only supposition And you now Sir what the Logician saies suppositie nihil pâ—nit in esse what ever may be supposed is not presently true If Calumny her selfe would turne Informer let her leave out Ship-money a greivance which being fairely laid a fleepe by an Act of Parliament deserved not to be awakened to beare a part in the present Tragedy of this almost ruined Kingdome she must confesse that the King through the whole course of His Raigne was so farre from the Invasion of His Subjects Rights that no King of England before Him unlesse it were Henry the first and King Iohn whom being Vsurpers it concern'd to comply with the People the one having supplanted his Eldest Brother Robers Duke of Normandy the other his Nephew Arthur Prince of Britaine ever imparted to them so many Rights of his owne To that Degree of Infranchisment that I may almost say He exchanged Liberties with them Witnesse the Petition of Right An Act of such Royall Grace that when He past that Bill He almost dealt with His people as Traian did with the Pratorian praefect put his sword into their Hands and bid them use it for Him if he ruled well if not against Him In short Sir Magna Charta was a Vine I confesse cast over the People but this Act enabled them to call the shade of it their owne An Act which if your friend will please to forget Ship mony being in no one particular violated so farre as to be instanced in by those whose present Ingagements would never suffer such Breaches of Priviledge to passe unclamour'd will oblige posterity to be gratefull as often as they remember themselves to be Freemen This then being so the next inquiry will be whether a bare Jealousy that the King would in time have recalled this Grace and would have invaded the Liberty of his Subjects by the change of the Fundamentall Lawes could be a just cause for such a preventive Warre as this To which I answere that such a Faire though built upon strong presumptions cannot possibly be a just cause for one Nation to make Warre upon another much lesse for Subjects to make Warre against their Prince The Reason is because nothing can legitimate such a Warre but either an Injury already offered or so visibly imminent that it may passe for the first Dart or Speare hurled Where the Injury or Invasion is only contingent and conjecturall and wrapt up in the wombe of darke Counsells no way discoverable but by their own revelation of themselves in some outward Acts of Hostility or usurpation to anticipate is to be first injurious and every Act of prevention which hath only Iealousie for its foundation will adde new justice to the enemies Cause who as He cannot in reason be pronounced guilty of anothers Feares so he will come into the Field with this great advantage on his side That his reall wrong will joyne Battle with the others weake suspition But alas Sir Time the best interpreter of Mens Intentions hath at length unsee'ld our eyes and taught us that this hath been a Warre of a quite opposite Nature The Gentleman who wrote the Defence of M. Chaloners Speech and M. Chaloner himselfe if you marke his Speech well will tell you that the quarrell hath not been whether the subject of England shall be Free but whether this Freedome shall not consist in being no longer Subject to the King If you marke Sir How the face of things hath alter'd with successe How the scene of things is shifted And in what a New stile they who called themselves the Invaded have spoken ever since their Victories have secured them against the power of any that shall invade If you consider what a politick use hath been made of those words of Inchantment Law Liberty and Propriety of the Subject by which the People have been musically enticed into their Thraldome If you yet farther consider the more then Decemvirall power which this Parliament hath assumed to it selfe by repealing old Lawes and making Ordinances passe for new If you yet farther will please to consider How much Heavyer that which some call Priviledge of Parliament hath been to the Subject then that which they so much complained of The Kings Prerogative so much heavyer that if one deserved to be called a Little finger the other hath swolne it selfe into a Loyne Lastly if you compare Ship mony with the Excise and the many other Taxes laid upon the Kingdome you will not onely find that a whippe then hath been heightned into a Scorpion now but you will perceive that as these are not the first Subjects who under pretence of Liberty have invaded their Princes Crowne so farre as the Cleaving of Him asunder by a State Distinction which separates the Power of the King from his Person so ours as long as he was able to lead an Army into the Field hath been the first King that ever took up Armes for the Liberty of his Subjects Vpon all which premises Sir I hope you will not think it false Logicke if I build this Conclusion so agreeable to the Lawes of the Kingdome as well as the Lawes of God That supoosing the Parliament all this while to have fought as