ful for churchmen alone to do executions, so neither did they transmit such persons to the secular judicature. And therefore when the edict of Macedonius the president was so ambiguous, that it seemed to threaten death to heretics, unless they recanted; St. Austin admonished him carefully to provide, that no heretic should be put to death, alleging it not only to be unchristian, but illegal also, and not warranted by imperial constitutions; for before his time no laws were made for their being put to death: but however he prevailed that Macedonius published another edict, more explicit, and less seemingly severe. But in his epistle to Donatus the African proconsul he is more confident and determinate; "Necessitate nobis impactâ et indictâ, ut potiùs occîdi ab eis eligamus, quàm eos occidendos vestris judiciis ingeramus.'

14. But afterward, many got a trick of giving them over to the secular power; which at the best is no better than hypocrisy, removing envy from themselves, and laying it upon others; a refusing to do that in external act which they do in counsel and approbation: which is a transmitting the act to another, and retaining a proportion of guilt unto themselves, even their own and the others too. I end this with the saying of Chrysostom, "Dogmata impia et quæ ab hæreticis profecta sunt, arguere et anathematizare oportet; hominibus autem parcendum, et pro salute eorum orandum"."

SECTION XV.

How far the Church, or Governors, may act to the restraining false or differing Opinions.

BUT although heretical persons are not to be destroyed, yet heresy, being a work of the flesh, and all heretics criminal persons, whose acts and doctrine have influence upon communities of men, whether ecclesiastical or civil, the governors of the republic or church respectively, are to do their duties in restraining those mischiefs, which may happen to their several charges, for whose indemnity they are answer able. And therefore, according to the effect or malice of the doctrine or the person, so the cognizance of them belongs to

u Serm. de Anathemate.

:

in

several judicatures. If it be false doctrine in any capacity, and doth mischief in any sense, or teaches ill life in any stance, or encourages evil in any particular, deï ¿miotoμíleiv, 'these men must be silenced,' they must be convinced by sound doctrine, and put to silence by spiritual evidence, and restrained by authority ecclesiastical, that is, by spiritual censures, according as it seems necessary to him, who is most concerned in the regiment of the church. For all this we have precept, and precedent apostolical, and much reason. For, by thus doing, the governor of the church uses all that authority that is competent, and all the means that is reasonable, and that proceeding which is regular, that he may discharge his cure, and secure his flock. And that he possibly may be deceived, in judging a doctrine to be heretical, and, by consequence, the person excommunicate suffers injury, is no argument against the reasonableness of the proceeding for all the injury that is, is visible and in appearance, and so is his crime. Judges must judge according to their best reason, guided by law of God as their rule, and by evidence and appearance as their best instrument; and they can judge no better. If the judges be good and prudent, the error of proceeding will not be great nor ordinary: and there can be no better establishment of human judicature, than is a fallible proceeding upon an infallible ground. And if the judgment of heresy be made by estimate and proportion of the opinion to a good or a bad life respectively, supposing an error in the deduction, there will be no malice in the conclusion; and that he endeavours to secure piety according to the best of his understanding, and yet did mistake in his proceeding, is only an argument that he did his duty after the manner of men, possibly with the piety of a saint, though not with the understanding of an angel. And the little inconvenience that happens to the person injuriously judged, is abundantly made up in the excellency of the discipline, the goodness of the example, the care of the public, and all those great influences into the manners of men, which derive from such an act so publicly consigned. But such public judgment in matters of opinion must be seldom and curious, and never but to secure piety and a holy life for in matters speculative, as all determinations are fallible, so scarce any of them are to purpose, nor ever able to make com

pensation of either side, either for the public fraction, or the particular injustice, if it should so happen in the censure.

2. But then, as the church may proceed thus far, yet no Christian man or community of men may proceed farther. For if they be deceived in their judgment and censure, and yet have passed only spiritual censures, they are totally ineffectual, and come to nothing; there is no effect remaining upon the soul, and such censures are not to meddle with the body so much as indirectly. But if any other judgment pass upon persons erring, such judgments, whose effects remain, if the person be unjustly censured, nothing will answer and make compensation for such injuries. If a person be excommunicate unjustly, it will do him no hurt; but if he be killed or dismembered unjustly, that censure and infliction are not made ineffectual by his innocence, he is certainly killed and dismembered. So that as the church's authority in such cases so restrained and made prudent, cautelous and orderly, is just and competent; so the proceeding is reasonable, it is provident for the public, and the inconveniences that may fall upon particulars so little, as that the public benefit makes ample compensation, so long as the proceeding is but spiritual.

