Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	church_n	england_n	rome_n	5,202	5	6.8819	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54203	The reasonableness of toleration, and the unreasonableness of penal laws and tests wherein is prov'd by Scripture, reason and antiquity, that liberty of conscience is the undoubted right of every man, and tends to the flourishing of kingdoms and commonwealths, and that persecution for meer religion is unwarrantable, unjust, and destructive to humane society, with examples of both kinds.	Penn, William, 1644-1718.	1687 (1687)	Wing P1352; ESTC R23116	25,930	41

Morals the beginning is the end of the Operations and so the Ultimate end is the first Principle of such Actions but the Common Good or Felicity of a City or Kingdom is the Ultimate end of it in its Government therefore it ought to be the first beginning of the Law and therefore the Law ought to be for the Common Good. Now it is apparent that the Penal Laws were made only for the particular good and felicity of the Church of England men all others being by them excluded from the benefit of their native Priviledges that could not in Conscience conform to the Ceremonies of their Worship to the Ruin and Vexation of many thousands which was positively against the Common Good and Felicity of the Nation and general Community of the People divided only in some points of Religion but in an equal poise of Obedience and Loyalty to the Supream Magistrate and therefore justly deserving equal share of provision by the Laws for their Security and Protection And therefore unless it can be prov'd that it is for the Common Good and Benefit of the whole Nation that men should be persecuted to uphold the Hierarchy of the Church of England the Penal Laws are unduly made and therefore as of no force to be repeal'd and annul'd Therefore the Intention of the Divine Laws might have taught the Promoters of these Penal Statutes better and more Christian Learning for therefore are Prelates call'd Pastors because they ought to lay down their Lives for the good of the Sheep not the Sheep to lay down their Lives for the good of them they are call'd Dispensers and not Lords Ministers of God not Primary Causes and therefore they ought to be conformable to the Divine Intention in the Exercise of their Power God principally intends the Common Good of men and therefore his Ministers are bound to do the same They are Tyrants not Governours in the Church while they seek their own Support and not the Common Benefit As to the Injustice of the Penal Laws experte Materiae in commanding those things which ought not to be observed this Axiom from thence arises That no unjust Law can be a Law and then there lies no obligation to accept it or to observe it if accepted for that the Subjects are not only not bound to accept it but have it not in their power when the command is clearly and manifestly unjust as when men are commanded not to meet above such a number under such a penalty for the Exercise of their Religion according to their Consciences This is an Evil Command because it debars men from the free Worship of God for unless it could be prov'd that the Religion of the Church of England is the only True Religion in the World and they the only Infallible Ministers upon Earth it is unjust in any Law to constrain others to believe that which may be as Erroneous in them as what the other professes For tho I may believe the Liturgy of the Church of England to be the purest form of Supplication under Heaven yet another may not believe so neither is it a Crime in him to believe otherwise We have said that the Penal Laws are defective in point of Honesty which is another reason why they are invalid and therefore to be annull'd For the Immorality of the Precept is contrary to God himself because it includes a Crime and a Transgression against God and therefore ought not to be observ'd as no way obligatory seeing that it behoves us to obey God rather then Man which is the reason these Laws ought not to be observed as contradicting our Obedience to God and subjecting us to the Compulsions of Men. In the last place no Law can be valid beyond the Intention of the Legislators Now it is not rational to think that those Persons who made the Penal Laws upon a presumption of danger from Factious and Turbulent Spirits ever intended those Laws sor the punishment of those that liv'd peaceably and obediently toward the Government in all the Passive Duties of good Loyal Subjects for that had been to make Laws for the punishment of good men which was never the design of any just and vertuous Legislator in this World. Now then the Presumption of the danger being remov'd by his Majesties most Gracious Indulgence the Foundation of the Penal Laws are remov'd and consequently the Obligation to them for it is not to be imagin'd that the Framers of these Laws ever meditated to Establish the Dominion of a Spiritual Oligarchy upon the Ruin of so many Families of Pious and Religious People and therefore the suspitions which were the grounds of these Laws being vanish'd the Laws themselves are to be laid aside as altogether vain and frivolous and such as have only serv'd to gratify the Revenge and Animosity of their promoters for we never hear'd of Traytors or Factious Persons that were ever try'd upon those Laws there being others of greater force to take hold of such Criminals As for the Test it appears to be an Oath continued to prevent the sitting of any Commoner or Peer in either of the Houses of Parliament from coming into his Majesties Presence or Court and from