was at first pretended for the Defence of their assayled Liberty yet fighting against the King whose Subjects they are it can never before a Christian Judge make their Armies passe for just But being no way necessitated to make such a Defence their Liberty having in no one particular been assaulted which hath not been redrest if S. Paul were now on earth againe and were the Iudge of this Controversy between them and their Lawfull Soveraigne I feare he would call their Defence by a Name which we in our Moderne Cases of Conscience doe call Rebellion And thus Sir having as compendiously as the Lawes of a Letter will permit given you I hope some satisfaction concerning the first part of your zealous Friends dispute with you which was whether the Two Houses which he calls the Parliament have not a Legall power in Defence of their Liberty to take up Armes against the King I will with the like brevity proceed as well as I can to give you satisfaction in the second part of his Dispute also which was whether Religion may not be a just Cause for a Warre The Termes of which Question being very generall and not restrained to any kind of Religion or any kind of Warre whether offensive or defensive or whether of one Nation against another or of a Prince against his Subjects or of the Subjects back again against their Prince allow me a very large space to walk in In which least I be thought to wander and not to prove It will first be necessary that I define to you what Religion in generall is And next that I examine whether every Religion which falls within the Truth of that Definition may for the propagation of it selfe be a just cause of a Warre and so
Conduct under Sir Thomas Fairefax be of this perswasion thus stated I shall not think it any slander from the Mouth of a Presbiterian who thinks otherwise to be called an Judependent If a Prince who is confessedly a Prince and hath Supreme power make Warre upon his Subjects for the propagation of Religion the Nature of the Defence is much alter'd For though sucha Warre whether made for the Imposition of a false Religion or a true be as uniust as if 't were made upon a forreigne Nation yet this injustice in the Prince cannot warrant the taking up of Armes against Him in the Subject Because being the Apostles 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Supreme within his own Kingdome As all power concerning the publick secular Government of it resolveait selfe into Him so doth the ordering of the Outward exercise of Religion too In both Cases he is the Judge of Controversies Not so unerring or Infallible as that all his Determinations must be received for Oracles or that his Subjects are so obliged to be of his Religion that if the Prince be an Idolater a Mahumetan or Papist 't would be disobedience in them not to be so too But let his Religion be what it will let him be a Ieroboam or one of such an unreasonable Idolatry as to command his people to worship Calves and Burn Incense to Gods scarce fit to be made the Sacrifice Though he be not to be obeyed yet he is not to be resisted Since such a Resistance would not only change the Relation of inequality and Distance between the Prince and People and so destroy the Supremacy here given him by S. Peter but 't would actually enter duell with the Ordinance of God which ceaseth not to be sacred as often as 't is wickedly imployed Irresistibility being a Ray and Beame of the Divine Image which resides in the Function not in the Religion of the Prince Who may for his Person perhaps be a Caligula or Nere yet in his Office still remaine Gods Deputy and Vicegerent And therefore to be obeyed even in his unjust commands though not actively by our compliance yet passively by our sufferings This Doctrins as 't is agreeable to the Scripture and the practice of the purest and most primitive times of the Church so I finde it illustrated by the famous example of a Christian Souldier and the censure of a Father upon the paslage This Souldier being bid to burne Inconse to an Idoll rcfused But yeelded himselfe to be cast into the fire Had he when his Emperour bid him worship an Idoll mutinied or turn'd his speare upon him saies that Father he bad broken the fift Commandement in defence of the second But submitting his Body to be burnt the only thing in him which could be compelled in stead of committing Idolatry he became himselfe a Sacrifice I could Sir second this with many other Examples but they would all tend to this one pious Christian Result that Martyrdome is to be presetred before Rebellion Here then if I should suppose your Presbyterian Friends charge to be true a very heavy one I confesle that the King miscounselled by a Prelaticall Court Faction when he first Marcht into the field against the Armies raised by the two Houses of Parliament had an intent to subvert the Protestant Religion and to plant the Religion of the Church of Rome in it's stead yet unlesse he can prove to me that from that time he actually ceast to be King or