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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 XV

That the Persuasion of the Truth of a Religion, which Education inspires, is not founded on a Corruption of Heart.

This is a Point which to me seems worthy our Consideration. I don’t doubt but every reasonable Man, if he weighs it well, will allow, that the Children of Christians are not Christians at such a certain Age because their Fathers are so, but because they are bred up and instructed in the Christian Religion: and shou’d Christians and Turks, living in the same Town, make an exchange of their Children on the Breast, those of the Christians wou’d be certainly Mahometans, and those of the Turks Christians. From whence I draw this Conclusion, That not only the same Soul which becomes Christian by being united to the Foetus of a Christian, wou’d have become a Turk if it had lit a House or two shorter or farther off into a Turkish Family; but also that the same Soul which has bin ingrafted into Christianity by Baptism, wou’d infallibly become of the Jewish Religion, the Mahometan, Siamese, Chinese, &c. according as it were bred from its first Infancy among Jews or other Infidels. We sometimes see Hereticks and Orthodox live together in the same Buildings, with their Wives and Children, and distinct Familys apart. Cou’d it be suppos’d, that a Soul which was destin’d for the Foetus of an<629> Orthodox Mother, shou’d straggle, or missing its way ever so little, shou’d mistake one Chamber for another, it wou’d as certainly become Heretical; as another Soul, which went strait to its appointed place, to wit, into the Foetus of a Heretical Woman: so that according as it lights a Story higher or lower, at No. 3. or No. 4. the Man is either a Heretick or an Orthodox.

What are we to understand by all this, but that all the Souls, which God unites to human Bodys, wou’d be in the Party of the Orthodox, at the Age of ten or twelve, if none but the Orthodox had a hand in their Education? No body, I suppose, can deny this Consequence; but from hence it necessarily follows, that a Soul’s adhering for the first ten or twelve Years of Life to false Doctrines, in which it is instructed, proceeds not from its being corrupted, or infected by Original Sin. For since the Ground-Plot, in which the true Religion takes root, is numerically the same, in which the false Religion, if sown, wou’d take root too (this is the Result of my former Remarks) we must of necessity allow, either that the Soul embraces not the true Religion, but because it’s infected by Original Sin; or that it embraces not a false, inasmuch as it is infected with this same Sin. If you deny the latter Proposition to advance this,

The Soul becomes not tinctur’d with a false Religion, but because it contracts the stain of Original Sin from the moment of its Union with Matter:

Of necessity you must allow the following Proposition too;

The Soul becomes not tinctur’d with the true Religion, but because it contracts the stain of Original<630> Sin the moment of its Union with Matter.

Now ’twere the greatest Extravagance imaginable to advance this last Proposition, and yet it must of necessity follow if we admit the former: we must therefore reject both, and say, that the Soul receives all the Doctrines infus’d into it, as it is a spiritual Substance, susceptible by its Nature of all sorts of Ideas and Opinions, even as a Copper-plate receives all kind of Gravings indifferently: The Canons of the Council of Trent233 no less readily than those of the Synod of Dort. Original Sin234 has nothing to do here; it may very well be the Cause of our depraving those Notions which we suck in with the Milk; but it never is the Cause of our sucking in, or adopting ’em.

The better to comprehend this Truth, it will be proper to observe, that altho the Soul, by its Union with the Body, contracts an odious Leprosy, call’d Original Sin; yet it does not always act as affected with this contagious Distemper: for example, a Child who’s hungry, and desires Food, does not form this Desire, because he bears the Punishment of Adam’s Sin; much less can we impute to this Sin his drawing a just Consequence from any thing that he has heard, as Children will sometimes do at four or five Years of Age. Let no one go about to wrangle, on pretence of our not knowing what Children might do in the state which we have forfeited by the Fall of Adam; for don’t we find, in the History of the Passion of Jesus Christ, that he call’d for Drink when he was a thirst? A demonstrative Argument, that this sort of Desires are consistent with perfect Innocence, and<631> therefore that we don’t form ’em as infected with the Leprosy of Sin. Let’s say the same, by a much stronger Reason, of our believing honestly in our tender Age all that is told us concerning God. If we don’t deserve Praise on the score of it, because our Consent to these Instructions depends not on a free and reasonable Choice; neither do we deserve Blame for the very same Reason. It’s pure Chance, not with regard to God, but with regard to our selves, that we rather consent to the Truth than to a Falshood; and with the same natural Force wherewith the Mind embraces a Falshood, if it be presented to it, it wou’d have embrac’d the Truth if that had bin offer’d: just as the different Determination of Motion, according to the Remark of the new Philosophy,235 supposes not that the Motion it self is different; it being most certain, that a Body shall tend from East to West, and back again from West to East, with the very same quantity of Motion, if the meeting with some other Body changes its Determination.

