CHAPTER II.
Of the magistrate’s commission to use force in matters of religion.
Though in the foregoing chapter, on examining your doctrine concerning the magistrates who may or who may not use force in matters of religion, we have in several places happened to take notice of the commission whereby you authorise magistrates to act; yet we shall in this chapter more particularly consider that commission. You tell us, “to use force in matters of religion, is a duty of the magistrate as old as the law of nature, in which the magistrate’s commission lies: for the scripture does not properly give it him, but supposes it.” And more at large you give us an account of the magistrate’s commission in these words: “It is true indeed, the author and finisher of our faith has given the magistrate no new power or commission: nor was there any need that he should (if himself had any temporal power to give:) for he found him already, even by the law of nature, the minister of God to the people for good, and bearing the sword not in vain, i. e. invested with coactive power, and obliged to use it for all the good purposes which it might serve, and for which it should be found needful; even for the restraining of false and corrupt religion: as Job long before (perhaps before any of the scriptures were written) acknowledged, when he said, chap. xxxi. 26, 27, 28, that the worshipping the sun or the moon, was an iniquity to be punished by the judge. But though our Saviour has given the magistrates no new power, yet being king of kings, he expects and requires that they should submit themselves to his sceptre, and use the power which always belonged to them, for his service, and for the advancing his spiritual kingdom in the world. And even that charity which our great master so earnestly recommends, and so strictly requires of all his disciples, as it obliges all men to seek and promote the good of others, as well as their own, especially their spiritual and eternal good, by such means as their several places and relations enable them to use; so does it especially oblige the magistrate, to do it as a magistrate, i. e. by that power which enables him to do it above the rate of other men.
“So far therefore is the christian magistrate, when he gives his helping hand to the furtherance of the gospel, by laying convenient penalties upon such as reject it, or any part of it, from using any other means for the salvation of men’s souls, than what the author and finisher of our faith has directed, that he does no more than his duty to God, to his redeemer, and to his subjects, requires of him.
“Christ, you say, has given no new power or commission to the magistrate:” and for this you give several reasons. 1. “There was no need that he should.” Yet it seems strange that the christian magistrates alone should have an exercise of coactive power in matters of religion, and yet our Saviour should say nothing of it, but leave them to that commission which was common to them with all other magistrates. The christian religion in cases of less moment is not wanting in its rules; and I know not whether you will not charge the New Testament with a great defect, if that law alone which teaches the only true religion, that law which all magistrates who are of the true religion, receive and embrace, should say nothing at all of so necessary and important a duty to those who alone are in a capacity to discharge it, but leave them only to that general law of nature, which others who are not qualified to use this force have in common with them.
This at least seems needful, if a new commission does not, that the christian magistrates should have been instructed what degree of force they should use, and been limited to your moderate penalties; since for above these twelve hundred years, though they have readily enough found out your commission to use force, they never found out your moderate use of it, which is that alone which you assure us is useful and necessary.
2. You say, “If our Saviour had any temporal power to give;” whereby you seem to give this as a reason why he gave not the civil magistrate power to use force in matters of religion, that he had it not to give. You tell us in the same paragraph, that “he is the king of kings;” and he tells us himself, “That all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth,” Mat. xxviii. 18. So that he could have given what power, to whom, and to what purpose he had pleased: and concerning this there needs no if.
3. “For he found him already by the law of nature invested with coactive power, and obliged to use it for all the good purposes which it might serve, and for which it should be found needful.” He found also fathers, husbands, masters, invested with their distinct powers by the same law, and under the same obligation; and yet he thought it needful to prescribe to them in the use of those powers. But there was no need he should do so to the civil magistrates in the use of their power in matters of religion; because, though fathers, husbands, masters, were liable to excess in the use of theirs, yet christian magistrates were not, as appears by their having always kept to those moderate measures, which you assure us to be the only necessary and useful.
