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. XIII. CHAP. XIII. Mr. Cotton. “Secondly, we deny that it is necessary to church fellowship, that is, so necessary that without it a church cannot be, that the members admitted thereunto should all of them see and expressly bewail all the pollutions which they have been defiled with in the former church fellowship, ministry, worship, government, &c., if they see and bewail so much of their former pollutions, as did enthral them to anti-christ so as to separate them from Christ, and be ready in preparation of heart, as they shall see more light, so to hate more and more every false way; we conceive it is as much as is necessarily required to separate them from anti-christ, and to fellowship with Christ and his churches. The church of Christ admitted many thousand Jews that believed on the name of Christ, although they were still zealous of the law, and saw not the beggarly emptiness of Moses’s ceremonies, Acts xxi. 20; and the apostle Paul directeth the Romans to receive such unto them as are weak in the faith, and see not their liberty from the servile difference of meats and days, but still lie under the bondage of the law; yea, he wisheth them to receive such upon this ground, because Christ hath received them, Rom. xiv. 1 to the 6th.” “Say not, there is not the like danger of lying under bondage to Moses as to anti-christ: for even the bondage under Moses was such, as if continued in after instruction and conviction, would separate them from Christ, Gal. v. 2, and bondage under anti-christ could do no more.” Answ. Here I desire three things may be observed:— Mr. Cotton confessing the true and false constitution of the church. First, Mr. Cotton’s own confession of that twofold church estate, worship, &c., the former false, or else why to be so bewailed and forsaken? the second true, to be embraced and submitted to. Mr. Cotton confessing to hold what he censureth in the answerer. Secondly, his own confession of that which a little before he would make so odious in me to hold, viz., that God’s people may be so far enthralled to anti-christ, as to separate them from Christ: for, saith he, “If they see and bewail so much of their former pollutions, as did enthral them to anti-christ, so as to separate them from Christ.”[252] Fallacy in Mr. Cotton’s generals. A godly person remaining a member of a false church, is therein a member of a false Christ. Thirdly, I observe how easily a soul may wander in his generals, for thus he writes: “Though they see not all the pollutions wherewith they have been defiled in the former church fellowship.” Again, “if they see so much as did enthral them to anti-christ, and separate them from Christ.” And yet he expresseth nothing of that, “all the pollutions,” nor what so much is as will separate them from Christ. Hence upon that former distinction that Christ in visible worship is Christ, I demand, whether if a godly person remain a member of a falsely constituted church, and so consequently, in that respect, of a false Christ, whether in visible worship he be not separate from the true Christ? Separation from false Christ absolutely necessary before there can be union to the true. A sequestration or separation of the soul from the world in the idolatrous and invented worships of it, before it can be presented to Christ Jesus, as a chaste virgin into the chaste bed of his own most holy institutions. Secondly, I ask, whether it be not absolutely necessary to his uniting with the true church, that is, with Christ in true Christian worship, that he see and bewail, and absolutely come out from that former false church or Christ, and his ministry, worship, &c., before he can be united to the true Israel—must come forth of Egypt before they can sacrifice to God in the wilderness. The Jews come out of Babel before they build the temple in Jerusalem. The husband of a woman [must] die, or she be legally divorced, before she can lawfully be married to another; the graft cut off from one before it can be ingrafted into another stock. The kingdom of Christ, that is, the kingdom of the saints, Dan. ii. and vii., is cut out of the mountain of the Roman monarchy. Thus the Corinthians, 1 Cor. vi. 9-11, uniting with Christ Jesus, they were washed from their idolatry, as well as other sins. Thus the Thessalonians turned from their idols before they could serve the living and true God, 1 Thess. i. 9; and as in paganism, so in anti-christianism, which separates as certainly, though more subtilly, from Christ Jesu.