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 Qâ—â—â—â—â—â—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 acâ—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
a man. It is said that Diana of the Scythians had a Temple and an Altar near the entrance into the lake Meotis upon which it was the custom of the Heathens to Sacrifice the Bodies of living Men a Cruelty little differing from the severity of those People that seem to make their Interest their Scythian Diana and living Men the Sacrifices to their Ambition and the support of their Spiritual Grandeur Yet this must be the main design of those that study thus the destruction of all other Mortals but themselves within the Verge of their Jurisdiction which as it is a great Argument of a Spiritual Arbitrary Government so is it at the same time a sign of no less Presumption for a particular number of Men enclosed within the narrow Circle of Episcopacy compar'd with those vast multitudes of Dissenters and Roman-Catholicks that under various names of distinction invented by their Adversaries spread themselves over the fourth part of the World to arrogate to themselves to be the only Flock of Christ and that they are the only Pastors who have power to drive men to Heaven for this is to disclaim the Popes Supremacy and usurp it to themselves to Preach down one Antichrist and set up six and twenty For if Meekness Mildness Unity Peace and Concord are the Vertues that embellish Christian Jurisdiction Cruelty Rigor Persecution and Violence must be the marks of Antichristian Tyranny They therefore that so vehemently Persecute the Professors of Christianity because they either doubt or happily err in some particulars that will admit of Ambiguity and which it may be have been otherwise understood in former Ages are most unjust For we find that the Antient Jews did never Punish the Sadduces tho they denied the Doctrine of the Resurrection For that tho it were most true yet then it was but only glanced at in their Law and not taught at all but covertly under Types and Figures But supposing the Errors to be such as among equal Judges might be easily confuted both by the Authority of the Scriptures and the common Consent of the Fathers Nevertheless the great strength of an over-grown Opinion is to be considered and how the Endeavours of Men to defend their own Sects diminishes the strength and liberty of their Judgments A Man will sooner part with any thing than his Opinion An Opinion says Chrysostom that has taken deep root through Custome is hardly to be removed for that there is nothing that we alter with more unwillingness then our Customes in Religion But whether this different Opinion be an Error and how it is to be Punished he only can without danger judge who is the Eternal Judge who alone knows the true measures of Knowledge and the proportion of Faith. Let them Rage against you says St. Austin concerning the Manichees who can presume to be without Errors themselves for my part I neither can nor dare for I ought to bear with you as others did formerly with me and to treat you with as much Patience Meekness and Gentleness as they did me when I was blindly carryed away with your Errors Religionis non est Religionem cogere says Tertullian And Athanasius also highly blames the Arrians because they were the first that call'd in the Civil Power to their Assistance against their Antagonists and that endeavoured by Force Stripes and Imprisonments to draw such to themselves whom they could not win by the strength of their Arguments Gregory Bishop of Rome writing to the Bishop of Constantinople said that it was a new and unheard of manner of Preaching to enforce Faith by Stripes and Punishments History also affords us the Examples of several French Bishops who were condemned by the judgment of the Church for calling in the Civil Power against the Priscillianists and of a whole Council in the East that was Condemned for consenting to the Burning of Bogomilus Conformable to the sayings of Plato The Punishment of him that Errs is to be Instructed And of Seneca That no wise man ever hated those that Erred for if so he must necessarily sometimes hate himself And therefore the Emperour Valentinian is highly commended because he never Persecuted any man for his Religion nor ever commanded this or that to be Adored nor forced his Subjects to Embrace his own manner of Worship Infinite are the sayings of the Primitive Fathers and Men of Learning their Successors who have all along condemned the forcing of Conscience or compelling Men to do a thing which is contrary to their Conscience or to abstain from such Exercises as they in Conscience esteem necessary and profitable for their Salvation all centring in the utter detestation of all manner of Violence and Imposition in matters of Religion A Maxim which not all the Usurpations of Ecclesiastical Persons have bin able to corrupt And therefore it was the saying of Montluc a Roman Catholic and Bishop of Valence That the Rigors of Torments was never to be practized towards People who had no other Crime but only a Perswasion which they thought to be good and pious Peter Martyr speaking of the Power of the Church It is her Duty says he to correct