the two Houses to be his Subjects or notwithstanding their two Oathes of Supremacy and Alleageance that in so doing he forfeited his Crowne and was no longer over all persons and in all Causes as well Civill as Ecclesiasticall within the circuit of his three Kingdomes supreame Head and Governour I know no Armes which could lawfully be used against Him but those which S. Ambrose used against an Arian Emperour Lachrymas Suspiriâ— Sighes Tears and Prayers to God to turne his heart And therefore Sir when your Friond doth next aske you How it could stand with the safe conscience of any English Protestant to stand an idle spectator whilst Queen Marus daies were so ready to break in upon him that He was almost reduced to this hard choyce either to follow the Times in the new â—rected fashion of Religion or live in danger of the stake and Faggot if he persisted in the old you may please to let him know from me That as I have no unruly Thirst or irregular Ambition in me to dye a Martyr Nor am so much a Circumcelleo as to court or wooe or in case it fled from me enthusiastically to call upon me my own Death and Execution So if it had been my Let to live in the fiery times He speaks of when a Protestant was put to death for an Heretick as I should not have quarreld with the Pawer that condemned me so I should have kist my funerall pile And should have thought it a high peece of Gods favour to me to call me to Heaven by a way so like that of his Angell in the Book of * c. 13.20 Judges who ascended thither in the Flame and aire and persume of a Sacrifies But what if this be only a Jealousie and suspition in your Friend Nay what if it have been the Disguise and paint to some Ambitious mens designes who to walke the more securely to their darke and politick ends have stiled themselves the Defendours when they have all this while been the Invadors And have called the King the subverter who hath all this while to his power been the Defender of this Religion This certainly if it be proved will very much Inflame and aggravate their sinne and dye it in a deep scarlet through all the progresse of it But because I rather desire to cast a mantle over their strange proceedings then to adde to their Nakednesse which hath at length discover'd it selfe to all the World all that I shall say to deliver so much Goodnesse from so much misrepresentation is this That the report which at first poyson'd the mindes of so many Thousand well minded people That the King had an intent by this warre to destroy the Protestant Religion could at most have no other parent but some mens either crafty Malice or needlesse Feare appears clearly in this that after all their great Discoveries they have not yet instanced in one considerable Ground fit to build more then a vulgar Jealousy upon The Kings affection to the Queene His Alliance and confederacy with Popish Princes abroad and the Gentlenesse of his Raigne towards his Popish Subjects at home being premises as unfit to build this Inference and conclusion upon that Therefore He took up Armes that he might introduce their Religion as his in Aristotle were who because it lightued when Socrates took the Ayre thought that his walking caused that commotion in the skyes For that the Root and Spring of such a report could be nothing but their own
ΟΧΛΟ-ΜΑΧΙΑ OR THE PEOPLES WAR EXAMINED According to the Principles of SCRIPTURE REASON IN Two of the most Plausible Pretences of it IN ANSWER To a LETTER sent by a Person of Quality who desired satisfaction By JASPER MAYNE D.D. one of the Students of Ch. Ch. Oxon. Rom. 13.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Printed in the Yeare 1647. Honourd Sir I Have in my time seen certain Pictures with two faces Beheld one way they have presented the shape and figure of a Man Beheld another they have presented the shape and figure of a Serpent Me thinks Sir for some years whatever Letters the King wrote either to the Queene or his friends or what ever Declarations he publish in the defence of his Rights and Cause had the ill fortune to undergoe the fate of such a Picture To us who read them impartially by their own true genuine light they appeared so many cleare transparent Copies of a sincere and Gallant Mind Look't upon by the People of whom you know who said populus iste 〈◊〉 decipi decipiatur through the Answers and Observations and venomous Comments which some men made upon them a fallacy in judgement followed very like the fallacy of the sight where an Object beheld through a false deceitfull medium partakes of the cosenage of the conveyance and way and puts on a false Resemblance As squara bright angular things through a mist show darke and round and straight things seen through water show broken and distorted It seems Sir by your Letter to me that your Friend with whom you say you have lately had a dispute about the Kings Supremacy and the Subjects Rights is one of those who hath had the ill luck to be thus depeived Which I doe not wonder at when I consider how