And what at last is their commission? “Even that of charity, which obliges all men to seek and promote the good of others, especially their spiritual and eternal good, by such means as their several places and relations enable them to use, especially magistrates as magistrates.” This duty of charity is well discharged by the magistrate as magistrate, is it not? in bringing men to an outward profession of any, even of the true religion, and leaving them there? But, Sir, I ask you who must be judge, what is for the spiritual and eternal good of his subjects, the magistrate himself or no? If not he himself, who for him? Or can it be done without any one’s judging at all? If he, the magistrate, must judge every-where himself what is for the spiritual and eternal good of his subjects; as I see no help for it, if the magistrate be every-where by the law of nature obliged to promote their spiritual and eternal good; is not the true religion like to find great advantage in the world by the use of force in the magistrate’s hands? And is not this a plain demonstration that God has by the law of nature given commission to the magistrate to use force for the promoting the true religion, since, as it is evident, the execution of such a commission will do so much more harm than good?
To show that your indirect and at a distance usefulness, with a general necessity of force, authorizes the civil power in the use of it, you use the following words, “That force does some service towards the making of scholars and artists, I suppose you will easily grant. Give me leave therefore to ask, how it does it? I suppose you will say, not by its direct and proper efficacy, (for force is no more capable to work learning or arts, than the belief of the true religion in men, by its direct and proper efficacy;) but by prevailing upon those who are designed for scholars or artists to receive instruction, and to apply themselves to the use of those means and helps which are proper to make them what they are designed to be: that is, it does it indirectly and at a distance. Well then, if all the usefulness of the force towards the bringing scholars or apprentices to the learning or skill they are designed to attain, be only an indirect and at a distance usefulness; I pray what is it that warrants and authorizes schoolmasters, tutors or masters, to use force upon their scholars or apprentices, to bring them to learning, or the skill of their arts and trade, if such an indirect and at a distance usefulness of force, together with that necessity of it which experience discovers, will not do it? I believe you will acknowledge that even such an usefulness, together with that necessity, will serve the turn in these cases. But then I would fain know, why the same kind of usefulness, joined with the like necessity, will not as well do it in the case before us? I confess I see no reason why it should not; nor do I believe you can assign any. You ask here, what authorizes schoolmasters or masters to use force on their scholars and apprentices, if such an indirect and at a distance usefulness, together with necessity, does not do it?” I answer, neither your indirect and at a distance usefulness, nor the necessity you suppose of it. For I do not think you will say that any schoolmaster has a power to teach, much less to use force on any one’s child without the consent and authority of the father: but a father, you will say, has a power to use force to correct his child to bring him to learning or skill in that trade he is designed to; and to this the father is authorized by the usefulness and necessity of force. This I deny, that the mere supposed usefulness and necessity of force authorize the father to use it; for then whenever he judged it useful and necessary for his son, to prevail with him to apply himself to any trade, he might use force upon him to that purpose; which I think neither you nor any body else will say, a father has a right to do on his idle and perhaps married son at thirty or forty years old.
There is then something else in the case; and whatever it be that authorizes the father to use force upon his child, to make him a proficient in it, authorizes him also to choose that trade, art or science he would have him a proficient in: for the father can no longer use force upon his son, to make him attain any art or trade, than he can prescribe to him the art or trade he is to attain. Put your parallel now if you please: The father by the usefulness and necessity of force is authorized to use it upon his child, to make him attain any art or science: therefore the magistrate is authorized to use force to bring men to the true religion, because it is useful and necessary. Thus far you have used it, and you think it does well. But let us go on with the parallel: this usefulness and necessity of force authorizes the father to use it, to make his son apply himself to the use of the means and helps which are proper to make him what he is designed to be, no longer than it authorizes the father to design what his son shall be, and to choose for him the art or trade he shall be of; and so the usefulness and necessity you suppose in force to bring men to any church, cannot authorize the magistrate to use force any farther, than he has a right to choose for any one what church or religion he shall be of. So that if you will stick to this argument, and allow the parallel between a magistrate and a father, and the right they have to use force for the instructing of their subjects in religion, and children in arts, you must either allow the magistrate to have power to choose what religion his subjects shall be of, which you have denied, or else that he has no power to use force to make them use means to be of it.
