LIBERTY 07 CONSCIENCE. 
Creator of the world and the Redeemer of mankijid ; for 
in that cafe the God of the Ghriftians would have been 
looked upon as a Being of the fame kind with the gods 
of the empire; and the great principle of intercommunity 
would have remained unviolated. But the true God had 
exprefsly prohibited both jews and Chriftians from wor- 
fuipping any other god belides Himfelf; and it was their 
refufal to break that precept of their religion which made 
their heathen mailers look upon them as atheifts, and per- 
fecute them as a people inimical to the (late. Utility, 
and not truth, was the object for which the heathen le- 
giflatnres fupported the national religion. They well 
knew that the (lories told by their poets of their different 
divinities, of the rewards of Elyfium, and of the punifn- 
ments of Tartarus, were a collection of fenfeiefs fables; 
but they had nothing better to propofe to the vulgar, and 
they were not fuch ltrangers to the human heart, as to 
fuppofe that mankind could live together in fociety with¬ 
out being influenced in their conduit by fome religion. 
Widely different from the genius of paganifm was the 
fpirit of the jewifh difpenfation. Truth, vyhich is in fait 
always coincident with general utility, was the great ob¬ 
ject of the Molaic law. The children of Ifrael were fepa- 
rated from the reit of the world, to preferve the know¬ 
ledge and w'ordiip of the true God, at a time when all the 
other nations on earth, forgetting the Lord that made 
them, were failing prollrate to docks and dones, and wor- 
(liipping devils and impure fpirits. Such was the conta¬ 
gion of idolatry, and fo drong the propenfity pf the I fra- 
elites to the cudoms and manners of the Egyptians, and 
other polytheidic nations around them, that the purpcfe 
of their reparation could not have been ferved, had not 
Jehovah condefcended to become, not only their tutelary 
God, but even their fupreme civil Magidrate ; fo that, un¬ 
der the Mofaic economy, idolatry was the crime of high 
treafon, and as fuch judly puniftied by the laws of the 
date. Among the Jews, the church and date were not 
indeed different focieties. They were fo thoroughly in¬ 
corporated, that what was a fin in the one was a crime in 
the other; and the forfeiture of ecclefiadical privileges 
was the forfeiture of the rights of citizens. 
In many refpeCts the Chridian religion is direCtly op- 
pofite to the ritual law of Moles. It is calculated for all 
nations, and intended to be propagated among all. In- 
itead of feparating one people from another, one of its 
principal objects is to diffeminate univerfal benevolence, 
and to inculcate upon the whole human race, that mutual 
love which naturally fprings from the knowledge that all 
nten are brethren. Its ultimate end being to train its 
votaries for heaven, it concerns itfelf no farther with the 
affairs of earth than to enforce by eternal fanflions the 
law’s of morality 5 and, the kingdom of its Founder not 
being of this world, it leaves every nation at liberty to 
fabricate its own municipal laws, fo as bed to ferve its 
own itjterell in the various circumdances in which it may 
be placed ; and denounces a curfe upon all who pay not 
to thofe laws the fulled obedience, when they are not ob- 
viondy inconfident with the laws of piety and virtue, 
which are of prior obligation. The Chridian church 
therefore mud always remain a didindt fociety from the 
date ; and though, till the prefent age of hazardous in¬ 
novations, it has been deemed expedient in every coun¬ 
try, where the truth of the gofpel is admitted, to give to 
the religion of Chrid a legal ejlablijhment, and to confer 
immunities on its miniders, this meafure has been adopt¬ 
ed, not to fecure the purity of the faith, which appeals 
to the private judgment of each individual, but merely 
to preferve the peace of fociety, and to put a reltraint 
upon thofe. actions of which human laws cannot take cog¬ 
nizance. With religion, Chridian governments have no 
farther concern than as it tends to promote the practice 
of virtue. The early Chriftians, however, not under- 
ftanding the principle upon which penal laws were em¬ 
ployed to preferve the purity of the Jewifh religion ; and, 
as our bleffed Lord oblerved to two of his apoilles, not 
5S7 
knowing what fpirit they were of—haftily concluded that 
they had a right to enforce the do&rines and worlhip of 
the New Teftament by the fame means which had been 
ufed to preferve the Ifraelites Heady to the doflrines and 
worfhipof the Old. Hence, though they had fuffered the 
cruelleft perfecutions themfelves, they no fooner got the 
power of the (late in their hands, than they perfecuted 
the pagans for their idolatry ; and afterwards, when he- 
refies arofe in the church, perfecuted one another for ex- 
preffing in different phrafes metaphyfical propofitions of 
fuch a nature as no human mind can fully comprehend. 
