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• Introduction
• A Note On the Present Translation
• A Philosophical Commentary On These Words of the Gospel According to St. Luke, Chap. XIV. Ver. 23: Advertisement of the English Publisher.;
• Part the First.
• Chapter I: That the Light of Nature, Or the First Principles of Reason Universally Receiv’d, Are the Genuin and Original Rule of All Interpretation of Scripture; Especially In Matters of Practice and Morality.
• Chapter II: First Argument Against the Literal Sense of the Words, Compel ’em to Come In, Drawn From Its Repugnancy to the Distinctest Ideas of Natural Light.
• Chapter III: Second Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Opposition to the Spirit of the Gospel.
• Chapter IV: The Third Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Cancelling the Differences of Justice and Injustice, and Its Confounding Vertue and Vice, to the Total Dissolution of Society.
• Chapter V: The Fourth Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Giving Infidels a Very Plausible and Very Reasonable Pretence For Not Admitting Christians Into Their Dominions, and For Dislodging ’em Wherever They Are Settl’d Among ’em.
• Chapter VI: The Fifth Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From the Impossibility of Putting It In Execution Without Unavoidable Crimes. That It’s No Excuse to Say, Hereticks Are Punish’d Only Because They Disobey Edicts.
• Chapter VII: The Sixth Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Depriving the Christian Religion of a Main Objection Against the Truth of Mahometism.
• Chapter VIII: The Seventh Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Being Unknown to the Fathers of the Three First Centurys.
• Chapter IX: The Eighth Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Rendring the Complaints of the First Christians Against Their Pagan Persecutors All Vain.
• Chapter X: The Ninth and Last Argument Against the Literal Sense, Drawn From Its Tending to Expose True Christians to Continual Violences, Without a Possibility of Alledging Any Thing to Put a Stop to ’em, But That Which Was the Ground of the Contest Betw
• The Second Part.: Containing a Full Answer to All the Objections Which May Be Rais’d Against What Has Bin Before Demonstrated.the Second Part.: Containing a Full Answer to All the Objections Which May Be Rais’d Against What Has Bin Before Demonstrated.
• Chapter I: First Objection, That Violence Is Not Design’d to Force Conscience, But to Awaken Those Who Neglect to Examine the Truth. the Illusion of This Thought. an Inquiry Into the Nature of What They Callopiniatreté.58
• Chapter II: Second Objection, the Literal Sense Appears Odious, Only By Our Judging of the Ways of God From Those of Men. Tho the State That Men Are In, When They Act From Passion, Seems Likely to Lead ’em to Wrong Judgments, It Does Not Follow But God, B
• Chapter III: Third Objection: They Aggravate the Matter Maliciously, By Representing the Constraint Enjoin’d Byjesus Christ,under the Idea of Scaffolds, Wheel, and Gibbet; Whereas They Should Only Talk of Fines, Banishment, and Other Petty Grievances. the
• Chapter IV: The Fourth Objection: We Can’t Condemn the Literal Sense of the Words, Compel ’em to Come In, But We Must At the Same Time Condemn Those Laws Which God Gave the Jews, and the Conduct of the Prophets On Several Occasions. the Disparity, and Par
• Chapter V: The Fifth Objection: Protestants Can’t Reject the Literal Sense of the Parable, Without Condemning the Wisest Emperors and Fathers of the Church, and Without Condemning Themselves; Since They In Some Places Don’t Tolerate Other Religions, and H
• Chapter VI: Sixth Objection: the Doctrine of Toleration Can’t Chuse But Throw the State Into All Kinds of Confusion, and Produce a Horrid Medly of Sects, to the Scandal of Christianity. the Answer. In What Sense Princes Ought to Be Nursing Fathers to the
• Chapter VII: The Seventh Objection: Compulsion In the Literal Sense Cannot Be Rejected Without Admitting a General Toleration. the Answer to This, and the Consequence Allow’d to Be True But Not Absurd. the Restrictions of Your Men of Half-toleration Exami
