The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• To the Right Honourable the Lord Pagett.
• The Independent Whig.
• Number Lv.: of Blasphemy.
• Number Lvi.: of Mutual Charity and Forbearance.
• Number Lvii.: the Vanity As Well As Wickedness of Persecution.
• Number Lviii.: a Dialogue Between Monsieur Jurieu, and a Burgomaster of Rotterdam.
• Number Lix.: Dialogue Between Mr. Jurieu, and a Burgomaster, Continued.
• Number Lx.: Conclusion of the Dialogue Between Mr. Jurieu and a Burgomaster.
• Number Lxi.: Force and Fraud, How Opposite to the Spirit of Religion. the Very Different Effects of Religious Liberty, and False Zeal.
• Number Lxii.: Power and Imposition, In Matters of Religion, Tend Rather to Abolish Religion, Than to Improve It. the Light of Nature, and the Practice of Heathens, Furnish Reproof to Persecuting Christians.
• Number Lxiii.: the Consuming Nature of Persecution. Persecutors Generally Religious Mad-men. Their Egregious Want of Shame, and Utter Unfitness to Make Converts.
• Number Lxiv.: Mutual Bitterness and Persecution Amongst Christians, How Repugnant to the Gospel, and How Shocking to a Rational Pagan.
• Number Lxv.: of the Strange Force of Education, Especially In Matters of Religion.
• Number Lxvi.: the Extravagant Notions and Practice of Penance, How Generally Prevailing As a Necessary Part of Religion, Even Amongst Such As Know Not, Or Neglect, All the Other and Real Penalties.
• Number Lxvii.: the Principle and Practice of Penance; Its Extravagance and Ill Tendency Further Considered.
• Number Lxviii.: the Teachers of All Sects ( Who Lay Claim to Power and Submission ) How Apt to Reproach, Yet How Much Resembling Each Other.
• Number Lxix.: the Hierarchy of Rome, How Like That of Japan. the Obvious Danger to a State From Popish Missionaries.
• Number Lxx.: Dialogue Between a Country Clergyman and a Quaker.
• Number Lxxi.: Dialogue Between a Country Clergyman and a Quaker Continued.
• Number Lxxii.: Dialogue Between a Country Clergyman and a Quaker Continued.
• Number Lxxiii.: Dialogue Between a Country Clergyman and a Quaker, Continued.
• Number Lxxiv.: of the Character and Capacity of the Fathers of the Church.
• A Letter to the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury; Proving, That His Grace Cannot Be the Author of the Letter to an Eminent Presbyterian Clergyman In Switzerland; In Which Letter the Present State of Religion In England Is Blackened and Exposed.
• An Examination of the Facts and Reasonings In the Lord Bishop of Chichester ’ S Sermon, Preached Before the House of Lords, On the 30 Th of Jan. 1731. Humbly Addressed to His Lordship.
• A Sermon Preached Before the Learned Society of Lincoln’s-inn, On Jan. 30. 1732. From Job XXXIV. 30. That the Hypocrite Reign Not, Lest the People Be Ensnared.
• A Supplement to the Sermon Preached At Lincoln’s-inn, On Jan. 30, 1732. By a Layman. Addressed to a Very Important and Most Solemn Churchman, Solicitor-general For Causes Ecclesiastical.

Number LX.

Conclusion of the Dialogue between Mr. Jurieu and a Burgomaster.

Jurieu.

YOU may call Error a Dwarf; but you see how powerful it is in the World; and therefore I complain.

Burg.

And plead for a Method to make it still stronger. Why is Truth impotent or unknown any-where, but that it is almost every-where brow-beaten, silenced, and shackled?

Jur.

I am so far from pleading for this, that I profess nothing but Truth.

Burg.

So say all Men, the mistaken and the enlightened; and as every Man makes his own Opinions, right or wrong, the Measure of Truth, all Opinions but his are to be suppressed and restrained. This keeps the whole Earth in Darkness and Misery, and supports Errors by Establishments and Armies. Hence the Mahometans, hence the Herd of Catholics, are as ignorant as the Beasts of the Field, and more unsociable and fierce in Behalf of their gross Stupidity. The common Lutherans of Sweden and Denmark are not much better, and the Greek Church full as bad. If there be any Sparks of Truth in Turkey or Italy, it is hid in a few Heads, and must never, upon Pain of Death and Tortures, make any Appearance or Progress; nor can it ever appear in its full Force and Glory, but where there is an universal Toleration of all Sects and Sentiments. Where there is no Toleration, there is no Truth; where Toleration is limited, Truth is lame; and it rifes and falls with Toleration. The Learning of the French Clergy was owing to the French Hugonots; the Learning of the English Clergy to the Roman-catholies, and other Dissenters; and so vice versa. Learning in England makes a prodigious Progress by the means of Liberty. It as visibly decays in France for want of Liberty. And in Holland, from the same Cause, there are more learned Men, Learning and Libraries, than in all Asia, Africa, and America. Consider now, Mr. Jurieu, where, and from what Causes, Truth is to be met with.