The apoftie had forewarned them that there mud be he- 
refies in the church, that they who are approved may be 
made manifeft; but it did not occur to them that perfe- 
cution for opinion is the word of all herefies, as it vio¬ 
lates at once truth and charity. 
Hitherto thefe unhallowed means of bringing Chriftians 
to uniformity of faith and practice had been only occa- 
fionally employed, from their not accurately diftinguifh- 
ing between the fpirit of the gofpel and that of the law ; 
bur, as foon as the bifhops of Rome had brought the in¬ 
habitants of Europe to recognize their infallibility in ex¬ 
plaining articles of faith and deciding points of contro- 
verfy, perfecution became a regular and permanent in- 
ftrumentof ecclefiadical difcipiine. To doubt or to deny 
any doctrine to which thefe unerring inftruetors had given 
the function of their approbation, was held to be not only 
a refitting of the truth, but an aft of rebellion againit 
their (acred authority; and the fecular power, of which, 
by various arts, they had acquired the abfolute direction, 
was inftantly employed to avenge both. 
Thus Europe had been accuttomed, during many cen¬ 
turies, to fee fpeculative opinions propagated or defended 
by force; the charity and mutual forbearance which Chrifi. 
tianity recommends with fo much warmth were forgot¬ 
ten ; the (acred rights of confcience and of private judg¬ 
ment were unheard of; and not only the idea of toleration , 
but even the word itfelf, in the fenfe now affixed to it, 
was unknown. A right to extirpate error by force was 
univerfally allowed to be the prerogative of thofe who 
poflefied the knowledge of truth; and, though the firft re¬ 
formers did not arrogate to themfelves in direCt terms 
that infallibility which they had refufed to the church of 
Rome, they were not lefs confident of the truth of their 
own doCtrines, and required with equal ardour the princes 
of their party to check fuch as prefumed to impugn or to 
oppofe them. To this requeft too many of thele princes 
lent a willing ear. It flattered at once their piety and 
their pride to be conlidered as poflefling all the rights of 
Jewi(h princes; and Henry VIII. of England, after la¬ 
bouring to make his divines declare that ail authority ec- 
clefiaftical as well as civil flows from the crown, perfecuted 
alternately the papifts and proteftants. Many of his fuc- 
cefiors, whofe characters were much better than his, 
thought themfelves duly authorized, in virtue of their 
acknowledged, fupremacy over ali dates and conditions of 
men, to enforce by means of penal Laws an uniformity of 
faith and worlhip among their fubjetts; and it was not 
til! the revolution that any feCt in England feems to have 
fully underflood, that all men have an unalienable right 
to vrorihip God in the manner which to them may feem 
moftfuitable to his nature, and the relation in which they 
ftand to him ; or that it is impofiible to produce unifor¬ 
mity of opinion by any other means than candid dilqui- 
fition and found rcafoning. 
That the civil magiftrate has a right to check the pro¬ 
pagation ci op -.ions which tend to fap the founda¬ 
tions of virtue, and to difturb the peace of fociety, can¬ 
not, we think, be queftioned ; but that he has no right 
to reftrain mankind from publicly profefiing any (y'.tem 
of faith, which comprehends the being and providence of 
God, the great laws of morality, and. a future (late of re¬ 
wards and puniihments, is as evident as that it is the ob¬ 
ject of religion to fit mankind for heaven, and the whole 
duty of the magistrates to maintain peace, liberty, and 
property. 
