Watts - Houston-Packer Collection BX5207.W3 S4x 1805 v.3

I48 T. PAUL'S DIVINE COMMISSION [misc. 1, law of their secular affairs as well as the rule of their re- ligion ; and therefore the high -priest was made a judge in many civil affairs as well as religious. Their religion and their civil government were so interwoven; by God's being their king as, well :as their God, that there were many crimes in religion to be punished by the civil ma- gistrate, by the appointment of God himself; which makes the case of the Jews different from the case of all other nations under heaven; For no people ever had God for their civil and political governor and lawgiver, but the Jews alone. Christianity does not claim, or assume, or pretend, to any such privilege or power : It does not alter this mat- ter from what the light of nature bath determined : It introduces no new civil government, but leaves all these matters as it finds them; and since the Judaic state and government are abolished, there is no magistrate on earth hath power to enquire or command, to rule or punish, any further in matters of religion, than to see that the state suffer no damage, and the peace of man- kind, and the government be secured. But this bath been the unhappiness of Christians al- most in all ages since Christianity began, they have been cited before magistrates, and punished even by their fel- low-christians, as well as by the Jews and heathens, for those notions and practices.wherein the magistrate bath no power. This the Jews began you see very early, and the Roman governors and heathens have carried it on and Christian magistrates have carried this matter to the height, but it is in the antichristian church. Theyhave done this by bloody persecutions, racks, torments, and murders of the best of their fellow- citizens, where the very light of nature dictated to the best and wisest of heathens, that they had no power orr authority; and it is a plain con- fession of it, where Festus and Gallio were not willing to meddle ; nor would Pilate himself, who crucified Christ, have done it, if the Jews had not almost con- strained him; as sufficiently appears in the history of the death of Christ. Let us remember then, that the religion of Christ is not built on the wisdomor power of ,man, nor Both it need such a support.; . All that christia- nity wants, is to have the persons, and property, and peace df its professors, secured against the outrages of

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