Jur.

Methinks you make an ill Compliment to Truth, by representing it as so much obliged, for its Strength and Inlargement, to the Toleration of Error.

Burg.

The Fact is universally true; but you take but one half of my Reasoning. I contend for universal Toleration of all Opinions, true and false; and then I am sure that Truth will prevail over Falshood, nay, derive new Advantages from it; since perpetual Debate and Inquiries will as certainly promote and illustrate Truth, as weaken and expose Error.

Jur.

But do you not see, Sir, how artful and designing Men dress up Falshood every Day with all the Appearances of Truth, and so deceive Mankind?

Burg.

I see it plainly enough; and I see other Men every Day stripping it of its borrowed Ornaments, and restoring them to the right Owner, and exposing the Craft and Designs of those Champions of Delusions.

Jur.

But still they do great Mischief; and therefore were it not much better, that Truth alone should be encouraged and established, and Error crushed and restrained?

Burg.

Would we not be happy, Mr. Jurieu, if we were not subject to Sickness and Folly, and could establish eternal Wisdom, and eternal Health, by a Law?

Jur.

Yes, if it were possible; but we can restrain Error.

Burg.

How! Can you restrain the Thoughts?

Jur.

By your Help we can restrain them from going abroad.

Burg.

Then we alone do it. And thus too we can prevent Sickness, by putting Men to Death when they are well; or cure them, by killing them when they are ill. Nor can we extirpate Error from amongst Men, but by extirpating Men. Shew me the Man that is free from Error, when neither the Prophets nor Apostles were free from it; when Priests and Teachers, of all Kinds, are generally, of all Men, the most subject to it, and the greatest and warmest Promoters of it; and when so able a Divine as Mr. Jurieu has been so egregiously mistaken and disappointed in his Prophecies taken from the Revelations.

Jur.

There are Reasons in the Councils of God why these Prophecies have not been fulfilled.

Burg.

That is, however, a Confession that you were not in his Councils; and shews, that Men may be strongly persuaded, that they are in his Councils, when they are not; and is a good Reason for distrusting such as pretend to it.

Jur.

The Wickedness of Men, as well as their Repentance, may prevent the Accomplishment of Prophecy.

Burg.

That was the poor Excuse which St. Bernard made for himself, when by his Enthusiastic Declamations, and positive Prophecies, he had sent an Army of Christians on a Fool’s Errand, to be knocked on the Head by the Saracens. Every Prophecy not fulfilled is false Prophecy.

Jur.

I thought that I was not mistaken in what I foretold from the Revelations; and my Mistake was not voluntary, nor is it heterodox or heretical.

Burg.

So will every Man say of his Opinion and Mistakes, and therefore all Men ought to be indulged in them; though, if ever any Man’s Opinions and Errors deserved severe Animadversion, yours do, since those who believed your Predictions (as Enthusiasm is infinitely credulous) might have been hurried and misled by them into Insurrections, Invasions, and Civil Wars. It is well for you that your own severe Maxims were not turned upon you, and that you enjoy the Shelter and Connivance of this free State, which yet by these Maxims would utterly destroy you. You know what a just and severe Storm you have raised against you and your Party in France, and what Advantages you have given the Catholics to treat you as an Impostor, and an Incendiary. I wonder that this has not humbled you, and taught you some of that Moderation towards others, which is so necessary to yourself. You have severely felt the heavy Effects of Heat, and Vehemence, and Positiveness; and yet have not learned more Mildness and Charity, nor to trust to Reason alone in disputing, though all Europe has seen how far you are from Infallibility.

Jur.

I have not been guilty of Atheism, nor of Heresy; and I never set up for Infallibility.

Burg.

I do not see but your Opinions are as chargeable with Atheism as any of Mr. Bayle’s; and yet you would be terribly enraged at such a Charge. Either cease to judge others, or suffer others to judge as well as you. You own you are not infallible; and yet no Pope was ever more positive and magisterial in his Decrees, then you are in your Censures. As to Heresy, it is a foolish Word, to signify any Opinion that angers hot Churchmen, who are almost universally Heretics to one another, and yet are so distracted as to set up a Model for the human Soul to think by. They may as well pretend to paint or to shave the Soul, which has certainly a different Way of acting in every mortal Man, as all Men have different Organs and Imaginations. The persuading all Men to think alike, is as rational as to exhort them all to dream alike. What would you think, Mr. Jurieu, of a Mission to persuade the Negroes to change their erroneous black Complexion, and become orthodoxly white?

