Note 652 — Chapter XXIII

Vindication of the Ordinance against Heresies, &c., 1646.—In which the example of Geneva in putting Servetus to death is cited with approval, and is adduced as an argument in defence of the ordinance.—

The Scottish Dove defends the Ordinance against Heresies, &c., as a great work, very necessary, heresy being of the flesh, and therefore to be punished by the magistrate. A complaint is made in a pamphlet entitled, Oaths unwarrantable, (June, 1647,) that multitudes of men well-affected to the Parliament were indicted and punished for not coming to their parish churches, though there were no statutes to authorize punishment for such neglect, except the act of uniformity, which had been repealed. "Though I stay seven years from church," says the writer, "and constantly meet in private houses, there is by Parliament's principles neither law nor ordinance in force for any judge or justice of the peace to indict me, or any other, or any otherwise to molest or trouble me."