Sinners not with the Sword not with Penal-Laws or Fines not with Imprisonment or Exilement but after her own Method by the Efficacy and Power of the Word It is said of Maximilian the Second Emperour of Germany That tho he persever'd to his death a Roman Catholic yet he was never the less disesteemed by the Protestants for that in matters of Religion he observed an exact Moderation between both Parties and never ceas'd till he had obtain'd the use of the Cup in the Eucharist for those of his Subjects that desir'd it The same Emperour also gave this Advice to Henry the Third of France then returning out of Poland to quiet all disturbances in his Kingdom at his first Entrance into it according to the Example of his Father Ferdinand who after he had long toyl'd and labour'd in the Reign of Charles the V. to appease the troubles in Germany and settle the differences about Religion when he found the Minds of the People more provok'd then any remedy obtain'd by force and violence with the Consent and Applause of all the Orders of the Empire made those favourable Concessions which when nothing also would do restor'd Tranquilitie to the Empire More Remarkable was that saying of Henry the Third of France Himself upon his Death-Bed after he had received his Deaths wound from Clement the Monk Nor let the cause of Religion deter ye This Error long possess'd me and drew me into inextricable Mistakes The pretence of Religion hurried us into Faction Leave that to the judgment of the Orders of the Kingdom and keep this in your Minds as a fix'd and constant Maxime That Religion which is inspir'd into the Minds of Men by God cannot be commanded by Men. Nay Pius the Fourth the none of the best of Popes yet being Sollicited by the French
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
first place and pro Focis afterwards thereby preferring the Liberty of their Consciences before the security of their Estates which they rather choose to abandon then to be deprived of their Spiritual Freedom And this is that which causes and has caused so many thousands in this Nation to forsake their native Soyle their Friends Relations to the decay of civil fellowship and Commerce and out of a detestable Antipathy to their Oppressors to seek for forraign Protection under which to enjoy the more noble and agreeable pleasure of enjoying the free exercise of their Sentiments in Divine Worship Again Grotius tells us That there never was any Sect that could discern all Truth nor any but what held something that is True as then they are to be favoured for what they hold of Truth so are they not to be punished for what they maintain of mistaken Beleif since all men are free by nature to believe whatever they think to be Good and Honest We cannot love God too much Now supposing that the Clergy of England may esteem the Roman Catholicks over zealous in some points of Worship which may be thought too Superstitious what then For Superstition does not sin in worshiping God too much but in worshiping him erroneously in point of which Error and consequent non-complyance with the Episcopal Tenents of the Church of England these failings of theirs are not to be squeez'd out of their Bones and Purses but to be reform'd by gentle Instructions and Convincement according to the true duty of Bishops to Instruct Perswade Exhort and Reprove but not to Command or Compel To what has been said may be added the vanity of the Undertaking it having been all along evinc'd by the stories of all ages that forcing of Conscience and Persecution for Religions sake have not only become frustrate but increased the number of those Sects and Divisions of which they sought the extirpation and that the Sword Exile Fagot Imprisonment and heavy Fines rather provoak then cure the obstinacy of reluctant Minds For the conformation of which we find from the beginning and for a long time the Christian Relgion industriously opposed by the most Potent Adversaries then ruling in the World and Extirpation of it no less cruelly labour'd by the fury of Ten Persecutions yet could not all that vast effusion of Blood put a stop to its progress nor prevent its growing to such a Head as at length to turn Tyrannick Heathenism with all her fantastick Abominations and false Divinities quite out of the World. The same may be said of the Albigenses against whom the Fryers preached the Inquisitors Plotted the Princes made War while the Pope accursed their Persons and interdicted their Lands yet for all the Pope could do they could not be supprest And of the Waldenses says Thuanus tho they were toss'd from Post to Pillar yet there were ever some found who still in their several courses renewed their Doctrine buryed as it were for a season For Sects and Opinions are like Books which the more they are suppressed the more they are sought after and caress'd And therefore Tacitus speaking of the Annalls of Cremutius Cordus condemn'd by the Senate to be burnt for advancing the Praises of Brutus and Cassius relates that some indeed were burnt by the Edils but more were preserv'd and afterwards published An argument says he sufficient that the vanity and madness of those men is to be derided who imagin by present Power to stifle the