bearing any Office or Imployment Military or Civil in any of his Majesties Realmes of England or Ireland c. And they that are to take this Oath are thereby to abjure the belief of Transubstantiation Invocation or Adoration of Saints and the Sacrifice of the Mass c. The Learned are of Opinion That to make an Oath binding it is requisite that it refers to things Lawful for that if the thing promised upon Oath be forbidden either by the Law of Nature or by the Divine Laws or Interdicted by the Laws of Men it has no power to oblige the Swearer Now the Q●●●●●●n will be whether this Oath does not positively 〈…〉 Laws of the Land by enforcing a Peer of the Realm or any other free-born English-man of lower Degree to ac●use himself with so strong and dangerous a Temptation to Perjury where the Choice is only this Either to forswear their Religion or lose their Native Priviledges and Preferments and all possibility of advancing their Fortunes A piece of severity that constrains the inward Belief of the Mind which God the searcher of all Hearts has resorv'd to himself That this is an Act contrary to the known Laws of the Land is undoubtedly true as is apparent from the great Charter and several Statutes of the Realm therefore the Test has no power to oblige the Swearer and consequently to be repeal'd as Useless That it is against the Law of God is apparent from hence for that there is nothing more strongly prohibited in Scripture then to ground a Penal Prosecution upon the enforc'd Oath of the Party without Witness or Accuser In the next place it seems a hard case to oblige the Papist to Swear away his Religion before he has another provided for him by those that

Philosophers in the City and many differing in their Sentiments even concerning the Gods themselves Yet the Magistrate was never call'd upon for their Suppression but rather they were cherish'd and honour'd with Statues after their Death The Magistrates Rulers and greatest Captains of that Age were their Hearers and Disciples adhering at pleasure to whom they thought fit as their Reason and Judgement lead them And this publick Toleration it was that render'd Athens one of the most Famous and Flourishing Cities of the World. Nor was Socrates punish'd for introducing an innovation in their Religion but because he neither could inform his Judges nor they were able to understand who that God was therefore they put him to Death for injuring all the rest whom they believ'd to be as true as his unknown Deity I pass but lightly over the Jews by reason they had the knowledge of the true God and were oblig'd not to engage in the Superstitions of the Heathens yet were they not so rigid neither as to exclude the Gentiles from among them but had their Atrium Gentium for their Reception altho unconverted nor did they refuse the Sacrifices and Oblations of the the Kings of Egypt nor those of Augustus and Fiberius all which they thought no breach of their Laws to offer up in their Holy Temples But to return to the Gentiles this is farther to be observ'd that they were so far from Suppressing varietie of Opinions that they took no notice of the many Fables of the Poets that dayly uttered such irreverent and mean Thoughts of their ador'd Divinities as to make them Robbers Adulterers and Drunkards incident to all the frailties and guilty of all the Crimes that the worst of men can be said to commit How soever these Fables every day made some change or other in their Religon for the Gods still multiplying by procreation and Canonization of Heroes Greece was so stockt and replenisht with Deities that they sent whole Colonies of feign'd Divinities among their Neighbours who gave them free admission without disputing the Toleration of their new invented Sacrifices Lustrations and other Superstitions tho perhaps never heard of before 'T is true their Gods would be sometimes out of humour but their particular Priests had a care how they pusht their feigned Anger too far found out a way by some Oracle or other to understand their meaning and set all right again However it shews that had the Priest-hood been as captious then as some of ours at this time they might have put so many Capricio's into the heads sometimes of one and sometimes of another Idol as might have given the Civil Magistrate no small vexation Among the Romans the Catalogue of their Gods exceeded Thirty Thousand and their forms of Worship were as various as they For their God Pan they had their Luperci and Lupercalia For Ceres their secret Mysteries and Female Priests For Hercules they had their Potitij and Pinarij They had also their Arval Fraternity and their sixty Curiones to offer up Sacrifice in behalf of the several Curiae or Parishes in Rome They had their Colledge of Augurs and their Flamin's for Mars they had their Salij for their Goddess Dea Bona they had their Vestal Nuns for Cybele their Galli and Corybantes All this lookt like the Variety of our Sects and Opinions at this day and yet we never hear of those Contentions Disputes and Enmities that rage among us They never incens'd the Magistrate to Persecution but as they agreed singly together so they agreed in the whole or if any difference happened among them in point of Religion 't was but repairing to the Colledge of Pontiffs where their questions were immediately resolv'd and their determinations never contradicted And for a farther mark of this general Toleration we find the Pantheon erected and after it was burnt down Rebuilt by Adrian where all the Gods were worshiped in common Moreover we find mention made in Suetonius of Collegia antiqua et