The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, by Roger Williams CHAP. III. CHAP. III. Truth. In the answer, Mr. Cotton first lays down several distinctions and conclusions of his own, tending to prove persecution. Secondly. Answers to the scriptures and arguments proposed against persecution. The first distinction discussed. Peace. The first distinction is this: by persecution for cause of conscience, “I conceive you mean either for professing some point of doctrine which you believe in conscience to be the truth, or for practising some work which you believe in conscience to be a religious duty.” Definition of persecution discussed. Truth. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practising worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him; and such a person, whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or false, suffereth persecution for conscience. Conscience will not be restrained from its own worship, nor constrained to another. But withal I desire it may be well observed, that this distinction is not full and complete. For beside this, that a man may be persecuted because he holdeth or practiseth what he believes in conscience to be a truth, as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions’ den, Dan. vi. 16, and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practise what they believed was by God commanded, as the apostles answered, Acts iv. and v., I say, besides this, a man may also be persecuted because he dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such doctrines and worships as are by men invented and appointed. So the three famous Jews, who were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to fall down, in a nonconformity to the whole conforming world, before the golden image, Dan. iii. 21.[96] So thousands of Christ’s witnesses, and of late in those bloody Marian days, have rather chosen to yield their bodies to all sorts of torments, than to subscribe to doctrines, or practise worships, unto which the states and times (as Nebuchadnezzar to his golden image) have compelled and urged them. A chaste soul in God’s worship, like a chaste wife. A chaste wife will not only abhor to be restrained from her husband’s bed as adulterous and polluted, but also abhor (if not much more) to be constrained to the bed of a stranger. And what is abominable in corporal, is much more loathsome in spiritual whoredom and defilement. The spouse of Christ Jesus, who could not find her soul’s beloved in the ways of his worship and ministry, Cant. i., iii., and v. chapters, abhorred to turn aside to other flocks, worships, &c., and to embrace the bosom of a false Christ, Cant. i. 8.