• Chapter VIII: Eighth Objection: Compulsion In the Literal Sense Is Maliciously Misrepresented, By Supposing It Authorizes Violences Committed Against the Truth. the Answer to This; By Which It Is Prov’d, That the Literal Sense Does In Reality Authorize Th
• Chapter IX: An Answer to Some Objections Against What Has Bin Advanc’d In the Foregoing Chapter Concerning the Rights of an Erroneous Conscience. Some Examples Which Prove This Right.
• Chapter X: A Continuation of the Answer to the Difficultys Against the Rights of an Erroneous Conscience. an Examination of What They Say, That If Hereticks Retaliate On Those Who Persecute ’em, They Are Guilty of Injustice. Arguments to Prove, That a Fal
• Chapter XI: The Result From What Has Bin Prov’d In the Two Foregoing Chapters; and a Confutation of the Literal Sense, Let the Worst Come to the Worst.
• Part III.
• I.: St. Austin’s Words
• II.: St. Austin’s Words
• III.: St. Austin’s Words
• IV.: St. Austin’s Words
• V.: St. Austin’s Words
• VI.: St. Austin’s Words
• VII.: St. Austin’s Words
• VIII.: St. Austin’s Words
• IX.: St. Austin’s Words
• X.: St. Austin’s Words
• XI.: St. Austin’s Words
• XII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XIII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XIV.: St. Austin’s Words
• XV.: St. Austin’s Words
• XVI.: St. Austin’s Words
• XVII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XVIII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XIX.: St. Austin’s Words
• XX.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXI.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXIII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXIV.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXV.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXVI.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXVII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXVIII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXIX.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXX.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXXI.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXXII.: St. Austin’s Words
• XXXIII.: St. Austin’s Words Letter 164,148 to Emeritus.
• XXXIV.: St. Austin’s Words Letter 166,152 to the Donatists.
• XXXV.: St. Austin’s Words Ibid.
• XXXVI.: St. Austin’s Words Letter 204,154 to Donatus.
• XXXVII.: St. Austin’s Wordsibid.
• XXXVIII.: St. Austin’s Words Ibid.
• XXXIX.: St. Austin’s Words Ibid.
• Xl.: St. Austin’s Words Letter 167,160 to Festus.
• The Fourth Part, Or a Supplement to the Philosophical Commentary On These Words of Jesus Christ,compel ’em to Come In.
• The Preface<503>
• Chapter I: General Considerations On St. Austin’s Argument In Defence of Persecution; Shewing, That He Offers Nothing Which May Not Be Retorted, With Equal Force, Upon the Persecuted Orthodox.
• Chapter II: A Confirmation of the Foregoing Chapter, Chiefly By a New Confutation of the Answer Alledg’d At Every Turn Against My Reasonings; to Wit, That the True Church Alone Has a Right to Dispense With the Natural Rule of Equity, In Her Proceedings Ag
• Chapter III: The New Confutation of the Fore-mention’d Answer Continu’d, and Supported By Two Considerable Examples.
• Chapter IV: Another Way of Considering This Second Example.
• Chapter V: An Answer to the First Disparity Which May Be Alledg’d Against My Examples; to Wit, That Hereticks, In Giving an Alms, Do Well, Because They Give It to Those to Whom God Intended It Shou’d Be Given; But Do Ill, In Compelling to Come In, Because
• Chapter VI: A Parallel Between a Judg Who Shou’d Punish the Innocent, and Acquit the Guilty, From an Error In Point of Fact, and a Heretick Judg Who Shou’d Condemn the Orthodox.
• Chapter VII: Whether Heretical Ecclesiasticks May Be Blam’d For Having a Hand In the Trials and Condemnation of the Orthodox.
• Chapter VIII: An Abstract of the Answer to the First Disparity.
• Chapter IX: That a Judg Who Condemns an Innocent Person, and Acquits a Malefactor, Sins Not, Provided He Act According to Law.