3. This discourse is in the case of such opinions, which, by the former rules, are formal heresies, and upon practical inconveniences. But for matters of question, which have not in them an enmity to the public tranquillity, as the republic hath nothing to do, upon the ground of all the former discourses; so if the church meddles with them where they do not derive into ill life, either in the person or in the consequent, or else are destructions of the foundation of religion which is all one (or that those fundamental articles are of greatest necessity in order to a virtuous and godly life, which is wholly built upon them, and therefore are principally necessary)—if she meddles farther, otherwise than by preaching and conferring and exhortation, she becomes tyrannical in her government, makes herself an immediate judge of consciences and persuasions, lords it over their faith, destroys unity and charity: and as he that dogmatises the opinion, becomes criminal, if he troubles the church with an immodest, peevish, and pertinacious proposal of his article, not simply necessary; so the church does not do her duty, if

she so condemns it pro tribunali,' as to enjoin him and all her subjects to believe the contrary. And as there may be pertinacy in doctrine, so there may be pertinacy in judging; and both are faults. The peace of the church and the unity of her doctrine best conserved, when it is judged by the proportion it hath to that rule of unity which the apostles gave, that is, the Creed, for articles of mere belief, and the precepts of Jesus Christ, and the practical rules of piety, which are most plain and easy, and without controversy, set down in the gospels and writings of the apostles. But to multiply articles, and adopt them into the family of the faith, and to require assent to such articles, which (as St. Paul's phrase is) are of doubtful disputation' equal to that assent we give to matters of faith, is to build a tower upon the top of a bulrush; and the farther the effect of such proceedings does extend, the worse they are; the very making such a law is unreasonable, the inflicting spiritual censures upon them that cannot do so much violence to their understanding, as to obey it is, unjust and ineffectual; but to punish the person with death, or with corporal infliction, indeed it is effectual, but it is, therefore, tyrannical. We have seen what the church may do towards restraining false or differing opinions: next I shall consider, by way of corollary, what the prince may do as for his interest, and only in securing his people, and serving the ends of true religion.

SECTION XVI.

Whether it be lawful for a Prince to give Toleration to several Religions.

1. FOR upon these very grounds we may easily give account of that great question, whether it be lawful for a prince to give toleration to several religions. For, first, it is a great fault that men will call the several sects of Christians by the names of several religions. The religion of Jesus Christ is, the form of sound doctrine and wholesome words,' which is set down in Scripture indefinitely, actually conveyed to us by plain places, and separated as for the question of necessary or not necessary by the symbol of the apostles. Those impertinences, which the wantonness and vanity of men hath commenced, which their

interests have promoted, which serve not truth so much as their own ends, are far from being distinct religions: for matters of opinion are no parts of the worship of God, nor in order to it, but as they promote obedience to his commandments; and when they contribute towards it, are in that proportion as they contribute parts, and actions, and minute particulars, of that religion, to whose end they do or pretend And such are all the sects and all the pretences of Christians, but pieces and minutes of Christianity, if they do serve the great end; as every man for his own sect and interest believes for his share it does.

to serve.

2. Toleration hath a double sense or purpose. For sometimes by it men understand a public liceuse and exercise of a sect sometimes it is only an indemnity of the persons privately to convene and to opine, as they see cause, and as they mean to answer to God. Both these are very much to the same purpose, unless some persons, whom we are bound to satisfy, be scandalized, and then the prince is bound to do as he is bound to satisfy. To God it is all one: for, abstracting from the offence of persons, which is to be considered just as our obligation is to content the persons, it is all one whether we indulge to them to meet publicly or privately, to do actions of religion concerning which we are not persuaded that they are truly holy. To God it is just one to be in the dark and in the light, the thing is the same, only the circumstance of public and private is different; which cannot be concerned in any thing, nor can it concern any thing, but the matter of scandal and relation to the minds and fantasies of certain persons.

3. So that to tolerate is not to persecute. And the question, whether the prince may tolerate divers persuasions, is no more than whether he may lawfully persecute any man for not being of his opinion. Now in this case he is just so to tolerate diversity of persuasions as he is to tolerate public actions for no opinion is judicable, nor no person punishable, but for a sin; and if his opinion, by reason of its managing or its effect, be in itself or becomes a sin to the person, then as he is to do towards other sins, so to that opinion or man so opining. But to believe so, or not so, when there is no more but mere believing, is not in his power to enjoin, therefore not to punish. And it is not only lawful to tolerate disagreeing persuasions, but the authority of God only is com