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in an immediate appointment of God, or in a mutual contract among men, nothing can be deduced from its origin in favour of a claim over conscience.

This will appear yet plainer if you advert a little to the nature of civil government. Civil society consists in a MORAL not a SENTIMENTAL UNION, the preservation of which union is the business of the magistrate. Where a moral union prevails society is safe; where it does not no other unanimity (suppose attainable) contributes any thing. What would it contribute to the peace of society, if an uniformity of sentiment could be established in music, statuary, architecture, or painting, unless at the same time an unanimity in moral obligations prevailed also? On the contrary, how would it injure the peace of society if every one had a different creed on these articles, supposing at the same time a moral unanimity prevailed?

But does not the preservation of this moral union depend on the magistrate's authority over the conscience of the subject? Let an answer to this be deferred for a moment; and let it be asked, whether, suppose the magistrate could preserve the peace as well without exercising this authority as with it, whether in such a case, he would not choose to let conscience alone? Certainly a wise magistracy would. A wise magistrate is a politician. A politician is a master of human nature, A master of human nature knows that mankind are better governed with than without their consent. Consequently, where he has the choice of two

means to obtain the same end, he would choose that which involves the consent of the subject; and that is, to let him maintain a moral union to society on his own principles. But to return to the question. The preservation of a moral union does not depend on the governors' exercising a right over the consciences of the governed. On the contrary, the history of all Christendom will prove, that this very claim has destroyed more moral union than all other pretences whatever. It was a just saying of the Emperor Maximilian II. to Henry III. of France. Such princes as tyrannize over the consciences of men, attack the Supreme Being in his strongest part; and frequently lose the earth by concerning themselves too much with heaven.

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"The direct end of the English constitution is political liberty. Now the liberty of the subject principally depends on the goodness of criminal laws, and this liberty is in its highest perfection "when criminal laws derive each punishment from "the particular nature of the crime. In things "that prejudice the tranquillity or security of the

state, secret actions are subject to human juris"diction; but in those that offend the Deity, and "where there is not any public action, [injurious "to the peace of society,] there cannot be any

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point in question, as to a criminal matter: "the whole passes between God and man, who "knows the measure and time of his vengeance." These are the just sentiments of those that best understand the end of civil government, and these

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sentiments plead for the right here claimed by the subject. Liberty is the end of magistracy. Whose liberty? The magistrates'? Not his only, but the subject's also.

Indeed when a magistrate claims and exercises a right over conscience, he not only deprives his subjects of liberty, but deprives the state also of the services of some of the worthiest of men. Consequently his claim is an injury to the state. Was it possible to raise from the dead the greatest men in their several professions that ever lived, were they all to be assembled in England, the state would be deprived of their fine abilities, unless (which no man can be sure of) they would subscribe the established faith.

Diversity of opinions, if judiciously managed, rather tend to discover than to destroy the truth: hence that proper advice at opening a general assembly of old, consider the fact, take advice, and speak your minds: the same notion is conveyed in the very name of the British representation; it is a parliament, that is, an assembly convened to give advice by speaking their minds. If this be a proper method of finding out truth in the state, why not in the church?

To give the magistrate a power over the consciences of the subjects is to annihilate conscience. For example: a gentleman resides in England, acknowledges the power in question, and professes with an oath, faith in the thirty-nine articles. He passes from Dover to Calais, and lo! another magistrate requires another faith; he must renounce cal

vinism, and embrace the faith of the gallican church. He crosses the Alps and appears at Rome; another faith again. Should he pursue his route and retain his notion of magistracy, he must believe as the Czar believes at Petersburg, as the grand Seignior believes in Turkey if he goes round the world he must be of all religions; or, to speak more properly, if he goes round the world thus, of no religion at all.

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The people called quakers seem to have understood the principles of civil government as well as any people upon earth, and to have practised them more than most sects in Christendom. The first of twenty-four articles, called fundamental constitutions of Pensylvania, drawn up by the sensible Mr. Penn, deserves to be written in letters of gold, for its benevolence. "In reverence to God, the "father of lights and spirits, the author as well as object of all divine knowledge, faith and worship, I do for me and mine declare and estab"lish, for the first fundamental of the government "of this country, that every person, that doth or "shall reside therein, shall have and enjoy the "free possession of his or her faith, and exercise "of worship toward God, in such way and man

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ner as every such person shall in conscience be"lieve is most acceptable to God. And so long as every such person useth not this christian liberty to licentiousness, or the destruction of "others, that is to say, to speak loosely or profanely, or contemptuously of God, Christ, the

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holy scriptures, or religion, or commit any mo

"ral evil or injury against others in their conver

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sation; he or she shall be protected in the en"joyment of the aforesaid christian liberty by the "civil magistrate." Here is an example worthy the imitation of all Europe, beautiful in itself, but placed to infinite advantage when contrasted with the unnatural persecutions of many other lawgivers; the Caesars that murdered of old, the Stuarts that butchered of late. From the the tyranny of the last the colonists fled, and of this colony you will say with Horace on another occa

sion,

O matre pulchra filia pulchrior !*

What avails creeping after metaphysical subtleties in the schools? Try experiments, as sound philosophers have done, and on them raise a legislative system. Suppose a modern clergyman, animated with the spirit of a Paul, should go on a mission to the savages of Canada; what methods would he use to establish the faith? Whether he went to the Algonquins, whose kingdom is elective, or to the Hurons, whose kingdom is hereditary, it would be immaterial; in both he would find a chief magistrate, who has nothing to do to cure a refractory subject, but to say to one of his guards, Go and rid me of that dog. Considering what influence the tyrant's rank naturally gives him, he would endeavour to conciliate himself to him first, and to obtain (if possible) his good graces. He would for the present content

* The daughter is handsomer than her handsome mother.

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