remembrances of future Ages And the Author of the Council of Trent speaking of the prohibition of Heretical Books observes that it did more harm then good while the Books being sought for as such did but serve to raise and instill new doubts and scruples in the minds of the Readers The same is to be said of the Persecutions of Men in their Bodies and Goods for others observing the extream Patience and Constancy of so many People suffering for their particular Opinions in matters of Religion become curious to understand what that Religion should be that inspires men with so much resolution to suffer the worst of Miseries rather then abandon the Profession of it which is the reason that Persecutors according to the Opinion of Strada though they are not concerned in tormenting yet they dread the Triumphs of the Tormented at their Executions for that it has been frequently known that one Martyr â— made many Proselytes by his resolute maintaining to the last the Profession for which he dyed From hence we may proceed to shew the dreadful Effects and Mischiefs that have attended the Persecutions of tender Consciences in matters of Religion which have generally prov'd most fatal and in the end redounded to the greatest loss of the Persecutors themselves for of all the Roman Emperours that exerciz'd those horrid Cruelties upon the Christians under their subjection only Trajan and Septimius Severus dy'd a natural Death for as for Antoninus the Philosopher tho he suffer'd a Persecution in Asia yet in other parts of his Dominions the Christians were unmolested and served him in his Army where they fought for him so effectually as well with their Prayers as with their Swords that he acknowledged to the Senate as much hated as they were that certainly the Christians had God for their Protector All the rest came to untimely ends either their own Executioners or Murdered by their own Souldiers and Servants tho none so remarkably punished for their Cruelties as Valerian who being vanquished by Sapor the Persian was by him made his Foot stool when he took Horse and at length was flead alive What occasioned the Cossac War so prejudicial to Poland but because the Russian Polonians of the Catholic Religion would have forc'd the Cossacks to the Observation of their Churches and to that end have shut up the Grecian Churches What occasioned the Revolt of the Rustic's in Germany and the Hussites in Bohemia What occasioned the League of Smalcald and the cruel VVar that ensued but the Oppression of the Ecclesiasticks By which all that was got was this that the Bloody Ecclesiasticks satisfy'd their Revenge with the slaughter of the poor People while the other indulge'd their hatred and Sacrific'd to their Antipathy the VVealth and Religious Structures of their Persecutors and between both whole Regions and Countries were depopulated and ruin'd VVhat lost Philip the Second so fair a Portion of his Dominions but his severity in forcing Conscience But his bigotted Zeal to gratify the Interest of Rome by suffering his Grand Executioner Alva to ride Triumphantly in the Chariot of the Abominated Inquisition over the Necks of his tender-Conscienc'd Subjects till he had by all manner of Torments disburden'd the Countrey of no less then eighteen thousand Innocent Christians The Reign of Charles the Ninth deform'd with Civil VVars with various success of Battel with Seiges and Sacks of Cities and Towns and havock of his Subjects was rendered yet more in famous by the Parisian
Massacre then which there never was a more Inhumane piece of Barbarity known among the Heathens themselves But what was the Advantage of their Butchery What the Issue of it to the King after he had emptyed his Kingdom of ten thousand of his Subjects among which five hundred all Persons of Quality In the first place upon too late a Consideration a deep Repentance for having given his Consent and a Resolution had he liv'd to have Punished his Advisors then every Night his Slumbers interrupted with nocturnal Terrors till having linger'd under most grievous and tedious Pains and long perceiv'd his death approach before he dy'd he ended his days a young Youth in the 24th Year of his Age. To omit the loss of the Low-Countries by reason of the cruelty of the Inquisition we find the People in all places the most devoted and accustomed to Ecclesiastical Rigour mutinying even to Blood-shed against the Torments of that Tribunal In Naples Peter of Toledo the Viceroy in Obedience to the Pope would fain have brought it in but when he began to put it in Execution it caus'd such an Uproar among the People that it came to be almost a petty VVar between the Commonalty and the Garrison wherein many were slain on both sides so that the Viceroy was forc'd to desist in his design neither has any offer been made to obtrude any such kind of Office upon that Kingdom ever since Even in Rome it self the People detested the Cruelties of the Inquisition to that degree that the Breath was no sooner out of the Body of Paul the IV. but that they went with great furie to the new Prison of the Inquisition brake down the Doors and let out all the Prisoners therein detained could hardly be restrained from setting on fire the Church