Sacra in the Plural Number upon which Cujacius Animadverts That the Senate and Princes of the Roman People permitted several Colledges as well for the Exercise of Forraign Religion as of that of their own Countrey And Augustus confest That he permitted the Colledges and Assemblies of the Jews because he found them to be the Schools of Temperance and Justice not as they were reported the Seminaries of Sedition To proceed to the Christians They were no sooner grown numerous but we find them muster'd in the Armies of the Heathen Emperours and tolerated without disturbance by Commodus tho a bad Prince in whose time Pontienus set up a School in Alexandria where he publicly Taught the Christian Religion Alexander Severus gave public Toleration to the Christians in so much that when a Complaint was made to him by the Rabble that kept public Tipling-Houses that the Christians had taken possession of a place to Build a Church in the ground that belonged to them he return'd for his answer That 't was much better that God should be Worshiped in that place after any form then that it should be allow'd for Houses of Debauchery And thus we find that Toleration of Religion was allow'd so long as Heathenism continued in the World. To these succeeded Constantine the first of all the Roman Emperours that made open Profession of Christianity By whom we find such an Indulgence given not only to the Christians but to all manner of Religions with the consent of his Collegue in the Empire Licinius that we could not omit the Insertion in this place of the most material part of it At what time I Constantine Augustus and Licinius Augustus happily met at Millain and had in Consultation whatever might conduce to the public benefit and security among the rest we thought those things were first to be taken care of which would prove most profitable to most men as relating to the Worship of the Supream Deity to which purpose we thought fit to grant to the Christians and all others free Liberty to exercise what Religion every one best approv'd to the end we might render that Supream Divinity who sits in his Coelestial Throne propitious to Us and all the People under our Dominion Wherefore following this wholsome Counsel and the Dictates of right Reason we thought it our safest and wisest course not to deny Liberty to any one who either followed the Profession of the Christians or addicted himself to any other Religion which he thought most agreeable with his Judgment that the most High God to whom we freely and heartily yield Obedience may afford us his wonted Favour and Kindness in all our Enterprizes For this reason we give your Excellency to understand that it is our pleasure that all Restraints formerly appearing in your Office in reference to the Christians being disannull'd we do now Enact sincerely and plainly That every one who has a mind to observe the Christian Religion may freely do it without any

disturbance or molestation Which we have thought fit fully to signify to your Excellency to the end you might understand that we have given free and absolute leave to the Christians for the Exercise of their Religion And as we have granted this Indulgence to them so your Excellency is likewise to understand that we have granted the same open and free Liberty to all others to Exercise the Religion to which they have chosen to adhere for the Tranquility of our Reign to the end that every one may be free in the Election of his Worship without any Prejudice from us either to his Honour or to his Religion And this we thought fit moreover to decree in reference to the Christians that their Meeting-Places be restor'd them without any hesitation or delay and without the demand of any Fees or Sums of Money And if any Fines or Mulcts have been Sequester'd formerly into our Exchequer or taken by any other Person that the same be also restor'd them without the least Diminution Or if they have any Favour to request further at our hands let them make choice of any of our Advocates to take care of their Affairs The rest I omit as less pertinent to our purpose But after them when the Emperours began to lend an Ear to Ecclesiastic Rigour and Sects became Predominant as they were guarded by the Power and Protection of the Civil Magistrate 't is a strange thing how soon the several Schisms and Opinions that had taken root under the milder sway of the Heathens began to rend the Church into a thousand Factions and whereas a single Colledge of Pontiffs would serve the Heathen Priest-hood to resolve their Doubts the Determination's of National Councils could not put a stop to the Growing Controversies of the Christians but from words they fell to blows and happy they who could get the Soveraign Prince on their side for the other were sure to go by the worst So early was the Civil Power made an Engine to support the Pride and Ambition of Spiritual Contenders At what time an Eutychian Pope by Name Horsmisdas having the upper hand gave this Motto for answer to all that admonish'd him of his Severity Nos Imperare volumus nos Imperari nolumus It were to be wish'd that this Motto may not have got too much Footing in England And now Liberty of Conscience seem'd for a time exterminated from the Earth till we meet with it again among the Goths who as Procopius alledges would never in the height of all their Conquests compel the vanquished to embrace the Religon which they professed but left them to their own it being always the Maxime of Rulers truly generous to engage men rather as their Friends then as their Slaves thinking themselves far more safe in a free