much he is concern'd in his fortunes that the Parliament should all this while be in the right Besides Sir Having lookt upon the Cause of that Side meerly in that plausible dresse with which some pens have attired it And having entertain'd a strong prejudice against whatever shall be said to prove that a Parliament may erre it ought to be no marvaile to you if he be rather of M. Prinnes then Iudge Jenkins's Opinion And perswade himselfe that the Parliament having if not a superior yet a coordinate power with the King in which the People is interessed where ever their Religion or Liberty is invaded may take up Armes against Him for the defence of either But then Sir finding by my reading of the publick writings of both sides that both sides challenged to themselves the Defence of one and the same Cause I must confesse to you That for a while the many Battailes which so often coloured our fields with Bloud appeared to me like Battails fought in Dreams Where the person combaring in his sleepe imagines he hath an Adversary but awake perceives his error that he held conflict with himselfe To speak a little more freely to you Sir the Kings Declarations and the Parliaments Remonstrances equally pretending to the maintenance of the same Protestant Religion and the same Liberty of the Subject I wondered a while how they could make two opposite sides or could so frequently come into the field without a Quarrell But since your Friend is pleased to let me no longer remain a Sceptick but clearly to state the Quarrell by suffering the two great words of Charme Liberty and Religion from whence both sides have so often made their Recruits to stand no longer as a Salamis or controverted Hand between two equall Challengers And since he is pleased to espouse the defence of them so wholly to the Parliament as to call the Warre made by the King the Invasion of them Both for his and your satisfaction who have layed this taske upon me give me leave to propose this reasonable Dilemma to you Either 't is true what your Friend saies that the Parliament hath all this while fought for the defence of their Liberty and Religion or 't is only a pretence and hath hid some darker secret under it If it have been only a pretence there being not a third word in all the World which can afford so good Colour to make an unjust Warre passe for a just the first discovery of it will be the fall and ruine of it And the People who have been misled with so much holy Imposture will not only hate it for the Hypocrisie but the Injustice too If it be true yet I cannot see how they are hereby advantaged or how either or both these joyned can legitimate their Armes For first Sir I would fain know of your friend what he means by the Liberty of the Subject I presume he doth not mean a Releasement from servitude Since amongst all their other complaints delivered in Petitions to the Parliament they never yet adventured to say that they were govern'd as Servants by a hard Master not as Subjects by a Prince Nor doe I find that the King was such a Pharaoh to them that they were able to say that he changed a Kingdome of Freemen into a House of Bondage Some Acts of his Government I confesse some have call'd Illegal namely the exaction of Ship-mony But this certainly was a grievance which if it had not been redrest deserved not to be reckoned among the Brick kills of Aegypt or to denominate his Government despoticall too Next then doth your friend by Liberty meane a Releasement from Tyranny as Tyranny allowes men to be Subjects but not much removed from slaves Had the King indeed made his Will the Rule of his Government and had his Will revealed it selfe in nineteen years of Injustice had he like Caligula worne a Table-book in his pocket with the names of the Nobility in it design'd and Marks for slaughter Had he without any Trialls of Law made his pleasure passe for sentence and lopt off Senators heads as Tarquin did Poppeys Had he in his oppressions of the People made them feele Times like those which Tacitus describes where no man durst be virtuous least he should be thought to upbrayd his Prince where to complaine of hard usage was capitall and where men had not only their words but their very looks and sighs proscribed his Raigne would beare that Name But alas Sir you your selfe know that these are Acts of Tyranny which were so sarre from being practised that they have not yet been faigned among us 'T is true indeed certain dark Jealousies were cast among the people as if some Evill Counsellors about the King had had it in their designe to introduce an Arbitrary Government But these were but Jealousies blown by those whose plot 't was to make the popular hatred their engine to remove those Counsellors that by their ruine they might raise a Ladder to their own Ambitions For if the Calamity of these times have not quite blotted out the memory of former people cannot but remember that no Nation under Heaven more freely enjoyed the Blessing of the Scripture
