any were to be heard But how many do you think by Friendly and Christian Debates with them at their Houses and by the gentle Methods of the Gospel made use of in private Conversation might have been brought into the Church who by railing from the Pulpit ill and unfriendly Treatment out of it and other Neglects or Miscarriages of those who claimed to be their Teachers have been driven from hearing them Paint the Defects and Miscarriages frequent on this side as well as you have done those on the other and then do you with all the World consider whether those who you so handsomely declaim against for being misled by Education Passion Humour Prejudice Obstinacy c. do deserve all the Punishment Perhaps it will be answered If there be so much toil in it that particular Persons must be apply'd to who then will be a Minister And what if a Lay-man should reply If there be so much toil in it that Doubts must be cleared Prejudices removed Foundations examined c. Who then will be a Protestant The Excuse will be as good hereafter for the one as for the other This new Method of yours which you say no body can deny but that indirectly and at a distance it does some Service towards bringing Men to embrace the Truth was never yet thought on by the most refined Persecutors Tho indeed it is not altogether unlike the Plea made use of to excuse the late barbarous Usage of the Protestants in France designed to extirpate the Reformed Religion there from being a Persecution for Religion The French King requires all his Subjects to come to Mass. Those who do not are punished with a witness For what Not for their Religion say the Pleaders for that Discipline but for disobeying the King's Laws So by your Rule the Dissenters for thither you would and thither you must come if you mean any thing must be punished For what Not for their Religion say you not for following the Light of their own Reason not for obeying the Dictates of their own Consciences That you think not fit For what then are they to be punished To make them say you examine the Religion they have imbraced and the Religion they have rejected So that they are punished not for having offended against a Law For there is no Law of the Land that requires them to examine And which now is the fairer Plea pray judg You ought indeed to have the Credit of this new Invention All other Law-makers have constantly taken this Method that where any thing was to be amended the Fault was first declared and then Penalties denounced against all those who after a time set should be found guilty of it This the common Sense of Mankind and the very Reason of Laws which are intended not for Punishment but Correction has made so plain that the subtilest and most resined Law-makers have not gone out of this course nor have the most ignorant and barbarous Nations mist it But you have out-done Solon and Lycurgus Moses and our Saviour and are resolved to be a Law-maker of a way by your self 'T is an old and obsolete way and will not serve your turn to begin with Warnings and Threats of Penalties to be inflicted on those who do not reform but continue to do that which you think they fail in To allow of Impunity to the Innocent or the opportunity of Amendment to those who would avoid the Penalties are Formalities not worth your notice You are for a shorter and surer way Take a whole Tribe and punish them at all Adventures whether guilty or no of the Miscarriage which you would have amended or without so much as telling them what it is you would have them do but leaving them to find it out if they can All these Absurdities are contained in your way of proceeding and are impossible to be avoided by any one who will punish Dissenters and only Dissenters to make them consider and weigh the Grounds of their Religion and impartially examine whether it be true or no and upon what Grounds they took it up that so they may find and imbrace the Truth that must save them But that this new sort of Discipline may have all fair play let us enquire First Who it is you would have be punished In the place above cited they are those who are got into a wrong way and are deaf to all Perswasions If these are the Men to be punished let a Law be made against them you have my Consent and that is the proper course to have Offenders punished For you do not I hope intend to punish any fault by a Law which you do not name in the Law nor make a Law against any fault you would not have punished And now if you are sincere and in earnest and are as a fair Man should be sor what your words plainly signify and nothing else what will such a Law serve for Men in the wrong Way are to be punished but who are in the wrong Way is the Question You have no more reason to determine it against one who differs from you than he has to conclude against you who differ from him No not tho you have the Magistrate and the National Church on your side For if to differ from them be to be in the wrong Way you who are in the right Way in England will be in the wrong Way in France Every one here must be judg for himself And your Law will reach no body till you have convinced him he is in the wrong Way And then there will be no need of Punishment to make him consider unless you will assirm again what