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. LXXVIII. CHAP. LXXVIII. Truth. I here observe the answerer’s partiality, that none but such as truly fear God should enjoy liberty of conscience; whence the inhabitants of the world must either come into the estate of men fearing God, or else dissemble a religion in hypocrisy, or else be driven out of the world. One must follow. The first is only the gift of God; the second and third are too commonly practised upon this ground. Again. Since there is so much controversy in the world where the name of Christ is taken up, concerning the true church, the ministry, and worship, and who are those that truly fear God; I ask, who shall judge in this case, who be they that fear God? Dangerous consequences flowing from the civil magistrates judging in spiritual causes. The world turned upside down. It must needs be granted, that such as have the power of suffering, or not suffering such consciences, must judge: and then must it follow, as before I intimated, that the civil state must judge of the truth of the spiritual; and then magistrates fearing or not fearing God, must judge of the fear of God; also, that their judgment or sentence must be according to their conscience, of what religion soever: or that there is no lawful magistrate, who is not able to judge in such cases. And lastly, that since the sovereign power of all civil authority is founded in the consent of the people, that every common weal hath radically and fundamentally in it a power of true discerning the true fear of God, which they transfer to their magistrates and officers: or else, that there are no lawful kingdoms, cities, or towns in the world, in which a man may live, and unto whose civil government he may submit: and then, as I said before, there must be no world, nor is it lawful to live in it, because it hath not a true discerning spirit to judge them that fear or not fear God. The wonder-answer of the ministers of the church of New England to the ministers of the church of Old England. Lastly. Although this worthy answerer so readily grants, that liberty of conscience should be suffered to them that fear God indeed: yet we know what the ministers of the churches of New England wrote in answer to the thirty-two questions sent to them by some ministers of Old England,[204] viz., that although they confessed them to be such persons whom they approved of far above themselves, yea, who were in their hearts to live and die together; yet if they, and other godly people with them, coming over to them, should differ in church constitution, they then could not approve their civil cohabitation with them, and, consequently, could not advise the magistrates to suffer them to enjoy a civil being within their jurisdiction. Hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth! yea, let the heavens be astonished, and the earth tremble, at such an answer as this from such excellent men to such whom they esteem for godliness above themselves!