You will say:"What then?"If he should bid you follow merchandise for your livelihood,would you decline that course for fear it should not succeed?
I answer:I would turn merchant upon the prince's command,because,in case I should have ill-success in trade,he is abundantly able to make up my loss some other way.If it be true,as he pretends,that he desires I should thrive and grow rich,he can set me up again when unsuccessful voyages have broken me.But this is not the case in the things that regard the life to come;if there I take a wrong course,if in that respect Iam once undone,it is not in the magistrate's power to repair my loss,to ease my suffering,nor to restore me in any measure,much less entirely,to a good estate.What security can be given for the Kingdom of Heaven?Perhaps some will say that they do not suppose this infallible judgement,that all men are bound to follow in the affairs of religion,to be in the civil magistrate,but in the Church.What the Church has determined,that the civil magistrate orders to be observed;and he provides by his authority that nobody shall either act or believe in the business of religion otherwise than the Church teaches.So that the judgement of those things is in the Church;the magistrate himself yields obedience thereunto and requires the like obedience from others.I answer:Who sees not how frequently the name of the Church,which was venerable in time of the apostles,has been made use of to throw dust in the people's eyes in the following ages?But,however,in the present case it helps us not.The one only narrow way which leads to heaven is not better known to the magistrate than to private persons,and therefore I cannot safely take him for my guide,who may probably be as ignorant of the way as myself,and who certainly is less concerned for my salvation than I myself am.Amongst so many kings of the Jews,how many of them were there whom any Israelite,thus blindly following,had not fallen into idolatry and thereby into destruction?Yet,nevertheless,you bid me be of good courage and tell me that all is now safe and secure,because the magistrate does not now enjoin the observance of his own decrees in matters of religion,but only the decrees of the Church.Of what Church,I beseech you?of that,certainly,which likes him best.As if he that compels me by laws and penalties to enter into this or the other Church,did not interpose his own judgement in the matter.
What difference is there whether he lead me himself,or deliver me over to be led by others?I depend both ways upon his will,and it is he that determines both ways of my eternal state.Would an Israelite that had worshipped Baal upon the command of his king have been in any better condition because somebody had told him that the king ordered nothing in religion upon his own head,nor commanded anything to be done by his subjects in divine worship but what was approved by the counsel of priests,and declared to be of divine right by the doctors of their Church?If the religion of any Church become,therefore,true and saving,because the head of that sect,the prelates and priests,and those of that tribe,do all of them,with all their might,extol and praise it,what religion can ever be accounted erroneous,false,and destructive?
I am doubtful concerning the doctrine of the Socinians,I am suspicious of the way of worship practised by the Papists,or Lutherans;will it be ever a jot safer for me to join either unto the one or the other of those Churches,upon the magistrate's command,because he commands nothing in religion but by the authority and counsel of the doctors of that Church?But,to speak the truth,we must acknowledge that the Church (if a convention of clergymen,****** canons,must be called by that name)is for the most part more apt to be influenced by the Court than the Court by the Church.