you have deny'd and have Men punished for imbracing the Religion they believe to be true when it differs from yours or the Publick Besides being in the wrong Way those who you would have punished must be such as are deaf to all Perswasions But any such I suppose you will hardly sind who hearken to no body not to those of their own Way If you mean by deaf to all Perswasions all Perswasions of a contrary Party or of a different Church such I suppose you may abundantly find in your own Church as well as else-where and I presume to them you are so charitable that you would not have them punished for not lending an Ear to Seducers For Constancy in the Truth and Perseverance in the Faith is I hope rather to be incouraged than by any Penalties check'd in the Orthodox And your Church doubtless as well as all others is Orthodox to it self in all its Tenets If you mean by all Perswasion all your Perswasion or all Perswasion of those of your Communion you do but beg the Question and suppose you have a right to punish those who differ from and will not comply with you Your next words are When Men fly from the means of a right Information and will not so much as consider how reasonable it is throughly and
punished to make them consider Your Penalties have had the effect on them you intended they have made them consider and they have done their utmost in considering What now must be done with them They must be punish'd on for they are still Dissenters If it were just if you had reason at first to punish a Dissenter to make him consider when you did not know but that he had considered already it is as just and you have as much reason to punish him on even when he has perform'd what your Punishments was designed for when he has considered but yet remains a Dissenter For I may justly suppose and you must grant that a man may remain a Dissenter after all the consideration your moderate Penalties can bring him to when we see greater Punishments even those Severities you disown as too great are not able to make men consider so far as to be convinced and brought over to the National Church If your Punishments may not be inflicted on men to make them consider who have or may have considered already for ought you know then Dissenters are never to be once punished no more than any other sort of men Iâ—… Dissenters are to 〈◊〉 punished to make them consider whether they have considered or no then their Punishments tho they do consider must never cease as long as they are Dissenters which whether it be to punâ—…sh them only to bring them to consider let all men judg This I am sure Punishments in your method must either never begin upon Dissenters or never cease And so preâ—…end Moderation as you please the Punishments which your method requires must be either very immoderate or none at all And now you having yielded to our Author and that upon very good reasons which you your self urge and which I shall set down in your own words That to prosecute men with Fiâ—…e and Sword or to dâ—…prive them of their Estates to maim them with â—…ral Punishments to starve and tâ—…rture them in noisom Prisons and in the end even to take away their lives to make them Christians is but an â—…ll way of expressing mens desire of the Salvation of thâ—…se whâ—…m they treat in this manner And that it will be very difficult to persâ—…ade men of sense that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his Brother to the Executioner to be burnt alive does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that Brother from the Flames of Hell in the world to câ—…me And that these Methods are so very imprâ—…per in respect to the Design of them that they usually prâ—…duce the quite contrary effect For whereas all the use which Force can have for the advancing true Religion and the Salvation of Souls is as has already been â—…wed by disposing men to submit to Instruction and to give a fair hearing to the Reasons which are offâ—…red for the enlightning their minds and discovering the Truth to them these Cruelties have the misfortune to be commonly look'd upon as so just a prejudice against any Religion that uses them as makes it needless to look any further into it and to tempt men to reject it as both false and detestable without ever vâ—…ucbsafing to consider the rational Grounds and Motives of it This effect they seldom sail to work upon the Sufferers of them and as to the Spectators if they be not before-hand well instructed in those Grounds and Motives they will be much tempted likewise not only to entertain the same opinion of such a Religion but withal to judg much more favourably of that of the Sufferers who they will be apt to think would not expâ—…se themselves to such extremities which they might avoid by compliance if they were not throughly satisfied of the Justice of their Cause And upon these Reasons you conclude That these Severities are utterly unapt and improper for the bringing men to embrace that Truth which must save them Again you having acknowledged That the Authority of the Magistrate is not an Authority to compel any one to his Religion And again That the rigor of Laws and force of Penalties are not capable to convince and change mens minds And yet further That you do not require