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354
DE CORPORE POLITICO.

amongst the Grecians, Romans, or other Gentiles: for amongst these their several civil laws were the rules whereby not only righteousness and virtue, but also religion, and the external worship of God, was ordered and approved; that being esteemed the true worship of God, which was (Symbol missingGreek characters), according to the laws civil. Also those Christians that dwell under the temporal dominion of the bishop of Rome, are free from this question; for that they allow unto him, their sovereign, to interpret the Scriptures, which are the law of God, as he in his own judgment shall think right. This difficulty therefore remaineth amongst, and troubleth those Christians only, to whom it is allowed, to take for the sense of the Scripture, that which they make thereof, either by their own private interpretation, or by the interpretation of such as are not called thereunto by public authority; they that follow their own interpretation continually, demanding liberty of conscience; and those that follow the interpretation of others not ordained thereunto by the sovereign of the commonwealth, requiring a power in matters of religion either above the power civil, or at least not depending on it.

3. To take away this scruple of conscience, concerning obedience to human laws, amongst those that interpret to themselves the word of God in the Holy Scriptures, I propound to their consideration, first, that no human law is intended to oblige the conscience of a man, unless it break out into action, either of the tongue, or other part of the body. The law made thereupon would be of none effect, because no man is able to discern, but by word or other action whether such law be kept or broken. Nor did the apostles themselves pretend dominion over men's consciences, concerning the faith they preached, but only persuasion and instruction. And therefore St. Paul saith (2 Cor. i. 24), writing to the Corinthians, concerning their controversies, that he and the rest of the apostles had

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