A father being entrusted with the care and provision for his child, is as well bound in duty, as fitted by natural love and tenderness, to supply the defects of his tender age. When it is born the child cannot move itself for the ease and help of natural necessities, the parents hands must supply that inability, and feed, cleanse, and swaddle it. Age having given more strength, and the exercise of the limbs, the parents are discharged from the trouble of putting meat into the mouth of the child, clothing or unclothing, or carrying him in their arms. The same duty and affection which required such kind of helps to the infant, makes them extend their thoughts to other cares for him when he is grown a little bigger; it is not only a present support, but a future comfortable subsistence begins to be thought on: to this some art or science is necessary, but the child’s ignorance and want of prospect makes him unable to choose. And hence the father has a power to choose for him, that the flexible and docile part of life may not be squandered away, and the time of instruction and improvement be lost for want of direction. The trade or art being chosen by the father, it is the exercise and industry of the child must acquire it to himself: but industry usually wanting in children the spur which reason and foresight gives to the endeavours of grown men; the father’s rod and correction is fain to supply that want, to make him apply himself to the use of those means and helps which are proper to make him what he is designed to be. But when the child is once come to the state of manhood, and to be the possessor and free disposer of his goods and estate, he is then discharged from this discipline of his parents, and they have no longer any right to choose any art, science, or course of life for him, or by force to make him apply himself to the use of those means which are proper to make him be what he designs to be. Thus the want of knowledge to choose a fit calling, and want of knowledge of the necessity of pains and industry to attain skill in it, puts a power into the parents hands to use force where it is necessary to procure the application and diligence of their children in that, which their parents have thought fit to set them to: but it gives this power to the parents only, and to no other, whilst they live; and if they die whilst their children need it, to their substitutes; and there it is safely placed: for since their want of knowledge during their nonage, makes them want direction; and want of reason often makes them need punishment and force to excite their endeavours, and keep them intent to the use of those means that lead to the end they are directed to; the tenderness and love of parents will engage them to use it only for their good, and generally to quit it too, when by the title of manhood they come to be above the direction and discipline of children. But how does this prove that the magistrate has any right to force men to apply themselves to the use of those means and helps which are proper to make them of any religion, more than it proves that the magistrate has a right to choose for them what religion they shall be of?
To your question therefore, “what is it that warrants and authorizes schoolmasters, tutors, and masters to use force upon their scholars or apprentices?” I answer, a commission from the father or mother, or those who supply their places; for without that no indirect or at a distance usefulness, or supposed necessity, could authorize them.
But then you will ask, Is it not this usefulness and necessity that gives this power to the father and mother? I grant it. “I would fain know then, say you, why the same usefulness joined with the like necessity, will not as well do in the case before us?” And I, sir, will as readily tell you: because the understanding of the parents is to supply the want of it in the minority of their children; and therefore they have a right not only to use force to make their children apply themselves to the means of acquiring any art or trade, but to choose also the trade or calling they shall be of. But when being come out of the state of minority, they are supposed of years of discretion to choose what they will design themselves to be, they are also at liberty to judge what application, and industry they will use for the attaining of it; and then how negligent soever they are in the use of the means, how averse soever to instruction or application they are past the correction of a schoolmaster, and their parents can no longer choose or design for them what they shall be, nor “use force to prevail with them to apply themselves to the use of those means and helps which are proper to make them what they are designed to be.” He that imagines a father or tutor may send his son to school at thirty or forty years old, and order him to be whipped there, or that any indirect and at a distance usefulness will authorize him to be so used, will be thought fitter to be sent thither himself, and there to receive due correction.
When you have considered, it is otherwise in the case of the magistrate using force your way in matters of religion; that there his understanding is not to supply the defect of understanding in his subjects, and that only for a time; that he cannot choose for any of his subjects what religion he shall be of, as you yourself confess; and that this power of the magistrate, if it be, as is claimed by you, over men of all ages, parts and endowments; you will perhaps “see some reason why it should not do in the case before us, as well as in that of schoolmasters and tutors, though you believe I cannot assign any.” But, sir, will your indirect and at a distance usefulness, together with your supposed necessity, authorize the master of the shoe-makers company to take any one who comes in his hands, and punish him for not being of the shoe-makers company, and not coming to their guild, when he, who has a right to choose of what trade and company he will be, thinks it not his interest to be a shoe-maker? Nor can he or any body else imagine that this force, this punishment, is used to make him a good shoe-maker, when it is seen and avowed that the punishments cease, and they are free from it who enter themselves of the company, whether they are really shoe-makers, or in earnest apply themselves to be so or no. How much it differs from this, that the magistrate should punish men for not being of his church, who choose not to be of it, and when they are once entered into the communion of it, are punished no more, though they are as ignorant, unskilful, and unpractised in the religion of it as before: how much, I say, this differs from the case I proposed, I leave you to consider. For after all your pretences of using force for the salvation of souls, and consequently to make men really christians, you are fain to allow, and you give reasons for it, that force is used only to those who are out of your church: but whoever are once in it, are free from force, whether they be really christians, and apply themselves to those things which are for the salvation of their souls, or no.