the Lawes of this Kingdome for the Governement of it to the King for I never yet perceived by any of His Declarations That His Majesty claimed these as due to Him by Right of Conquest or any other of those Absolute and Vnlimited waies which might tender His Crowne Patrimoniall to Him or such an out-right Allodium that He mi ht Alienate it or chuse His Successour or Rule as He pleased Himselfe yet as in the making of these Lawes He holds the first place so none of these Rights which he derives from them can without His own Consent be taken from Him For proofe hereof I will only instance in three particulars to you for I must remember that I am now writing a Letter to you not penning a Treatise which will carry the greater force of perswasion because confest by this Parliament The first was an Act presented to the King for the setling of the Militia for a limited time in such Hands as they might confide in A clear Argument that without such an Act past by the King the two Houses had nothing to do with the Ordering of it Another was one of the Nineteen Propofitions where t was desired that the Nomination of all Officers and Counsellours of State might for the future go by the Maior part of Voyces of both Houses Another Argument That the King hath hitherto in all such Nominations been the only Fountaine of Honour The third was the passing of the Act for the Continuation of this Parliament Another Argument that nothing but the Kings consent could ever have made it thus Perpetuall as it is Many other Instances might be given but foundoubtedly acknowledged by Bracton By Him that wrote the Book call'd The Prerogative of Parliaments who is thought to be Sir Walter Raleigh By Sir Edward Cooke by the stiles and Formes of all the Acts of Parliament which have been made in this Kingdom and by that learned * Sir Iohn Banks Iudge who wrote the Examination of such particulars in the Solemne League and Covenant as concerne the Law And who in a continued Line of Quotation and Proofe derives along these and the other parts of Supreme power in the King from Edward the Confessour to our present Soveraigne King Charles that to prove them to you were to adde beames to the Sunne Here then For the better stating of the Third thing I pro osed to you which was That granting the King to be Supreme in this Kingdome at least so farre as I have described him how farre He is to be Obeyed and not resisted Two things will fall under Inquiry First supposing the King not to have kept Himselfe to that Circle of power which the Lawes have drawn about Him but desirous to walke in a more Absolute compasse That He hath in somethings invaded the Liberty of his People whither such an Jncroachment can justifie their Armes Next If it be proved that He hath kept within his Life and only made the Law the Rule of His Governement whether a bare Fear or Iealousie That when ever he should be able He would change this Rule which is the most that can be pretended could be a Just cause for an Anticipating Warre The Decision of the first of these Inquiries will depend wholly upon the Tenure by which he holds His Crowne If it were puerly Elective or were at first set upon His Head by the Suffrages of the people And if in that Election His power had been limited Or if by way of paction it had been said Thus farre the King shall be Supreme thus farre the people shall be Free If there had been certaine Expresse conditions assigned Him with his Scepter that if he transgrest not his limites He should be Obeyed if He did it should be lawfull for the people to resist Him Lastly if to hinder such Exorbitances there had been certaine Ephori or Inspectours or a Co-ordinate Senate placed as Mounds and Cliffes about Him with warrant from the Electours that when ever he should attempt to overflow his Bankes it should be their part to reinforce Him back into his Channell I must confesse to you being no better then a Duke of Venice or a King of Sparta In truth no King but a more splendid Subject I think such a Resistance might be Lawfull Since such a Conveyance of Empire being but a conditionall contract as in all other Elections the chusers may reserve to themselves or give away so much of their Liberty as they please And where the part reserved is invaded 'T is no Rebellion to defend But where the Crowne is not Elective but hath so Hereditarily descended in an ancient line of succession from King to King that to finde out the Originall of it would be a taske as difficult as to find out the Head of Nilus where the Tenure is not conditionall nor hangs upon any contract made at first with the people nor is such a reciprocall Creature of their Breath as to be blowne from them and recalled like the fleeting Ayre they draw as often as they shall say it returnes to them worse then as first they sent it forth In short Sir Where the only Obligation or Tye upon the Prince is the Oath which He takes at his Ceronation to rule according to the knowne Lawes of the place Though every Breach of such an Oath