that men should have no rule but the Religion of the Court or that they should be put under a necessity to quit the light of their own Reason and oppose the dictates of their own consciences and blindly resign up themselves to the will of their Governors but that the Power you ascribe to the Magistrate is given him to bring mâ—…n not to his own but to the true Religion Now you having I say granted this whereby you directly condemn and abolish all Laws that have been made here or any where else that ever I heard of to compel men to Conformity I think the Author and whosoever else are most for Liberty of Conscience might be content with the Toleration you allow by condemning the Laws about Religion now in force and rest satisfied until you had made your new Method consistent and practicable by telling the World plainly and directly 1. Who are to be Punished 2. For what 3. With what Punishments 4. How long 5. What Advantage to true Religion it would be if Magistrates every where did so punish 6. And lastly Whence the Magistrate had Commission to do so When you have done this plainly and intelligibly without keeping in the uncertainty of general expressions and without supposing all along your Church in the right and your Religion the true which can no more be allow'd to you in this case whatever your Church or Religion be than it can be to a Papist or a Lutheran a Presbyterian or an Anabaptist nay no more to you than it can be allowid to a Jew or a Mahometan when I say you have by setling these Points fram'd the parts of your new Engine set it together and shew'd that it will work without doing more harm than good in the world I think then men may be content to submit to it But imagining this and an Engine to shew the perpetual Motion will be found out together I think Toleration in a very good state notwithstanding your answer wherein you having said so much for it and for ought I see nothing against it unless an impracticable Chimera be in your opinion something mightily to be apprehended We have now seen and examined the main of your Treatise and therefore I think I might here end without going any farrher But that you may not think your self or any of your Arguments neglected I will go over the remainder and give you my thoughts on every thing I shall meet with in it that seems to need any answer In one place you argue against the Author thus If then the Author's Fourth Proposition as you call it viz. That Force is of no use for promoting true Religion and the Salvation of Souls be not true as perhaps by this time it appears
in the sense you take it In the 8th Page which you quote the Author is shewing that the Magistrate has no Power that is not Right to make use of Force in Matters of Religion for the Salvation of Mens Souls And the reason he gives for it there is because force has no efficacy to convince Mens Minds and that without a full perswasion of the Mind the Profession of the true Religion it self is not acceptable to God Vpon this ground says he I affirm that the Magistrate's Power extends not to the establishing any Articles of Faith or Forms of Worship by the force of his Laws For Laws are of no force at all without Penalties and Penalties in this case are absolutely impertinent because they are not proper to convince the Mind And so again Pag. 27. which is the other place you quote the Author says What soever may be doubted in Religion yet this at least is certain that no Religion which I believe not to be true can be either true or profitable unto me In vain therefore do Princes compel their Subjects to come into their Church-Communion under the pretence of saving their Souls And more to this purpose But in neither of those Passages nor any where else that I remember does the Author say that it is impossible that Force should any way at any time upon any Person by any Accident be useful towards the promoting of true Religion and the Salvation of Souls for that is it which you mean by utterly of no use He does not deny that there is any thing which God in his Goodness does not or may not sometimes graciously make use of towards the Salvation of Mens Souls as our Saviour did of Clay and Spittle to cure Blindness and that so Force also may be sometimes useful But that which he denies and you grant is that Force has any proper Efficacy to enlighten the Understanding or produce Belief And from thence he infers that therefore the Magistrate cannot lawfully compel Men in matters of Religion This is what the Author says and what I imagine will always hold true whatever you or any one can say or think to the contrary That which you say is Force indirectly and at a distance may do some Service What you mean by doing Service at a distance towards the bringing Men to Salvation or to imbrace the Truth I confess I do not understand unless perhaps it be what others in propriety of Speech call by Accident But be it what it will it is such a Service as cannot be ascribed to the direct and proper Efficacy of Force And so say you Force indirectly and at a distance may do some Service I grant it Make your best of it What do you conclude from thence to your purpose That therefore the Magistrate may make use of it That I deny That such an indirect and at