As to what you say, that whether they choose it or no, they ought to choose it; for your magistrate’s religion is the true religion, that is the question between you and them: but be that as it will, if force be to be used in the case, I have proved that be the magistrate’s religion true or false, he, whilst he believes it to be true, is under an obligation to use force, as if it were true.
But since you think your instance of children so weighty and pressing, give me leave to return you your question; I ask you then, are not parents as much authorized to teach their children their religion, as they are to teach them their trade, when they have designed them to it? May they not as lawfully correct them to make them learn their catechism, or the principles of their religion, as they may to make them learn Clenard’s grammar? Or may they not use force to make them go to mass, or whatever they believe to be the worship of the true religion, as to go to school, or to learn any art or trade? If they may, as I think you will not deny, unless you will say, that none but orthodox parents may teach their children any religion: if they may, I say then, pray tell me a reason, if your arguments from the discipline of children be good, why the magistrate may not use force to bring men to his religion, as well as parents may use force to instruct children, and bring them up in theirs? When you have considered this, you will perhaps find some difference between the state of children and grown men, betwixt those under tutelage, and those who are free and at their own disposal; and be inclined to think that those reasons which subject children in their non-age to the use of force, may not, nor do concern men at years of discretion.
You tell us farther, “that commonwealths are instituted for the attaining of all the benefits which political government can yield: and therefore if the spiritual and eternal interests of men may any way be procured or advanced by political government, the procuring and advancing those interests must in all reason be received amongst the ends of civil society, and so consequently fall within the compass of the magistrate’s jurisdiction.” Concerning the extent of the magistrate’s jurisdiction, and the ends of civil society, whether the author or you have begged the question, which is the chief business of your 56th and two or three following pages, I shall leave it to the readers to judge, and bring the matter, if you please, to a shorter issue. The question is, whether the magistrate has any power to interpose force in matters of religion, or for the salvation of souls? The argument against it is, that civil societies are not constituted for that end, and the magistrate cannot use force for ends for which the commonwealth was not constituted.
The end of a commonwealth constituted can be supposed no other, than what men in the constitution of, and entering into it, proposed; and that could be nothing but protection from such injuries from other men, which they desiring to avoid, nothing but force could prevent or remedy; all things but this being as well attainable by men living in neighbourhood without the bounds of a commonwealth, they could propose to themselves no other thing but this in quitting their natural liberty, and putting themselves under the umpirage of a civil sovereign, who therefore had the force of all the members of the commonwealth put into his hands, to make his decrees to this end be obeyed. Now since no man, or society of men, can by their opinions in religion, or ways of worship, do any man who differed from them any injury, which he could not avoid or redress, if he desired it, without the help of force; the punishing any opinion in religion, or ways of worship by the force given the magistrate, could not be intended by those who constituted or entered into the commonwealth; and so could be no end of it, but quite the contrary. For force from a stronger hand to bring a man to a religion, which another thinks the true, being an injury which in the state of nature every one would avoid; protection from such injury is one of the ends of a commonwealth, and so every man has a right to toleration.
If you will say, that commonwealths are not voluntary societies constituted by men, and by men freely entered into; I shall desire you to prove it.
In the mean time allowing it you for good, that commonwealths are constituted by God for ends which he has appointed, without the consent and contrivance of men: If you say, that one of those ends is the propagation of the true religion, and the salvation of men’s souls; I shall desire you to show me any such end expressly appointed by God in revelation; which since, as you confess, you cannot do, you have recourse to the general law of nature; and what is that? The law of reason, whereby every one is commissioned to do good. And the propagating the true religion for the salvation of men’s souls being doing good, you say, the civil sovereigns are commissioned and required by that law to use their force for those ends. But since by this law all civil sovereigns are commissioned and obliged alike to use their coactive power for the propagating the true religion, and the salvation of souls; and it is not possible for them to execute such a commission, or obey that law, but by using force to bring men to that religion which they judge the true; by which use of force, much more harm than good would be done towards the propagating the true religion in the world, as I have showed elsewhere: therefore no such commission, whose execution would do more harm than good, more hinder than promote the end for which it is supposed given; can be a commission from God by the law of nature. And this I suppose may satisfy you about the end of civil societies or commonwealths, and answer what you say concerning the ends attainable by them.