• Chapter X: An Answer to a Second Disparity; to Wit, That When a Judg Gives Sentence Against a Person Falsly Accus’d of Murder, It’s an Ignorance of Fact; Whereas If He Condemns As Heresy What Is Really Orthodox, It’s an Ignorance of Right. I Shew That It’
• Chapter XI: An Answer to a Third Disparity; Which Is, That In Criminal Trials, the Obscurity Arises From the Thing It Self; Whereas In Those of Heresy, It Proceeds From the Prepossession of the Judges. I Answer, That Even Disinterested Judges, As the Chin
• Chapter XII: A Particular Consideration of One of the Causes Which Renders the Controversys of These Times So Cross and Intricate; to Wit, That the Same Principles Which Are Favorable Against One Sort of Adversarys, Are Prejudicial In Our Disputes With Ot
• Chapter XIII: An Answer to the Fourth Disparity; Which Is, That When a Judg Is Deceiv’d In a Cause of Heresy, He Is Guilty In the Sight of God; Because the Error In This Case Proceeds From a Principle of Corruption, Which Perverts the Will: an Evil Not In
• Chapter XIV: Examples Shewing That Men Continue In Their Errors Against the Interests of Flesh and Blood, and Their Own Inclinations.
• Chapter XV: That the Persuasion of the Truth of a Religion, Which Education Inspires, Is Not Founded On a Corruption of Heart.
• Chapter XVI: That the Strong Belief of a Falshood, Attended Even With the Rejecting Those Suspicions Which Sometimes Arise In Our Minds, That We Are In an Error, Does Not Necessarily Proceed From a Principle of Corruption.
• Chapter XVII: An Answer to What Is Objected, That All Errors Are Acts of the Will, and Consequently Morally Evil. the Absurdity of This Consequence Shewn; and a Rule Offer’d For Distinguishing Errors, Which Are Morally Evil, From Those Which Are Not.
• Chapter XVIII: A Discussion of Three Other Difficultys.first Difficulty. Knowing the Obliquity of the Motive, Is Not Necessary Towards Denominating an Action Evil.
• Chapter XIX: The Conclusion of the Answer to the Fourth Disparity.
• Chapter XX: The Conclusion and Summary View of the General Consideration, Hinted At In the Title of the First Chapter.
• Chapter XXI: An Answer to a New Objection: It Follows From My Doctrine, That the Persecutions Rais’d Against the Truth Are Just; Which Is Worse Than What the Greatest Persecutors Ever Pretended.
• Chapter XXII: That What Has Bin Lately Prov’d, Helps Us to a Good Answer to the Bishop of Meaux Demanding a Text, In Which Heresys Are Excepted Out of the Number of Those Sins, For the Punishing of Which God Has Given Princes the Sword.
• Chapter XXIII: A Summary Answer to Those Who Fly to Grace For a Solution of These Difficultys.
• Chapter XXIV: Whether the Arguments For the Truth Are Always More Solid Than Those For Falshood.
• Chapter XXV: A New Confutation of That Particular Argument of St. Austin, Drawn From the Constraint Exercis’d By a Good Shepherd On His Sheep.
• Chapter XXVI: A Small Sketch, Representing the Enormitys Attending the Doctrine of Compulsion By Some New Views, As the Destroying the Rights of Hospitality, Consanguinity, and Plighted Faith.
• Chapter XXVII: That Sodomy Might Become a Pious Action, According to the Principles of Our Modern Persecutors.
• Chapter XXVIII: An Examination of What May Be Answer’d to the Foregoing Chapter.
• Chapter XXIX: The Surprizing Progress Which the Doctrine of Compulsion Has Made In the World Over Many Centuries, Tho So Impious and Detestable. Reflections On This.
• Chapter XXX: That the Spirit of Persecution Has Reign’d, Generally Speaking, More Among the Orthodox, Since Constantine’s Days, Than Among Hereticks. Proofs of This From the Conduct of the Arians.
• Chapter XXXI: That the First Reformers In the Last Age Retain’d the Doctrine of Compulsion.
• Appendixes
• The Language of the Translation
• Obsolete Or Unusual Words Or Meanings
• Bayle’s Use of Logic
• Religious and Philosophical Controversies
• Faith and Heresy
• Trinity and Incarnation
• Grace, Original Sin, Predestination
• The Eucharist
• Church and State
• The Rule of Faith
• Reason the Fundamental Rule
• The Bible
• Philosophical Controversies
• Alterations to the 1708 Translation