of the Dominicans as being the Persons entrusted with the Execution of that rigid Employment More then that in detestation of the Inquisition all enrag'd they forc'd their way into the Palace and meeting the Popes Statue all of Parian Marble and a noble piece of Workmanship they cut off the Head and the right Hand and for three days together kickt them about the streets and made them the sport of the whole City Nor has England it self felt the least share of the Inconveniencies of Spiritual Persecution where Acts of Parliament have been made use of only as Traps and Snares to dis-People the Nation What false Crimes were laid to the Primitive Christians by the flatterers of the Emperour Sep. Severus to Incense him to the first Persecution the same Accusations were lately thrown upon the Dissenters of being Homicides Turbulent Sacrilegious Traytors against Caesar and in a word meer Canibals And by vertue of which pretended Calumnies and meditated Slanders the Civil Magistrate out of the good Opinion he has of those that make the clamour not presently discerns the Trapan which is put upon them to make Laws for the punishment of those Persons over whom they have indeed no jurisdiction till at length the ill use of those Laws better informs their judgement and that they were imposed upon to frame Persecuting Statutes and authorize Prosecutions not to prevent disturbances in Government but to gratifie the Pride and Ambition of their hot-headed Advisers hence under pretence of disaffection to the Civil Power continual Plots and Treasons are discovered and the discovery so well managed that some are Hanged others Fin'd others condemned to long Imprisonment Which Accusations because they reach not many therefore all the rest as being Birds of the same feather must suffer for their sakes and the same pretences being still kept on foot for a Covert they let fly the Arrows of their Indignation against the whole Body and chastize the pretence where they could not find any fact committed to punish And indeed the grounds of the pretence are the only crimes committed against them all that will not conform to their Ceremonies are supposed to be seditious Persons none that go to Meetings and Conventicles can be Good and Loyal Subjects and therefore all that will not Conform or Refrain from going to Meetings must be scourged with the scorpions of Ecclesiastical Censure and Excommunication must be amerc'd at pleasure Imprison'd till Submission many to their utter Impoverishment or till they pine away in Jayle and they that would live peaceably and quietly under the Government can have no rest in their own Families Upon this thousands take their flight beyond Sea and draw off their Estates by which means the Kingdom is depopulated the Manufacture of the Nation carryed into forraign Countries and the Prince loses the Assistance of the Wealth and Persons of so many of his Subjects to the ruine of the Kingdom and scandal of the Government A sort of Christian Politicks which the Church of England could only learn from the uncharitable bigotrie of that same Prince who cryed out That he would rather choose to be King of a Countrey without People then of a Kingdome Peopled with Heriticks Contrary to the saying of Adrian one of the wisest among the Roman Emperours That he wished his Empire strengthed rather by the encrease of People and Inhabitants then excess of Treasure But this was neither the Policy of the Antient Heathens nor of the more prudent Common wealths and Governments of latter Ages Among all the Heathen Nations that we meet with in History the Egyptions were the first from whom all the world beside the Jews excepted deriv'd that same Dark Knowledge which the other had of the Gods and Divine Worship Their early Superstition had set up no less then twelve Divinities to begin withal who were all worship'd in various Shapes with various Rites and Ceremonies all which with their several Portraitures and Sacred Mysteries for so they call'd the Rites of Adoration belonging to every Idol the Grecians afterwards translated into their own Countrey and for a while exactly observed the Precepts and Methods of their first Instructors Here was a great number of Divinities with every one a particular form of worship attending him and yet we do not find that the Grecians were afraid to transport them all into their several Cities for fear least the variety of Superstitions should set their People together by the Ears while one Priest cry'd up his Divinity another extoll'd his and shatter'd the Vulgar into Factions and Contentions which was the best No the Priests were still contented with what followers they had and every man was left to his freedom to worship what Divinity he pleas'd as his Affection and Devotion govern'd him A strange misfortune to Christian Religion that the Heathens should be so conformable in the midst of so much varietie of feign'd Divinities and we not be able to adjust those few Ceremonies in dispute relating to the worship of the true and one God when we have his own inspir'd Scripture for our Guide In Athens there were as many Sects and Opinions dayly taught as there were almost
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