2.

is this, but to impose an uncertain faith, upon certain penalties?

As he that acts doubtfully is damned, fo faith in all acts of religion is necessary : now in order to believe, we must first will; to will, we must judge; to judge any thing, we must first understand : if then we cannot be said to understand any thing against our understanding; no more can we judge, will, or believe against our understanding: and if the doubter be damned, what must he be that conforms directly against his judgment and belief, and they likewise that require it from him? In short, that man cannot be said to have any religion, that takes it by another man's choice, not his own.

3. Where men are limited in matters of religion, there the rewards which are entailed on the free acts of men are quite overthrown; and such as supersede that grand charter of Liberty of Conscience, frustrate all hopes of recompence, by rendering the actions of men unavoidable. But those think, perhaps, they do not destroy all freedom, because they use so much of their own.

4. They subvert all true religion; for where men believe, not because it is true, but because they are required to do so, there they will unbelieve, not because it is false, but so commanded by their superiors, whose authority their interest and security oblige them rather to obey, than dispute.

5. They delude, or rather compel people out of their eternal rewards; for where men are commanded to act in reference to religion, and can neither be fecured of their religion, nor yet saved harmless from punishment, that so acting and believing disprivileges them for ever of that recompence which is provided for the faithful.

6. Men have their liberty and choice in external matters; they are not compelled to marry this perfon, to converse with that, to buy here, to eat there, nor to fleep yonder ; yet if men had power to impose or restrain in any thing, one would think it should

be

be in such exterior matters: but that this liberty should be unquestioned, and that of the mind destroyed, issues here, i That it does not unbrute us, but unman us : • for take away understanding, reason, judgment, and

faith, and, like Nebuchadnezzar, let us go graze r with the beasts of the field.'

Seventhly and lastly, That which most of all blackens the business, is PERSECUTION: for though it is very unreasonable to require faith where men cannot chuse but doubt, yet, after all, to punish them for disobedience, is cruelty in the abstract: for we demand, Shall

men suffer for not doing what they cannot do?' must they be persecuted here if they do not go against their consciences, and punished hereafter if they do? But neither is this all ; for that part that is yet most unreasonable, and that gives the clearest sight of persecution, is still behind, namely, “The monstrous ar

guments they have to convince an heretick with :' not those of old, as spiritual as the Christian religion, which were, ' to admonish, warn, and finally to reject;' but such as were employed by the persecuting Jews and heathens against the Great Example of the world, and such as followed him, and by the inhuman Papists against our first reformers, as clubs, staves, stocks,

pillories, prisons, dungeons, exiles, &c. in a word, < ruin to whole families; as if it were not so much ( their design to convince the soul, as to destroy the « body.'

To conclude: There ought to be an adequation and resemblance betwixt all ends, and the means to them; but in this case there can be none imaginable : the end, is the conformity of our judgments and underftandings to the acts of such as require it; the means are fines and imprisonments, and bloody knocks to boot.

Now, what proportion or assimilation these bear, let the sober judge: the understanding can never be convinced, nor properly submit, but by such arguments as are rational, persuasive, and suitable to its own nature; something that can resolve its doubts, answer B 3

its

its objections, enervate its propositions. But to imagine those barbarous Newgate instruments of clubs, fines, prisons, &c. with that whole troop of external and dumb materials of force, should be fit arguments to convince the understanding, scatter its scruples, and finally convert it to their religion, is altogether irrational, cruel, and impossible. Force may make an hypocrite; it is faith, grounded upon knowledge,

and consent, that makes a Christian. And to conclude, as we can never betray the honour of our conformity (only due to truth) by a base and timorous hypocrisy to any external violence under heaven; fo muft we needs 'say, unreasonable are those imposers, who secure not the imposed or restrained from what may occur to them, upon their account; and most inhuman are those persecutors that punish men for not obeying them, though to their utter ruin.

CHAP. V.

They carry a contradiction to government: 1. In the

nature of it, which is justice. 2. In the execution of it, which is prudence. 3. In the end of it, which is fidelity. Seven common, but grand objections, fairly stated, and briefly answered.

E next urge, that force, in matters relating to

conscience, carries a plain contradiction to government, in the nature, execution, and end of it.

By government we understand, an external order of justice, or the right and prudent disciplining of any society by just laws, either in the relaxation or execution of them.

First, It carries a contradiction to government in the nature of it, which is justice, and that in three respects.

1. It is the first lesson that great Synterefis, so much renowned by philosophers and civilians, learns mankind, To do as they would be done to ;' since he

that

that gives what he would not take, or takes what he would not give, only shews care for himself, but neither kindness nor justice for another.

2. The just nature of government lies in a fair and cqual retribution: but what can be more unequal, than that men should be rated more than their proportion to answer the necessities of government, and yet that they should not only receive no protection from it, but by it be disseised of their dear liberty and properties? We say, to be compelled to pay that power that exerts itself to ruin those that pay it, or that any should be required to enrich those that ruin them, is hard and unequal, and therefore contrary to the just nature of government. If we must be contributaries to the maintenance of it, we are entitled to a protection from it.

3. It is the justice of government to proportion penalties to the crime committed. Now granting our diffent to be a fault, yet the infliction of a corporal or external punishment, for a mere mental error (and that not voluntary) is unreasonable and inadequate, as well as against particular directions of the scriptures, Tit. iii. 9, 10, 11. For as corporal penalties cannot conviffce the understanding; fo neither can they be commensurate punishments for faults purely intellectual: and for the government of this world to intermeddle with what belongs to the government of another, and which can have no ill aspect or influence upon it, shews more of invasion than right and juftice.

Secondly, It carries a contradiction to government in the execution of it, which is prudence, and that in these instances.

1. The state of the case is this, that there is no republick so great, no empire so vast, but the laws of them are refolvable into these two series or heads; « Of laws fundamental, which are indispensable and « immutable; and laws superficial, which are tempo

rary and alterable:' and as it is justice and prudence to be punctual in the execution of the former, fo, by

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circumstances,

ment.

circumstances, it may be neither to execute the latter, they being suited to the present conveniency and emergency of state; as the prohibiting of cattle out of Ireland was judged of advantage to the farmers of England, yet a murrain would make it the good of the whole that the law should be broke, or at least the execution of it suspended. That the law of restraint, in point of conscience, is of this number, we may farther manifeft, and the imprudence of thinking otherwise : for first, if the saying were as true as it is false, "No

bishop, no king,” (which admits of various readings; as, no decimating clergy, or no persecution,

no king,”) we should be as silent as some would have us; but the confidence of their assertion, and the impolicy of such as believe it, makes us to say, that a greater injury cannot be done to the present govern

For if such laws and establishments are fundamental, they are as immutable as mankind itself; but that they are as alterable as the conjectures and opinions of governors have been, is evident; since the fame fundamental indispensable laws and policy of these kingdoms have still remained, through all variety of opposite ruling opinions and judgments, and disjoined from them all. Therefore to admit of such a fixation to temporary laws, must needs be highly imprudent, and deitructive of the essential parts of the government of these countries.

2. That since there has been a time of connivance, and that with no ill success to public affairs, it cannot be prudence to discontinue it, unless it was imprudence before to give it; and such little deserve it that think so.

3. Dissenters not being conscious to themselves of any just forfeiture of that favour, are as well grieved in their resentments of this alteration, as the contrary did oblige them to very grateful acknowledgments.

4. This must be done to gratify all, or the greatest part, or but some few only: it is a demonstration, all are not pleased with it; that the greatest number is not, the empty public auditories will speak: in short,

how