotations are from the reply of John Cotton to Roger Williams.

G. E. FIFIELD.