But that you may not think the great position of yours, which is so often ushered in with doubtless; for which you imagine you have sufficient warrant in a misapplied school-maxim, is past over too slightly; and is not sufficiently answered; I shall give you that farther satisfaction.
You say, “civil societies are instituted for the attaining all the benefits which civil society or political government can yield;” and the reason you give for it; “because it has hitherto been universally acknowledged that no power is given in vain;” and therefore “if I except any of those benefits, I shall be obliged to admit that the power of attaining them was given in vain.” And if I do admit it, no harm will follow in human affairs: or if I may borrow an elegant expression of yours out of the foregoing leaf, “the fortune of Europe does not turn upon it.” In the voluntary institution, and bestowing of power, there is no absurdity or inconvenience at all, that power, sufficient for several ends, should be limited by those that give the power only to one or some part of them. The power which a general commanding a potent army has, may be enough to take more towns than one from the enemy; or to suppress a domestic sedition; and yet the power of attaining those benefits, which is in his hand, will not authorize him to employ the force of the army therein, if he be commissioned only to besiege and take one certain place. So it is in a commonwealth. The power that is in the civil sovereign is the force of all the subjects of the commonwealth, which supposing it sufficient for other ends, than the preserving the members of the commonwealth in peace from injury and violence: yet if those who gave him that power, limited the application of it to that sole end, no opinion of any other benefits attainable by it can authorise him to use it otherwise.
Our Saviour tells us expressly, that “all power was given him in heaven and earth,” Matt. xxviii. 11. By which power I imagine you will not say, that the “spiritual and eternal interest” of those men whom you think need the help of political force, and of all other men too, could not any way be procured or advanced; and yet if you will hear him in another place, you will find this power, which being all power, could certainly have wrought on all men, limited to a certain number: he says, “thou hast given him [i.e. thy son] power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him,” John xvii. 2. Whether your universally acknowledged maxim of logic be true enough to authorize you to say, that any part of this power was given him in vain, and to enable you to draw consequences from it, you were best see.
But were your maxim so true that it proved, that since it might “indirectly and at a distance” do some service towards the “procuring or advancing the spiritual interest” of some few subjects of a commonwealth, therefore force was to be employed to that end; yet that will scarce make good this doctrine of yours: “doubtless, commonwealths are instituted for the attaining all those benefits which political government can yield; therefore if the spiritual and eternal interests of men may any way be procured or advanced by political government, the procuring and advancing those interests must in all reason be reckoned among the ends of civil societies, and so consequently fall within the compass of the magistrate’s jurisdiction.” For granting it true that “commonwealths are instituted for the attaining all those benefits which political government can yield,” it does not follow “that the procuring and advancing the spiritual and eternal interest” of some few members of the commonwealth by an application of power, which indirectly and at a distance, or by accident, may do some service that way, whilst at the same time it prejudices a far greater number in their civil interests; can with reason be reckoned among the ends of civil society.
“That commonwealths are instituted for those ends, viz. for the procuring, preserving, and advancing men’s civil interests, you say, No man will deny.” To sacrifice therefore these civil interests of a great number of people, which are the allowed ends of the commonwealths, to the uncertain expectation of some service to be done indirectly and at a distance to a far less number, as experience has always showed those really converted to the true religion by force to be, if any at all; cannot be one of the ends of the commonwealth. Though the advancing of the spiritual and eternal interest be of infinite advantage to the persons who receive that benefit, yet if it can be thought a benefit to the commonwealth when it is procured them with the diminishing or destroying the civil interests of great numbers of their fellow citizens: then the ravaging of an enemy, the plague, or a famine, may be said to bring a benefit to the commonwealth; for either of these may indirectly and at a distance do some service towards the advancing or procuring the spiritual and eternal interest of some of those who suffer in it.