then in a compell'd Obedience But to descend to latter times we find that even among the Mahumetans all over Turky no man is compell'd to embrace the Mahumetan Superstition but that all People unless the Professors of Heathenish Idolatry are left to the exercise of their own Religion And this as several Authors observe was at first the chiefest means by which the Turks enlarged their Empire over the Christian VVorld For that many People rather chose to live under the Turk permitting them the Liberty of their Consciences then under the Exorbitant Tyranny of the Spanish Inquisition And further others observe That nothing has rendered the Turk more powerful then the King of Spain's Expulsion of all the Moors and Turks out of his Territories in the Year 1609 at what time above a Hundred and twenty Thousand of those Exiles retir'd into Africa and other parts of the Turkish Dominions to the great benefit of the Turks who learnt from them to Combat the Europeans with their own Weapons and their own Arts of War. The Persians give Liberty to the Melchites under the Patriarch of Antiochia who obstinately maintain all those Errors that were condem'd by the Synod of Florence together with the Nestorians and Christian Armenians who have no Patriarchs of their own nor are the Roman Catholics excluded the chief City of Ispahan To which we may add their Toleration of the Jews and the Dissenting Sects in their own Religion In Poland tho generally the Nobility adhere to the Church of Rome yet they prohibit none and the mixture of Lutherans Calvinists Socinians Anabaptists Greeks and Jews who there enjoy most ample Priviledges apparently demonstrates well-constituted Government to be no Enemy to Liberty of Conscience Nor does the scrupulous Muscovite exclude those of the Augustan Confession from having a Church of their own within view of the City of Moscow it self That the Switzers are a Prudent People appears by the permanent constitution of their Government by them upheld and propagated for so many Ages together their Concord has rendered them Populous and their Populousness has made them formidable to all the Neighbouring Princes by whom they have been all along courted for their Assistance and to whom they have been beholding for the chiefest part of their Conquests All this while a People half Protestants half Catholic's yet in general so equally unanimous and in some particular Cities so peaceably intermix'd that you never hear among them since they first leagu'd together for the common Security of any Quarrels or Contentions for Superiority or of any Fines Imprisonments or Banishing of the Dissenting parties nor do they refuse their Protection to any that fly from other Countries to seek Tranquility of Conscience among them There is the same mixture of the two Professions of Popery and Calvinism among the Grisons and the same Unanimity and this Confirm'd by the league of the Ten Jurisdictions by which all Disputations concerning Religion are forbid to prevent Exasperation and Contests among Nations and Friends tho differing in Opinion In Venice the Roman Catholic Religion prevails yet such is the Prudence and Generosity of the Government and Governours that they cannot deny to others that Liberty which they enjoy themselves in so much that tho they admitted the Inquisition into their Territories yet they fil'd it's sharp Fangs in such a manner that the malice and fury of it was render'd ineffectual for they decreed that the Inquisition should not meddle either with Witches or Inchanters nor with those that should offer to Buffet an Image or Lampoon the Vices and Disorders of the Clergy nor indeed have any power to prohibit the Printing of any Books whatever That it should have no power over Blasphemy or such as married two Wives nor in causes of Usury That it should have no Jurisdiction over Jews Infidels or those that follow the Ceremonies of the Greek Church nor any Authority over any secular Trade or Profession and in all other Causes whatever that were brought before the Tribunal of the Inquisition they reserv'd to themselves the Examination Judgment and final Determination of the Matter which indeed was an absolute Toleration of Jews Infidels and Greek

Christians and under that Notion of all other Opinions that they pleas'd themselves As to Witches They gave this reason why the Inquisition should not meddle with them For that they were generally Women a poor People Craz'd in their Understandings and therefore more fitting to be instructed by the Minister then punished by the Judge As for Blasphemy the punishment of it belong'd to the Civil Magistrate and so for Bigamy and Usury As to the Toleration of Jews c. they argu'd from St. Paul That the Ecclesiastical Authority had no power over those that were not in the Church And in behalf of the Greeks they urg'd That the Difference and Disputes between the Greek and Roman Church were yet Undetermined and that therefore it was not sit the Church of Rome should be Judge in her own Cause Lastly Against the Prohibition of Books they pleaded That it was the way to stifle Learning and prevent the coming forth of many good Books necessary for the Instruction of Man kind That it belong'd only to the Civil Magistrates to prevent the Enormities of Scandalous Writers and therefore that the Ecclesiastie's were not to thrust their Sickles into other mens Harvests Thus we find the Venetians tho in other things Obedient to the See of Rome yet in the point of Toleration altogether Dissenting from it for they believe it to be their Interest to take care least the People being