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misunderstanding a few Texts of Scripture relating to that Matter, be a good and justifiable Plea in a Court of Justice? If it would, I dare engage, the Sect will foon be numerous if it would not, it can be no general Rule, that Confcience ought to be exempt from penal Laws.

The Truth of the Matter lies in a very narrow Compass: the Church has no Right to impose penal Laws upon any Account: in Matters purely of a religious Nature, the State has no Right neither: but of fuch Matters perhaps there may be great Scarcity in the World; for the Paffions of Men work themselves into their religious Concerns; and the Controverfy grows infenfibly into a Struggle for Power and Superiority; and often breeds Convulfions that shake the very Conftitution of the civil Government. And must the Magiftrate fit ftill because the Buftle is about Religion, and be told that he has nothing to do in it? Surely it becomes him to ftir and to drive Confcience out of the State to its proper Seat, the Heart of Man; whither his Power neither can, nor ought to pursue it.

In this Queftion of the Magiftrate's Right, it matters not what a Man's Opini

ons

ons are, or how well or how ill a Man's Confcience is informed: for thus much is certain, that the Magiftrate has no Right to punish Men for the Mistakes in their Judgment, or the Errors of their Confciences. On the other Side, when the Magistrate calls a Man to an Account for his Actions, I cannot fee that it is fo much as his Duty to enquire, whether the Man took what he did to be a Part of his Religion, or whether he followed the Dictates of his Confcience or no. What can the civil Magiftrate have to do in fuch Questions; or how can he arrive at any Evidence concerning the Truth of these Matters? The Nature of the Action lies properly before him, confidered in itself, and then in its Confequences; and if it tend to Mischief, to breed Difturbance in the State, he has a Right to punish it, without confidering whether it be a religious Action or no.

There would need no difputing in this Cafe, if Men would attend to the just Consequences of their own Principles. They lay it down for a Maxim, that the Magiftrate has nothing to do with Confcience; which is very true: but then they infer, that the Magiftrate cannot punish Men for acting according to their Confcience; which

is to fay, that his Authority is fufpended by the Plea of Confcience: and if so, the Magiftrate, I think, will have more than enough to do with it; fince the People's Confcience will bind his Power in the Exercife of the Sword, and he must of Neceffity in the Adminiftration of Justice enter into the Examination of Confcience; for fince that is to be his Rule, he ought to know and to confider it.

But if you would attend to the natural and just Consequences of the Principle, the Truth will stand in a clear Light. The Magiftrate has nothing to do with Confcience and therefore on one Hand he has no Right to bring Confcience to his Bar, to punish the Errors or Mistakes of it; or to cenfure even the Actions which proceed from it, unless they affect that which is his immediate Care, the public Good, or the private Peace and Property of his Subjects: on the other Hand, no one else can bring Confcience before him, or by the Pleas of it fuperfede his Authority in any Cafe proper for his Cognizance. For the Magiftrate might well fay, The Action is such as I am concerned to enquire into, Conscience I have nothing to do with, it does not lie before

me,

me, and therefore I fhall, not attend to its Pretences. Nor indeed is it poffible that he should, fince it is in every Man's Power in all Cafes to plead Confcience; which is never more easily pretended to, than by those who have none. A Man under a criminal Accufation might as well refer himself to what was done in the Mogul's Country, as to what paffed at that Time in his own unfearchable Heart; and the Magiftrate might with much more Reason admit the Evidence in one Cafe, than in the other, where there is no Poffibility of knowing the Truth.

It may be thought perhaps by fome, that I have been pleading all this while for the Magiftrate's Right to perfecute the Subject upon Account of Religion; and fo I have, if there be any Religion which indifpenfably obliges Men to difturb the public Peace, to pervert the Ways of Juftice, to be injurious to their Brethren, either in their Life, or Property, or good Name; for thefe Things certainly the Magiftrate ought to punish and correct. But if this be what all Religions univerfally disclaim, and abhor, there is no Danger that any Man fhould fuffer merely for his Religion, because the Magiftrate has a Right to punish Sedition and Rebellion,

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and to do juftice in Cafes of private Injury and Oppreffion. One may be mistaken in his Notions of Religion, and yet in his political Capacity, as touching the Laws of his Country, he may be blameless; and as long as he continues fo, his Mistakes are out of the Reach of the Magiftrate's Power.

The Reason of the Cafe extends as well to Doctrines as to Practices: the Magiftrate has a Right to fupprefs all fuch as are pernicious to the State. In Queen Elizabeth's Time, there were fome who maintained as a Point of Religion, the Unlawfulness of Women's Government: fhould the Doctrine be revived at this Day, I imagine that the Plea of Religion would not atone for the Malignancy of the Opinion.

What has been faid may ferve to mark out to us the juft Limits of spiritual and civil Power. The Minifters of Chrift are not of this World, and therefore they have no Right to extend their Master's Kingdom, by the Exercise of worldly or temporal Power: the civil Magiftrate is of this World, and the Affairs of it are his proper Care; from which he ought not to be excluded by any Pretences or Pleas of Religion: nor will this bring any Man under Difficulty upon the

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