be an Offence against God to whom alone a Prince thus independent is accountable for his Actions yet 't will never passe for more then perjury in the Prince No Warrant for Subiects to take up Armes against Him Here then Sir should I suppose the worst that can be supposed that there was a time when the King misled as your Friend sayes by Evill Counsellours did actually trample upon the Lawes of the Kingdome and the Liberty of his Subiects derived to them by those Lawes yet unlesse some Originall compact can be produced where 't is agreed That upon every such Incroachment it shall be lawfull for them to stand upon their Defence unlesse some Fundamentall Contract can be shewen where 't is clearely said that where the King ceaseth to governe according to Law He shall for such misgovernment cease to be King To urge as your Friend doth such vnfortunate precedents as a Deposed Richard or a Dethroned Edward Two disproportion'd examples of popular Fury The one forced to part with his Crowne by Resignation the other as never having had legall Title to it may shew the Iniustice of former Parliaments growne strong never justifie the Pitcht-feilds which have been fought by this Since If this supposition were true the King being bound to make the Law His Rule by no other Obligation but His Oath at His Coronation Then which there cannot be a greater I confesse and where 't is violated never without Repentance scapes vnpunish't yet 't is a trespasse of which Subiects can only complaine but as long as they are Subiects can never innocently revenge But this all this while Sir is but
whether all they who either are of no Religion or a false may not be forced to be of the true Lastly what the Duty of Subjects is towards their Prince in case he should endeavour by force to impose a Religion upon them which they think to be false and can probably make it appear to be so by proofes taken from the Scripture Religion then to define it in the nearest Termes is saies * 1. 2◠q. 60. ◠3 Aquinas Virtus reddens debitum Honorem Deo A virtue which renders to God his just Honour This payment of Honour to God as 't is built and founded upon his Creation of us by which he hath a Right to our Service and Worship of him so in the contemplative part of it it consists in these foure Notions or Apprehensions of him First that there is a God and that there is but One. Next that he is not any part of this Visible World but something Higher and more excellent then any Thing we see Thirdly that he hath a providence going in the World and takes care of Humane affaires Lastly that he made and created the World To every one of which foure answers a Commandement in the First Table of the Decalogue Where the first describes His Vnity by forbidding the Worship of other Gods The next his Invisibility by forbidding any Image or Resemblance to be made of Him The third his providonce described there by two eminent parts of it His Omniscience by which he knowes the Thoughts of mens Hearts and his Justice by which he inflicts punishments on those whose Thoughts are disproportion'd to their Oathes and Words The Fourth declares his Omnipotence by which he created the World and appointed the Sabbath to be the Feast and Memoriall of that great Worke. From which speculative apprehensions of him doe spring these practicall That being such a God thus known He is to be Honour'd Lov'd Fear'd Worshipt and Obey'd Now since mens Religion or Worship of God cannot in reason be required to reach higher then their Knowledge of Him for Manifestation is so necessary to Obligation and Duty that if 't were impossible to know that there is a God 't would be no sinne to be an Atheist so if God had never made any second Revelation of Himselfe by the Scripture but had left Mankind to their own Naturall seareh of Him and to those Discourses of their Mindes by which they inferred that such an orderly frame and systeme of thinge where every one works to the good and End of another is too rationally contrived to arise from a concourse of Atomes or to be the Creature of Chance and therefore must have some Efficient Cause higher and nobler then it selfe since it implies a Contradiction that any thing should be it 's own producer yet his bare Creation of the World represents so much of him that without any other Booke or Teacher all Ages have believed that there is a God who made the World and that He hath a Rule and providence going in it This then being so 'T is the Opinion of a very * Grot. l. 2. de Jure Bel li ac pacis c. 20. Learned Moderne Writer That if there should be found a Countrey of Atheists or a People of Diagoras Melius s Opinion or of the opinion of Theodorus the Cyrenian whose Doctrine 't was Nullos esse Dees inane coelum That there is no God nor a habitable Heaven But that such Names of Emptinesse have been the Creatures of superstitious fancies whose fears first prompted them to make Gods and then to worship them or if there should be a People found of Epicurus his opinion who