depriv'd of the Liberty of their Minds should be alienated in their Affections from the Government therefore they are contented that the People should enjoy their Liberty provided they do not disturb the Public Peace To return into Germany even in Vienna it self the chief City of the Empire the Emperour Maximilianus the Second allow'd the Evangelic's the free exercise of their Religion in the Monastery of the Minorites which tho it were deny'd them by his Son Rudolphus the Second was again by the Indulgence of Matthias the Emperour restor'd them so that they had their public Assemblies at Hornals a Village close by the City within the Walls of which they had besides the freedom to Baptize Administer the Sacrament and Marry according to their own forms till Ferdmand the Second retracted their priviledges and forc'd them whenever the Duty of their Worship required to go as far as Presburgh or Edenburgh It would be too long to trace the several Regions of Germany where so many Soveraign Princes and Free States exemplary for their Justice and Moderation foster Liberty of Conscience as the main support of their Governments 'T will be enough to mention briefly those of chiefest note the Dukes of Saxony Brunswick and Lunenburgh the Dukes of Wittenbergh and Holsatia the Elector Palatine the Duke of Bavaria tho of the Romish perswasion the Duke of Newburgh and the Landgrave of Hessen the Cities of Ratisbone Frankford upon the Main and Spire where the Evangelic's are allow'd the free exercise of their Religion and meet every Sunday from seven till eight in the Morning and from twelve till one in the Afternoon not to omit Auspurgh where the chief Magistrates of the City are half Protestants and half Papists nor those most Noble Emporiums of the Northern parts of Europe Hamborough Lubeck Breme and Dantzick to which if we should add the States of the United Netherlands it would be only to trouble the Reader with what is known to all the World. And yet the Flourishing condition of these Countries and Territories the Number of People and the Tranquility which they enjoy apparently Demonstrate That Liberty of Conscience is no such Enemy to Man-kind as to be so rudely harrass'd and exterminated from the Earth with all the Rigors and Vexations that render Life uncomfortable Having thus established the Truth of Religions Toleration upon the Foundations of Scripture Reason Authority and Example certainly the wonder must be very great among discerning Persons that men who boast a more refin'd Profession of Christian Religion who aspire to Peace to Love to Moderation and Truth toward all men should with so much Passion and bitter Animosity exercise their hatred upon their Brethren for the Niceties of different Opinions so that if we come to know of what Profession they are 't is their imperfection not their Perfection that makes the discovery Which preceeds from hence That Ecclesiastical Functions and Dignities are esteem'd for the Benefits and Advantages men reap thereby either of Wealth or Fame Which Abuse once crept into the Church was the first occasion that many men of Evil Principles greedily thirsted after Ecclesiastical Preferments and that the love of propagating Sacred Religion degenerated into Avarice and Ambition and that the Church it self was turn'd into a Theater where the great Doctors studied not the plainness of True Preaching but to shew the quaintness of their Oratory They never bent their minds to Teach the People but to Tickle their Ears into an Admiration of their Elegant Expressions and gingling Satyrs upon Dissenters and Papists as they thought their Themes would be most pleasing to their Auditors which did but Inflame the Contentions already rais'd and beget contempt and hatred to themselves and breed an Animosity not easy to be reconcil'd in them who had been so rudely tho undeservedly handled No wonder then that nothing remain'd of Primitive Religion besides the External Worship with which the People rather seem'd to flatter then adore the Supream Divinity and that Faith was now become no other then Credulity and Prejudice That very Prejudice that renders men of Rational Creatures Brutes as being that which hinders every Man from making Use of his free Judgment and being able to distinguish Truth from Falshood and which seems to have been invented on purpose to extinguish the Light of the Understanding Piety and Religion are made a Compound of Erroneous Mysteries of Humane Policy and they who contemn Reason and reject the directions of the Understanding as corrupted by Nature would themselves be thought to have the Divine Light tho had they but the least spark of Divine Light they would not so proudly insult but learn more Prudently to worship God and as now in Hatred so then in Love to excel the rest of their Brethren Nor would they Persecute with such an open Hostility those that cannot in Conscience comply with their Impositions but rather take pity of their failings unless they would be thought more fearful of their own worldly Interest then sollicitous for the others Salvation Seeing then that the Establishing of any Religious perswasion by force is so contrary to Scripture Reason and common Sence it remains then that only Worldly Interest and the support of a Domineering Hierarchy must be the chief Motives that engag'd the late Persecutors to procure those Penal Laws which in contempt of the Light of Nature and their own Videmus Meliora's they put so rigorously in Execution Laws that punish the very supposition of Crimes and Transgressions in Conceit Laws that punish the Body with Corporal