a distance Vsefulness will authorize the Civil Power in the use of it that will never be prov'd Loss of Estate and Dignities may make a proud Man humble Sufferings and Imprisonment may make a wild and debauched Man sober And fo these things may indirectly and at a distance be serviceable towards the Salvation of Mens Souls I doubt not but God has made some or all of these the occasions of good to many Men. But will you therefore infer that the Magistrate may take away a Man's Honour or Estate or Liberty for the Salvation of his Soul or torment him in this that he may be happy in the other World What is otherwise unlawful in it self as it certainly is to punish a Man without a fault can never be made lawful by some Good that indirectly and at a distance or if you please indirectly and by accident may follow from it Running a Man through may save his Life as it has done by chance opening a lurking Imposthume But will you say therefore that this is lawful justifiable Chirurgery The Gallies 't is like might reduce many a vain loose Protestant to Repentance Sobriety of Thought and a true sense of Religion And the Torments they suffer'd in the late Persecution might make several consider the Pains of Hell and put a due estimate of Vanity and Contempt on all things of this World But will you say because those Punishments might indirectly and at a distance serve to the Salvation of Mens Souls that therefore the King of France had Right and Authority to make use of them If your indirect and at a distance Serviceableness may authorize the Magistrate to use Force in Religion all the Cruelties used by the Heathens against Christians by Papists against Protestants and all the persecuting of Christians one amongst another are all justifiable But what if I should tell you now of other Effects contrary Effects that Punishments in matters of Religion may produce and so may serve to keep Men from the Truth and from Salvation What then will become of your indirect and at a distance Vsefulness For in all Pleas for any thing because of its usefulness it is not enough to say as you do and is the utmost that can be said for it that it may be serviceable But it must be considered not only what it may but what it is likely to produce And the greater Good or Harm like to come from it ought to determine of the use of it To shew you what Effects one may expect from Force of what usefulness it is to bring Men to imbrace the Truth be pleas'd to read what you your self have writ I cannot but remark say you that these Methods viz. depriving Men of their Estates Corporal Punishments starving and tormenting them in Prisons and in the end even taking away their Lives to make them Christians are so very improper in respect to the Design of them that they usually produce the quite contrary Effect For whereas all the use which Force can have for the advancing true Religion and the Salvation of Souls is as has already been shewed by disposing Men to submit to Instruction and to give a fair hearing to the Reasons which are offer'd for the enlightning their Minds and discovering the Truth to them These Cruelties have the Misfortune to be commonly look'd upon as so just a Prejudice against any Religion that uses them as makes it needless to look any further into it and to tempt Men to reject it as both false and detestable without ever vouchsafing to consider the rational Grounds and Motives of it This Effect they seldom fail to work upon the Sufferers of them And as to the Spectators if they be not beforehand well instructed in those Grounds and Motives they will be much tempted likewise not only to entertain the same Opinion of such a Religion but withal to judg much more favourably of that of the Sufferers who they will be apt to think would not expose themselves to such Extremities which they might avoid by compliance if they were not throughly satisfied
of the Justice of their Cause Here then you allow that taking away Mens Estates or Liberty and Corporal Punishments are apt to drive away both Sufferers and Spectators from the Religion that makes use of them rather than to it And so these you renounce Now if you give up Punishments of a Man in his Person Liberty and Estate I think we need not stand with you for any other Punishments may be made use of But by what follows it seems you shelter your self under the name of Severities For moderate Punishments as you call them in another place you think may be serviceable indirectly and at a distance serviceable to bring Men to the Truth And I say any sort of Punishments disproportioned to the Offence or where there is no fault at all will always be Severity unjustifiable Severity and will be thought so by the Sufferers and By-standers and so will usually produce the Effects you have mentioned contrary to the Design they are used for Not to profess the National Faith whilst one believes it not to be true not to enter into Church-Communion with the Magistrate as long as one judges the Doctrine there professed to be erroneous or the Worship not such as God has either prescribed or will accept this you allow and all the World with you must allow not to be a fault But yet you would have Men punished for not being of the National Religion that is