Chapter II

First Argument against the literal Sense of the Words, Compel ’em to come in, drawn from its Repugnancy to the distinctest Ideas of natural Light.

Having dispatch’d these Preliminary Remarks, which I thought fit to present my Reader, in a way of Universality; I come now to the particular Subject, and special Matter of my Commentary, on the Words of the Parable, Compel ’em to come in: and thus I reason.

The literal Sense of these Words is repugnant to the purest and most distinct Ideas of natural Reason.

It’s therefore false.

The Business now is only to prove the Antecedent; for I presume, the Consequence40 is sufficiently demonstrated in the foregoing Chapter. I say then,

I. That by the purest and most distinct Ideas of Reason, we find there is a Being sovereignly perfect, who rules over all things, who ought to be ador’d by Mankind, who approves certain Actions, and rewards ’em, and who disapproves and punishes others.

II. By the same way we understand, that the principal Adoration due to this supreme Being, consists in the Acts of the Mind; for if we conceive, that an earthly King wou’d not look on the falling down of a Statue in his Presence, either by chance, or by a violent Blast of Wind, as a homage to his Person, or on the Figure of Pup-<59>pets plac’d before him in a kneeling posture; by a much stronger reason ought we to believe, that God, who judges of all things by their real Worth, receives not as an Act of Worship and Submission what’s only perform’d to him in outward shew. We must grant then, that all external Acts of Religion, all our costliest Sacrifices, all our Expenses in erecting Temples and Altars, are approv’d by God only in proportion to the internal Acts of the Mind from whence they proceed.

III. Hence it plainly follows, that the Essence of Religion consists in the Judgments which our Understanding forms of God, and in those Motions of Reverence, of Fear and of Love, which the Will feels for him; insomuch that it’s possible a Man may fulfil his Duty towards God by this part alone, without the Exercise of any outward Act. But as Cases of this kind are rarely found, we shall chuse to say, that the inward Disposition, in which consists the Essence of Religion, is brought forth into outward Act by bodily Humiliations, and by sensible Expressions discovering that Honor which the Spirit pays to the Majesty of God. However it be, ’tis still true, that those Expressions in a Person void of all Feelings for God; I mean, who has neither the sutable Judgments, nor Motions of the Will with regard to God; are no more an Honoring or Adoration of God, than the Fall of a Statue, by a chance puff of Wind, is an Act of Homage from the Statue.

IV. It’s evident then, that the only reasonable way of inspiring Religion, is by producing in the Soul certain Judgments with relation to God,<60> and certain Motions of the Will. Now as Threats, Jails, Fines, Banishment, Cudgelling, Torturing, and in general whatever is comprehended under the literal signification of Compelling, are incapable of forming in the Soul those Judgments of the Will in relation to God, which constitute the Essence of Religion; it’s evident that this is a mistaken way of establishing a Religion, and consequently that Jesus Christ has not enjoin’d it.

I don’t deny but the ways of Constraint, over and above the outward Movements of the Body, which are the ordinary Signs of inward Religion, produce also in the Soul certain Judgments, and certain Motions of the Will: yet these same have no relation to God; they only regard the Authors of the Constraint. The Partys judg of ’em, that they are a sort of Men much to be dreaded, and they dread ’em indeed; but they who before were void of right Conceptions of the Divinity, and of that Reverence, and Love, and Fear, which are due to the supreme Being, acquire neither these Conceptions, nor these Motions of the Will, by the practice of the outward Signs of Religion, which the Methods of Constraint had extorted. They who before had form’d certain Judgments of God, and who believ’d that he ought to be worship’d only in one certain manner, opposite to that in favor of which the Violences are exercis’d; change no more than the others, as to their inward State towards God: Their new Sentiments do all terminate in a Dread of their Persecutors, and in a Desire of securing those temporal Goods, which they threaten to rob ’em of. Thus these Compulsions<61> do nothing for God: for as to the inward Acts they produce, these are by no means refer’d to him; and as for the outward Acts, ’tis manifest they can’t be consider’d as belonging to God, farther than as attended by those inward Dispositions of the Soul, wherein consists the Essence of Religion: Which has led me to sum up the whole Proof.