In the two latter paragraphs you except against my want of exactness, in setting down your opinion I am arguing against. Had it been any way to take off the force of what you say, or that the reader could have been misled by my words in any part of the question I was arguing against, you had had reason to complain: if not, you had done better to have entertained the reader with a clearer answer to my argument, than spent your ink and his time needlessly, to show such niceness.
My argument is as good against your tenet in your own words, as in mine which you except against: your words are, “doubtless commonwealths are instituted for the attaining all the benefits which political government can yield; and therefore if the spiritual and eternal interest of men may any way be procured or advanced by political government, the procuring and advancing those interests must in all reason be reckoned amongst the ends of civil societies.”
To which I answered, that if this be so, “Then this position must be true, viz. That all societies whatsoever are instituted for the attaining all the benefits that they may any way yield: there being nothing peculiar to civil society in the case, why that society should be instituted for the attaining all the benefits it can any way yield, and other societies not. By which argument it will follow, that all societies are instituted for one and the same end, i. e. for the attaining all the benefits that they can any way yield. By which account there will be no difference between church and state, a commonwealth and an army, or between a family and the East-India company; all which have hitherto been thought distinct sorts of societies, instituted for different ends. If your hypothesis hold good, one of the ends of the family must be to preach the gospel, and administer the sacraments; and one business of an army to teach languages, and propagate religion; because these are benefits some way or other attainable by those societies: unless you take want of commission and authority to be a sufficient impediment: and that will be so in other cases.” To which you reply, “Nor will it follow from hence, that all societies are instituted for one and the same end, (as you imagine it will,) unless you suppose all societies enabled by the power they are endued with to attain the same end, which I believe no man hitherto did ever affirm. And therefore, notwithstanding this position, there may be still as great a difference as you please between church and state, a commonwealth and an army, or between a family and the East-India company. Which several societies, as they are instituted for different ends, so they are likewise furnished with different powers proportionate to their respective ends.” In which the reason you give to destroy my inference, I am to thank you for, if you understood the force of it, it being the very same I bring to show that my inference from your way of arguing is good. I say, that from your way of reasoning about the ends of government, “It would follow that all societies were instituted for one and the same end; unless you take want of commission and authority to be a sufficient impediment.” And you tell me here it will not follow, “unless I suppose all societies enabled by the power they are endued with, to attain the same end;” which in other words is, unless I suppose all who have in their hands the force of any society to have all of them the same commission.
The natural force of all the members of any society, or of those who by the society can be procured to assist it, is in one sense called the power of that society. This power of force is generally put into some one or few persons hands with direction and authority how to use it; and this in another sense is called also the power of the society: and this is the power you here speak of, and in these following words, viz. “Several societies, as they are instituted for different ends; so likewise are they furnished with different powers proportionate to their respective ends.” The power therefore of any society in this sense, is nothing but the authority and direction given to those that have the management of the force or natural power of the society, how and to what ends to use it, by which commission the ends of societies are known and distinguished. So that all societies wherein those who are intrusted with the management of the force or natural power of the society, have commission and authority to use the force or natural power of the society to attain the same benefits, are instituted for the same end. And therefore, if in all societies those who have the management of the force or natural power of the society, are commissioned or authorized to use that force to attain all the benefits attainable by it, all societies are instituted to the same end: and so what I said will still be true, viz. “That a family and an army, a commonwealth and a church, have all the same end. And if your hypothesis hold good, one of the ends of a family must be to preach the gospel, and administer the sacraments; and one business of an army to teach languages, and propagate religion, because these are benefits some way or other attainable by those societies; unless you take want of commission and authority to be a sufficient impediment: and that will be so too in other cases.” To which you have said nothing but what does confirm it, which you will a little better see, when you have considered that any benefit attainable by force or natural power of a society, does not prove the society to be instituted for that end; till you also show, that those to whom the management of the force of the society is intrusted, are commissioned to use it to that end.
And therefore to your next paragraph I shall think it answer enough to print here, side by side with it, that paragraph of mine to which you intended it as an answer.