Jur.

Do I propose any thing like that?

Burg.

What then do you propose?

Jur.

Only an Agreement on a System of Faith.

Burg.

Who are they that thus agree in Systems of Faith; that is to say, in a certain adjusted Size of thinking?

Jur.

We the Calvinists do.

Burg.

The Papists boast as much or more of themselves; that is, every Set of Ecclesiastics agree to the Sound of certain Articles, and then fall out in explaining them.

Jur.

I am sorry it should sometimes happen so.

Burg.

It always happens so, where Tyranny does not efface or abolish Christianity, and set up an Inquisition, and consequently Ignorance or Hypocrisy. Besides, Mr. Bayle is a strict Calvinist.

Jur.

He professes to be so; but he is not sincere.

Burg.

Who made you a Judge of Hearts? You have disowned Infallibility.

Jur.

I judge him by the Word of God, and by his own Works.

Burg.

I judge the same Way; and yet can find no Fault in him. I freely own, that I am of all his religious Opinions. What now think you of me, Mr. Jurieu? Don’t you think, that I deserve to be punished as well as he? Suppose the whole Magistracy be in the same Sentiments with me, are we not liable to great Censure, and deserving of great Punishment; What says your Principle to this?

Jur.

I should be afflicted for so sorrowful a Thing: But I don’t pretend to punish the Magistrate.

Burg.

Why would you then punish Mr. Bayle?

Jur.

For the Glory of God.

Burg.

It is now plain how high that Principle would carry you, if the Magistrate was not higher than you. But be assured, that, for the Glory of God, we will take care both of ourselves and Mr. Bayle, and preserve both Magistrate and People from this strange Zeal of stigmatizing and punishing for the Glory of God.

Jur.

I hope, Sir, you will make some Difference between good Men and the worst of Men.

Burg.

Certainly. Every Man is a good Man who is an honest Man, and a quiet Subject: We will value him much more than a proud and unquiet Man, whatever fine Names he may assume.

Jur.

Atheists never can be good Subjects.

Burg.

Most that the Clergy call so are the best Subjects, as well as the ablest Men. No Man who owns the Being of a God, is an Atheist; and I never knew any Man that denied his Being: And till any Man does, it is false, wicked, and barbarous, to call him an Atheist. As to the Idea of God, I believe all Men differ about it, because, I am sure, no Man can ascertain it.

Jur.

Is there no Preference to be given to the Christian Faith and Doctrines?

Burg.

Yes, the Preference of Truth; which will defend them. Nor has the blessed and beneficent Author of them given them any other Preference, or external Advantages. And to say, that they want any other, is to call the Truth of Christianity in doubt, which made its Way without any other. It is therefore mistrusting the Power and Veracity of Christianity, to restrain, for its sake, any Set of Opinions whatsoever. Where Liberty of Conscience and of Opinion is not fully maintained, Christianity is not maintained; but only one Faction of Christians, falsly so called, against all the rest, and against the Spirit and first Principles of Christianity. This State was once weak enough to enter into the Subtleties, Contentions, and Chimera’s of Divines, and near being overturned by a ridiculous Attempt to settle Guesses and Orthodoxy. A Synod of Doctors at Dort, by the mere Dint of Words and Dreams, were like to have put an End to the High and Mighty States of Holland and Friseland. We have since learned more Wit, than to sacrifice the Peace of our Government, or any Man’s Peace, to the Passion or Maggots of the Clergy. We protect them all against one another, and all Men against them. As to their own subtle Disputes and Inventions, we meddle not with them, if they meddle not with us. They have good Pay, and a clear Stage; and it is not for their Credit, if they desire more. If any Man be a bad Subject, and break our Laws, we know how to deal with him, without the Assistance of the Clergy: And if any Man be a bad Believer, it is their Business to convince him. But whoever would convince by Stripes and Terror, proclaims open War against Christianity and common Sense, against the Peace of Society, and the Happiness of Mankind. Persecution, for any Opinion whatsoever, justifies Persecution for every Opinion in the World; and every Persecutor is liable to be persecuted, upon his own Principles, by every Man upon Earth of a different Opinion, and more Strength. What dismal Butcheries would such a cruel Spirit raise!

I hope you will forgive me, Mr. Jurien, for using you thus, with the Freedom of a Christian and a Dutchman. I have a great Kindness for you, but a greater for the State: We cannot violate our best Maxims, because you are angry at Mr. Bayle.

Jur.

I shall beg leave, for all this, to present my Petition: If it has no Effect, I can only appeal to God.

Burg.

With all my Heart: But do not appeal to him in Anger.