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. IV. CHAP. IV. Peace. The second distinction is this:— The second distinction discussed. “In points of doctrine some are fundamental, without right belief whereof a man cannot be saved; others are circumstantial and less principal, wherein a man may differ in judgment without prejudice of salvation on either part.” God’s people may err from the very fundamentals of visible worship. Truth. To this distinction I dare not subscribe, for then I should everlastingly condemn thousands, and ten thousands, yea, the whole generation of the righteous, who since the falling away from the first primitive Christian state or worship, have and do err fundamentally concerning the true matter, constitution, gathering, and governing of the church. And yet, far be it from any pious breast to imagine that they are not saved, and that their souls are not bound up in the bundle of eternal life.[97] We read of four sorts of spiritual, or Christian, foundations in the New Testament. Four sorts of spiritual foundations. First, the foundation of all foundations, the corner-stone itself, the Lord Jesus, on whom all depend—persons, doctrines, practices, 1 Cor. iii. [11.] 2. Ministerial foundations. The church is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Ephes. ii. 20. 3. The foundation of future rejoicing in the fruits of obedience, 1 Tim. vi. [19.] Στοιχεῖα, θεμὲιοὶ. The six foundations of the Christian religion or worship. 4. The foundation of doctrines, without the knowledge of which there can be no true profession of Christ, according to the first institution, Heb. vi. [1, 2,]—the foundation, or principles, of repentance from dead works, faith towards God, the doctrine of baptisms, laying on of hands, the resurrection, and eternal judgment. In some of these, to wit, those concerning baptisms and laying on of hands, God’s people will be found to be ignorant for many hundred years; and I yet cannot see it proved that light is risen, I mean the light of the first institution, in practice. God’s people in their persons, heart-waking (Cant. v. 2), in the life of personal grace, will yet be found fast asleep in respect of public Christian worship. Coming out of Babel, not local, but mystical. God’s people, in their persons, are His, most dear and precious: yet in respect of the Christian worship they are mingled amongst the Babylonians, from whence they are called to come out, not locally, as some have said, for that belonged to a material and local Babel (and literal Babel and Jerusalem have now no difference, John iv. 21), but spiritually and mystically to come out from her sins and abominations. The great ignorance of God’s people concerning the nature of the true church. If Mr. Cotton maintain the true church of Christ to consist of the true matter of holy persons called out from the world (and the true form of union in a church government), and that also neither national, provincial, nor diocesan churches are of Christ’s institution: how many thousands of God’s people of all sorts, clergy and laity, as they call them, will they find, both in former and later times, captivated in such national, provincial, and diocesan churches? yea, and so far from living in, yea or knowing of any such churches, for matter and form, as they conceive now only to be true, that until of late years, how few of God’s people knew any other church than the parish church of dead stones or timber? It being a late marvellous light, revealed by Christ Jesus, the Sun of righteousness, that his people are a company or church of living stones, 1 Pet. ii. 9. Mr. Cotton and all the half separatists, halting between true and false churches, and consequently not yet clear in the fundamental matter of a Christian church. And, however his own soul, and the souls of many others, precious to God, are persuaded to separate from national, provincial, and diocesan churches, and to assemble into particular churches, yet, since there are no parish churches in England, but what are made up of the parish bounds within such and such a compass of houses, and that such churches have been and are in constant dependence on, and subordination to the national church: how can the New English particular churches join with the old English parish churches in so many ordinances of word, prayer, singing, contribution, &c., but they must needs confess, that as yet their souls are far from the knowledge of the foundation of a true Christian church, whose matter must not only be living stones, but also separated from the rubbish of anti-christian confusions and desolations.