You tell us, “the true religion is undoubtedly true.” If you had told us too, who is undoubtedly judge of it, you had put all past doubt: but till you will be pleased to determine that, it would be undoubtedly true, that the king of Denmark is as undoubtedly judge of it at Copenhagen, and the emperor at Vienna, as the king of England in this island: I do not say they judge as right, but they are by as much right judges, and therefore have as much right to punish those who dissent from lutheranism and popery in those countries, as any other civil magistrate has to punish any dissenters from the national religion any-where else. And who can deny but these briars and thorns laid in their way by the penal laws of those countries, may do some service indirectly and at a distance, to bring men there severely and impartially to examine matters of religion, and so to embrace the truth that must save them, which the bare outward profession of any religion in the world will not do?
“This true religion, which is undoubtedly true, you tell us too, never any body studied with such care and diligence as he might and ought to use, and with an honest mind, but he was convinced of the truth of it.”
If you will resolve it in your short circular way, and tell me such diligence as one ought to use, is such diligence as brings one to be convinced, it is a question too easy to be asked. If I should desire to know plainly what is to be understood by it, it would be a question too hard for you to answer, and therefore I shall not trouble you with demanding what this diligence which a man may and ought to use, is; nor what you mean by an honest mind. I only ask you, whether force, your way applied, be able to produce them? that so the commonwealth may have the benefits you propose from men’s being convinced of, and consequently embracing, the true religion, which you say nobody can miss, who is brought to that diligence, and that honest mind.
The benefits to the commonwealth are, 1. “That the true religion that this method propagates, makes good men, and good men are always the best subjects, and often procure the favour of God to the society they are members of.” Being forward enough to grant that nothing contributes so much to the benefit of a society, as that it be made up of good men, I began presently to give into your method, which promises so sure a way to make men so study the true religion, that they cannot miss the being convinced of the truth of it, and so hardly avoid being really of the true religion, and consequently good men. But, that I might not mistake in a thing of that consequence, I began to look about in those countries where force has been made use of to propagate what you allowed to be the true religion, and found complaints of as great a scarcity of good men there, as in other places. A friend whom I discoursed on this point, said, It might possibly be that the world had not yet had the benefit of your method: because law-makers had not yet been able to find that just temper of penalties on which your propagation of the true religion was built; and that therefore it was great pity you had not yet discovered this great secret, but it was to be hoped you would. Another, who stood by, said he did not see how your method could make men it wrought on, and brought to conformity, better than others, unless corrupt nature with impunity were like to produce better men in one outward profession than in another. To which I replied, That we did not look on conformists through a due medium; for if we did, with you, allow it presumable that all who conformed did it upon conviction, there could be no just complaint of the scarcity of good men: and so we got over that difficulty.
The second benefit you say your use of force brings to the commonwealth, is, “That this care in any commonwealth, of God’s honour and men’s salvation, entitles it to his special protection and blessing.”—Then certainly all commonwealths, that have any regard to the protection and blessing of God, will not neglect to entitle themselves to it, by using of force to promote that religion they believe to be true. But I beseech you what care is this of the honour of God and men’s salvation you speak of? Is it, as you have owned it, a care by penalties to make men outwardly conform, and without any farther care or inquiry to presume that they do it upon conviction, and with a sincere embracing of, and obedience to the truth? But if the honour of God, and men’s salvation, consists not in an outward conformity to any religion, but in something farther; what blessing they may expect whose care goes so far, and then presume the rest, which is the hardest part, and therefore least to be presumed, the prophet Jeremiah, chap. xlviii. 10, will tell you, who says, “Cursed be he that does the work of the Lord negligently:” which those who think it is the magistrate’s business to use force to bring men heartily to embrace the truth that must save them, were best seriously to consider.
Your next paragraph containing nothing but positions of yours, which you suppose elsewhere proved, and I elsewhere examined, it is not fit the reader should be troubled any farther about them.
I once knew a gentleman, who having cracked himself with an ungovernable ambition, could never afterwards hear the place he aimed at mentioned without showing marks of his distemper. I know not what the matter is, that when there comes in your way but the mention of secular power in your or ecclesiastics hands, you cannot contain yourself: we have instances of it in other parts of your letter; and here again you fall into a fit, which since it produces rather marks of your breeding, than arguments for your cause, I shall leave them as they are to the reader, if you can make them go down with him for reasons from a grave man, or for a sober answer to what I say in that and the following paragraph.