held that there were Gods but that they were Idle carelesse vacant Gods who troubled not themselves with the Government of the World but past their time away in an undisturbed Tranquillity and exemption from such inferior businesses as the Actions of Men such opinions supposing them to be Nationall as they are contradictory not only to the Dictates of Naturall Reason upon which God hath built the forementioned precepts of the Decalogue but to that universally received Tradition That there is a Divine power whose providence holds the scales to mens actions and first or last sides with afflicted Innocence against succesfull Oppression so they would be just Causes for a reforming Warre Not only because they are contumelious reproachfull to God himselfe but because being directly destructive to all Religion They are by necessary consequence destructive to Humane society too For let it once be granted that there is no God or which with reference to States and Common-wealths will produce the same irregular effects that he regards not mens Actions nor troubles himselfe with the Dispensation of Rewards and Punishments and the Doctrine of Carneades will presently passe for reasonable That Vtility is the measure of Right And that he is most in the wrong who is least able to defend himselfe That Justice in the virtue of Fooles and serves only to betray the simple and phlegmaticke to the more active and daring In short Take away providence especially the two great parts of it which raigne in the Hearts of men hope of Reward and feare of Punishment and mens worst Actions and their best will presently be thought equall Whereupon Lawes the Bonds of Humane Society wanting their just Principle which upholds them in their Reverence will inevitably loose their force and fall asunder and Men will be Men to each other in nothing but their mutuall injustice Oppressions of one another 'T was therefore the politick observation of an Atheist in * Adv. Mathemat p. 3.8 Sextus Empiricus That to keep men orderly and regular in a Common-wealth wise men at first invented Lawes But perceiving that these reaching only to their outward Actions would never be well kept unlesse they could find a way to a we their Minds within too as a meanes conducing to that end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one more wise and subtle then the rest invented Gods too Well knowing that Religion though but fained is a conservative of States upon consideration of which harmefull consequences which naturally follow Atheisme and the deniall of Gods providence 't is the opinion of that Author that as 't was no Injustice in those Grecian Citties which banisht Philosophers who were of this Opinion out of their Commonwealth so if there should be found a Nation of such implous perswasions 't would be no Injustice in any other People who are not Atheists by way of punishment to banish them out of the World Though this Sir were the opinion of one whose works have deservedly made him so Famous to the whole Christion World besides the peaceablenesse of his Writings which decline all the wayes of quarrell that to erre with him would be no disreputation to me yet I must confesse to you that I am so farre from thinking any Warre made for the propagation of Religion how true soever it be is warrantable
that in this particular I perswade my selfe I have some reason to dissent from Him and to think it a Probleme very disputable if his supposition were true that there were such a Countrey of Atheists or Epicureans who should deny that there is a God or that he hath a providence going in the World whether for that reason only another Nation might justifiably make Warre upon them For first what should give them Authority to doe so Is' t because men of this desperate perswasion doe sinne very grievously against God Granting this to be true to the utmost aggravation of their offence that this speculative error in their Mindes drawes a practicall errour after it in their lives which is not to pay Worship to a God which either they think not to be or not at all to regard them yet this being but a crime against God the same Author hath answered himselfe in another Paragraph where he saies Deorum inâ—uria Dèis curae That God is able to revenge the injuries committed against Himselfe Next then is' t because such an Opinion is destructive of Humane Society Truly Sir though I shall grant that saying of Plutarch to be true that Religion which Atheisme and the denyall of providence doe destroy is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one nay one of the firmest Bonds of Society and supperters of Lawes yet I have not met with any demonstrative Argument which hath proved to me that there is such a necessary dependance of Humane society upon Religion that the Absence of the One must inevitably be the Destruction of the other If it be this is most likely to come to passe in the State or Commonwealth which is of this opinion among themselves Not in a forraigne State or