The Nature of Religion is, its being a certain Persuasion in the Soul with regard to God, which in the Will produces that Love, and Fear, and Reverence, which this supreme Being justly deserves, and in the Members of the Body Signs sutable to this Persuasion and this Disposition of the Will: insomuch that if these outward Signs exist without that interior State of the Soul which answers to ’em, or with such an inward State as is contrary to ’em; they are Acts of Hypocrisy and Falshood, or Impiety and Revolt against Conscience.

If therefore we wou’d act according to the nature of things, or according to that Order which right Reason, and the sovereign Reason of God himself does consult; we shou’d never make use of means for the propagating a Religion, which, incapable on one side of informing the Understanding, or imprinting the Love and Fear of God on the Heart; is most capable, on the other, of producing in the Members of the Body those external Acts, which are not infallible Indications of a religious Disposition of Soul, and which may be Signs directly opposite to the true inward Disposition.

Now so it is, that Violence is incapable on one hand of convincing the Judgment, or of<62> imprinting in the Heart the Fear or the Love of God; and most capable, on the other, of producing in our Members some outward Signs void of all inward Sincerity, or Signs perhaps of an interior Disposition most opposite to that which we really are in: that’s to say, external Acts which are Hypocrisy and Imposture, or a downright Revolt against Conscience.

’Tis notoriously then contrary to good Sense, to the Light of Nature, to the common Principles of Reason; in a word, to that primitive original Rule of distinguishing Truth from Falshood, Good from Evil; to exercise Violence for the inspiring a Religion into those who profess it not.

As the clear and distinct Ideas therefore we have of the Natures of certain things, convince us irresistibly, that God cou’d not make any Revelation repugnant to these things (for example, we are most thorowly assur’d, there cou’d be no such divine Revelation, as, That the Whole is less than its Part; That it’s honest to prefer Vice to Virtue; That one shou’d value his Dog more than his Parents, more than his Friends, or his Country; That to go by Sea from one Country to another, one must ride full-speed on a Post-horse; That to prepare the Ground for a plentiful Crop, the best way is never to turn it) it is evident that God has not commanded us in his Word to cudgel Men into a Religion, or use any other ways of Violence to make ’em embrace the Gospel; and therefore if we meet with any Passage in the Gospel which enjoins Compulsion, we must take it for granted, that it’s meant in a metaphorical,<63> and not in a literal Sense: just as if meeting with a Passage in the Scripture which commanded us to be very well skill’d in Languages, and in all other Facultys, without studying, we shou’d conclude that it ought to be understood in a Figure; We shou’d rather believe that the Passage was corrupted, or that we did not understand all the Senses of the Terms in the Original, or that ’twas a Mystery which concern’d not us, but another sort of Men perhaps which were to arise hereafter, and which shou’d not be made just as we are; or in short, that ’twas a Precept deliver’d after the manner of the Oriental Nations in Emblems, or under symbolical and enigmatical Images: We shou’d believe, I say, any thing of this kind, rather than persuade our selves that God, wise as he is, shou’d enjoin his Creatures of the Human kind, in a strict and literal sense, to be profoundly learned without studying.

The only thing to be alledg’d against what I offer, is this: They don’t pretend that Violence shou’d be exercis’d, as a direct and immediate means of establishing a Religion, but as a mediate and indirect means. That is, They agree with me that the proper and natural way of propagating Religion, is enlightning the Mind by sound Instructions, and purifying the Heart by inspiring it with a Love of God; but that to put this means in practice, it is sometimes necessary to force People, because without some degree of Violence they’l neither apply to be instructed, nor endeavor to deliver themselves from their Prejudices; that thus Constraint is<64> only made use of to remove Obstacles to Instruction: and these once remov’d, they employ the proper Methods, they re-enter into order, they instruct, they proceed by that primitive Light which I preach up as the sovereign Tribunal, or rather as the Commissary General, whose business it is to pass in review all Revelations, and discard those which want its Livery.

I shall adjourn the Confutation of this Exception to another place: ’Tis an ingenious Illusion, and a very handsom Chicane; but I promise my self to confute it so fully, that for the future it shall be made over to the Underspur-leathers, to those Missionarys of the Village, who never blush to produce the same Objections over and over, without taking the least notice of the Answers, which have ruin’d ’em to all intents and purposes.

[40. ]Ibid. (“consequence,” “antecedent”).