as you your self confess for no fault at all Whether this be not Severity nay so open and avow'd Injustice that it will give Men a just Prejudice against the Religion that uses it and produce all those ill Effects you there mention I leave you to consider So that the name of Severities in opposition to the moderate Punishments ' you speak for can do you no Service at all For where there is no Fault there can be no moderate Punishment All Punishment is immoderate where there is no Fault to be punished But of your moderate Punishment we shall have occasion to speak more in another place It suffices here to have shewn that whatever Punishments you use they are as likely to drive Men from the Religion that uses them as to bring them to the Truth and much more likely as we shall see before we have done And so by your own Confession they are not to be used One thing in this Passage of the Author it seems appears absurd to you that he should say That to take away Mens Lives to make them Christians was but an ill way of expressing a Design of their Salvation I grant there is great Absurdity some where in the case But it is in the Practice of those who persecuting Men under a pretence of bringing them to Salvation suffer the Temper of their Good-will to betray it self in taking away their Lives And whatever Absurdities there be in this way of proceeding there is none in the Author's way of expressing it as you would more plainly have seen if you had looked into the Latin Original where the words are Vita denique ipsâ privant ut fideles ut salvi siant Pag. 5. which tho more literally might be thus render'd To bring them to the Faith and to Salvation yet the Translator is not to be blamed if he chose to express the Sense of the Author in words that very lively represented the extream Absurdity they are guilty of who under pretence of Zeal for the Salvation of Souls proceed to the taking away their Lives An Example whereof we have in a neighbouring Country where the Prince declares he will have all his Dissenting Subjects sav'd and pursuant thereunto has taken away the Lives of many of them For thither at last Persecution must come As I fear notwithstanding your talk of moderate Punishments you your self intimate in these words Not that I think the Sword is to be used in this business as I have sufficiently declared already but because all coactive Power resolves at last into the Sword since all I do not say that will not be reformed in this matter by lesser Penalties but that refuse to submit to lesser Penalties must at last fall under the stroke of it In which words if you mean any thing to the businesâ—… in hand you seem to have a reserve for greater Punishments when lesser are not sufficient to bring Men to be convinced But let that pass You say If Force be usâ—…d not instead of Reason and Arguments that is not to convince by its own proper Efficacy which it cannot do c. I think those who make Laws and use Force to bring Men to Church-Conformity in Religion seek only the Compliance but concern themselves not for the Conviction of those they punish and so never use Force to convince For pray tell me When any Dissenter conforms and enters into the Church-Communion is he ever examined to see whether he does it upon Reason and Conviction and such Grounds as would become a Christian concern'd for Religion If Persecution as is pretended were for the Salvation of Mens Souls this would be done and Men not driven to take the Sacrament to keep their Places or to obtain Licenses to sell Ale for so low have these holy Things been prostituted who perhaps knew nothing of its Institution and considered no other use of it but the securing some poor secular Advantage which without taking of it they should have lost So that this Exception of yours of the use of Force instead of Arguments to convince Men I think is needless those who use it not being that ever I heard concern'd that Men should be convinced But you go on in telling us your way of using Force only to bring Men to consider those Reasons and Arguments which are proper and sufficient to convince them but which without being forced they would not consider And say you Who can deny but that indirectly and at a distance it does some Service towards bringing Men to imbrace that Truth which either through Negligence they would never acquaint themselves with or through Prejudice they would reject and condemn unheard Whether this way of Punishment is like to increase or remove Prejudice we have already seen And what that Truth is which you can positively say any Man without being forced by Punishment would through carelesness never acquaint himself with I desire you to name Some are call'd at the third some at the ninth and some at the eleventh hour And whenever they are call'd they imbrace all the Truth necessary to Salvation But these slips may be forgiven amongst so many gross and palpable Mistakes as appear to me all through your Discourse For Example You tell us that Force used to bring Men to consider does indirectly and at a distance some Service Here now you walk in the dark and endeavour to cover your self with Obscurity by omitting two necessary parts As first who must use this Force which tho you tell us not here