Common-wealth which is not But since 't is possible that a Countrey of Atheists may yet have so much Morality among them seconded by Lawes made by common agreement among themselves as to be a People and to hold the society of Citizens among themselves And as 't is possible for them without Religion so farre for meere utility and safeties sake to observe the Law of Nations as not to wrong or injure a People different from themselves so where no civill wrong or enjury is offered by them to another People but where the morall Bonds of Society and commerce though not the Religious of Opinion and Worship are unbroken by them for the People not injured to make Warre upon them for a feard imaginary consequence or because being Atheists 't is possible that their example may spread is an Act of Hostility which I confesse I am not able to defend For thirdly Sir such a Warre must either have for it's end their punishment or their Correction Their punishment can be no true warrantable end because towards those who shall thus make Warre upon them they have not offended Nor can their Correction Legitimate such a Warre Because all Correction as well as Punishment requires Jurisdiction in the Correctors and Inflictors of the punishment Which one People cannot reasonably be presumed to have over another People independent and no way subject to them unlesse we will allow with that * Lib. 2. de jure belli pacis c. 20. Author that because Naturall reason doth dictate that Atheisme is punishable therefore they who are not Atheists have a right to punish those that are which Coverruvias the Spaniard who hath learnedly disputed this poynt and others as learned as he have not thought fit to grant It hath been a Question ask't whether Idolatry be not a Crime of this punishable nature in one People by another who are not guilty of that Crime To which the best Divines which I have yet read upon that Subject doe answer negatively that it is not For though it be to be granted that among the severall sorts and kinds of Idolatry One is more Ignoble and irrationall then Another And so the offence towards God is greater or lesse as the Objects to which men terminate their Idolatry are more vile or honourable As in those old Heathens 't was a more faulty Idolatry to worship a Dogge or Crocodile or Serpent then to worship things of a Sublimer kinde namely the Sunne or heavenly bodies or Soules of famous men departed And though all such Idolatries have deservedly been thought to be so many Affronts and Robberies of the true God whose worship is thereby misplaced and spent upon false yet having left behind him in his whole Globe of Creation no exact figure or Character of Himselfe to be known or distinguisht by nor any plaine Teacher but his Scripture to informe men of vulgar understandings that there is but one God and that that one God is only an Intelligible spirit and no part of this grosse materiall World which we see wherever the Scripture hath not been heard of if men unable by the light of a Naturall discourse to apprehend him as He is have fancied to themselves a plurality of False Gods or made to themselves false representations of the true S. Paul tells us that * Act. 17.30 God connived at it as a piece of unaffected ignorance which can never be a cause meritorious of a Warre to correct it First because being only an Offence against God and the Offendors being as I said before free and no way subject to any People but themselves Any forraigne Nation unlesse they can show the like Commission from God to punish them as the Jewes had to punish and root out the Canaanites will want Jurisdiction and Authority to their Armes Next because Idolatry though it be a false Religion is yet as conservant of Society which distinguishes it very much from Atheisme and the deniall of Providence as if 't were true Nor can I see why He who worships many Gods if he believe them to be Gods should lesse feare punishment for his perjuries or other Crimes then He who only worships and believes there is but one Lastly because though Idolatry be an Errour in men yet being an Errour without the light of Scripture to rectify it hardly vincible in themselves and no way criminall towards others of a more rectified Reason 'T is to be reformed by Argument and perswasion not violence or force Since a Warre made upon the Errours of mens mindes is as unreasonable as a Warre made upon the Freedome of their Wills And for this last reason I conceive that the propagation of Christian Religion cannot be a just cause for a Warre upon those who will refuse to imbrace it First because such a Refusall may possibly spring from an Errour in the understanding which even in a Preaching and perswasive way would scarce be in the power of S. Paul himselfe if he were on earth againe unless he would joyne Miracles to his Sermons to dislodge For though some parts of the New Law doe carry such a Musick and consent to the Law of Nature that they answer one another like two strings wound up to