This brings to my Mind another Remark of the same Philosophy, to wit, That all Motion impress’d by God on Matter, tends by its first Destination, constantly in a strait Line; so that if it ever describes a circular or curve Line, ’tis only because of invincible Obstacles, which it meets with: whence it follows, that the same Force which produces Motion in a strait Line, produces that in an oblique also; and that the same Motion, which is oblique, had bin actually strait, if it had not met with some unsurmountable Obstacle. Here’s a faithful Representation<632> of what happens to our own Souls. They receive a continual Impression which carrys ’em by its first Destination directly towards Truth; but a thousand particular Circumstances hinder their moving by this strait Line, and cast ’em off by one side or other, a thousand different ways. Yet it’s still the same Force, the same Impression, the same Tendency towards Truth which moves ’em; as is plain from hence, that our Souls never entertain any Opinion unless cloth’d in the Robes and Colors of Truth. The Devil may play all his Engines long enough, he shall never be able to get Error receiv’d into our Souls as Error; they are incorruptible and infallible in this respect, and utterly incapable of adopting any Opinion which presents as false. But here’s what happens; this Force, and this Motion towards Truth, is, by those who train us up, determin’d sometimes to the right hand, and sometimes to the left, according as they tell us, that here or there lies the way which leads to the End that all Men naturally incline to. They are not therefore two different Impressions or Motions, distinct in Nature, which carry us, one to Truth, the other to Error; this latter is only the first Motion turn’d out of its own natural course, and determin’d anew by the Opposition of a kind of reflective Bodys, to wit Education, and the Pedagogy of a School-Master or Mistress. Let’s beware then flying at every turn to the stain of Original Sin, and I don’t know what Corruption of the Will; Is this the Cause of our being born in the House of a Heretick, or any such Miscreant, rather than in that of a faithful Child of God?<633>

But to give the common Readers, as well as Philosophers, a Comparison within their Sphere, let’s suppose a great Monarch pitches on a Gentleman, whose Fidelity, Activity and Diligence, he has often experienc’d, to carry a Message of Consequence, and which requires the utmost dispatch, to another great Prince. This Courier remembring his Master had hinted to him, that Expedition’s all in all, that in mora periculum;236 and born on the Wings of Zeal for his Service, rides night and day, changes Horses as oft as possible, and gets the best Guides he can, to lead him by all the shortest ways: If it happen unfortunately, that an ignorant or roguish Guide puts him in a wrong Road, and that following it with all his Ardor and Zeal, he loses himself, and the faster he rides the farther he goes from the City whither he was bound; will any one say, that the Speed and Dispatch, with which he follow’d this wrong Road, was owing to a Principle different from that which carry’d him on before in the right Road? One must be an errand Fool to imagin, there’s the least difference in the Principle, Obedience and Fidelity on one hand, Rebellion and Perfidiousness on the other; or not to see, that his moving in the wrong Road, is only a Continuation of his Motion in the right, and that his Speed in one as well as t’other, proceeds wholly from Fidelity, and a Zeal for his Master. The Application of this to Children is very obvious: for who sees not, that if a Child, bred by his Father in the Orthodox way, and who has felt a great Zeal for Truth, fall at nine or ten Years old into the hands of a Heretical Tutor, who persuades him that the way of Truth lies not as he has bin told, but quite con-<634>trary; who sees not, I say, if this Child proceeds in this new Path, which his Tutor puts him in; with the same Ardor and Zeal as before in the true, that these are not two Actions different in Kind, and proceeding from a different Principle, but a Continuation of that Motion which first carry’d him towards the Truth?

Consequently so far is corrupt Nature from influencing our Zeal for an Error before we come to a full use of our Free-will; for Error, I say, recommended to us as heavenly Truth; that on the contrary, this Zeal can proceed from nothing else than the Remains of Good in our Nature ever since the Fall of Adam, to wit, an invincible and irresistible Determination toward Truth in general, a Determination which suffers not the Soul to adhere to any thing which appears false. Can any one deny, but this is a very excellent Perfection? I own, the being subject, as we are, to mistake Truth for Falshood, is a great Infirmity; yet this never happens but when we are deceiv’d by a superior Power, as is that of Education, till such a certain Age: we love that which appears to us Truth, we love it only because it appears such, and reject it for no other reason than that it appears to us an Error, and a Lye. But the Corruption of our Heart begins then to work in us, when the Soul, persuaded that a Doctrine comes from God, does notwithstanding reject it, and regulate its Actions on quite another Model. Then the Disorder is great indeed, whether the Doctrine we reject be in reality true, or whether it be false: nor wou’d it be a less Sin in us to labor in propagating Orthodoxy, while firmly persuaded of its being<635> a Heresy, than having no regard for a Heresy, while firmly believing it to be the Truth.

[233. ]The Council of Trent (1545–63) defined Catholic orthodoxy against teachings of the Protestant reformers.

[234. ]See Appendixes, “Grace, Original Sin, Predestination,” p. 588.

[235. ]On the “new philosophy” see Appendixes, “Philosophical Controversies,” p. 595.

[236. ]“There is danger in delay.”