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THE FIRST DEFENCE 35
vation in a strange land at the beck and call, and in the pay, of
masters. Take my word for it, you would soon be sent packing
from your foreign tour back to your own kith and kin, but for
your one accomplishment: you do know how to blab out
5 trumpery pamphlets among strangers—and what price to get
for them.
You blame our magistrates because they "admit the offscourings
of all the sects." Why should they not admit them?
It is for the church to expel them from the company of the
10 faithful, not for the magistrates to banish them the country,
provided they break no civil law. To live safe and free, without
suffering violence or wrong, to this end it was that men
first entered into a polity; to live piously and religiously, into
a church; the former has its laws, the latter its doctrine and
15 discipline, quite distinct; and it is because the Magistracy and
the Church confuse their jurisdictions that for so many years
war has sown a harvest of more war throughout all Christendom.
This, too, is why we cannot endure Popery; for we perceive
it to be not so much a religion as a pontifical despotism
20 decked out, under pretence of religion, with the spoils of civil
power, which it has seized unto itself contrary to Christ's own
precept.
As for "Independents," none such as are assumed by you
(and you alone) have ever been seen among us; except in so
25 far as they recognize no assemblies or synods above each individual
congregation, and feel, with you, that such should be
uprooted as branches of the Hierarchy, or in fact its very
trunk. From this the name of Independents has got popular
currency.