Much-what of the same size is your ingenious reply to what I say in the next paragraph, viz. “That commonwealths, or civil societies and governments, if you will believe the judicious Mr. Hooker, are, as St. Peter calls them, 1 Pet. ii. 13, ἀνθρωπίνη ϰτίσις, the contrivance and institution of man.” To which you smartly reply, for your choler was up, “it is well for St. Peter that he had the judicious Mr. Hooker on his side.” And it would have been well for you too to have seen that Mr. Hooker’s authority was made use of not to confirm the authority of St. Peter, but to confirm that sense I gave of St. Peter’s words, which is not so clear in our translation, but that there are those who, as I doubt not but you know, do not allow of it. But this being said when passion it seems rather employed your wit than your judgment, though nothing to the purpose, may yet perhaps indirectly and at a distance do some service.
And now, sir, if you can but imagine that men in the corrupt state of nature might be authorized and required by reason, the law of nature, to avoid the inconveniencies of that state, and to that purpose to put the power of governing them into some one or more men’s hands, in such forms, and under such agreements as they should think fit; (which governors so set over them for a good end by their own choice, though they received all their power from those, who by the law of nature had a power to confer it on them, may very fitly be called powers ordained of God, being chosen and appointed by those who had authority from God so to do: for he that receives commission, limited according to the discretion of him that gives it, from another who had authority from his prince so to do, may truly be said, so far as his commission reaches, to be appointed or ordained by the prince himself;) it may serve as an answer to your two next paragraphs, and to show that there is no opposition or difficulty in all that St. Peter, St. Paul, or the judicious Mr. Hooker, says; nor any thing, in what either of them says, to your purpose. And though it be true, those powers that are, are ordained of God; yet it may nevertheless be true, that the power any one has, and the ends for which he has it, may be by the contrivance and appointment of men.
To my saying, “the ends of commonwealths appointed by the institutors of them, could not be their spiritual and eternal interest, because they could not stipulate about those one with another, nor submit this interest to the power of the society, or any sovereign they should set over them.” You reply, “very true, sir; but they can submit to be punished in their temporal interest, if they despise or neglect those greater interests.” How they can submit to be punished by any men in their temporal interest, for that which they cannot submit to be judged by any man, when you can show, I shall admire your politics. Besides, if the compact about matters of religion be, that those should be punished in their temporal, who neglect or despise their eternal interest; who I beseech you is by this agreement rather to be punished, a sober dissenter, who appears concerned for religion and his salvation, or an irreligious profane or debauched conformist? By such as despise or neglect those greater interests, you here mean only dissenters from the national religion; for those only you punish, though you represent them under such a description as belongs not peculiarly to them; but that matters not, so long as it best suits your occasion.
In your next paragraph you wonder at my news from the West-Indies; I suppose because you found it not in your books of Europe or Asia. But whatever you may think, I assure you all the world is not Mile-end. But that you may be no more surprised with news, let me ask you, whether it be not possible that men, to whom the rivers and woods afforded the spontaneous provisions of life, and so with no private possessions of land had no enlarged desires after riches or power; should live together in society, make one people of one language under one chieftain, who shall have no other power but to command them in time of common war against their common enemies, without any municipal laws, judges, or any person with superiority established amongst them, but ended all their private differences, if any arose, by the extemporary determination of their neighbours, or of arbitrators chosen by the parties: I ask you, whether in such a commonwealth the chieftain who was the only man of authority amongst them, had any power to use the force of the commonwealth to any other end but the defence of it against an enemy, though other benefits were attainable by it?
The paragraph of mine to which you mean your next for an answer, shall answer for itself.
That above annexed is all the answer you think this paragraph of mine deserves. But yet in that little you say, you must give me leave to take notice, “that if, as you say, the magistrate’s authority may do much towards the upholding and preserving the true religion within his jurisdiction;” so also may do much towards the upholding and preserving of a false religion, and in that respect, if you say true, may be said to establish it. For I think I need not mind you here again, that it must unavoidably depend upon his opinion what shall be established for true, or rejected as false.
And thus you have my thoughts concerning the most material of what you say touching the magistrate’s commission to use force in matters of religion, together with some incident places in your answer, which I have taken notice of as they have come in my way.
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