a long train of consequences. What penalties shall be sufficient to prevail with such, who upon examination, I fear, will not be found to make the least part of mankind, to examine and weigh matters of religion carefully and impartially? The law allows all to have common discretion, for whom it has not provided guardians or bedlam; so that, in effect, your men of common discretion are all men, not judged ideots or madmen: and penalties sufficient to prevail with all men of common discretion, are penalties sufficient to prevail with all men, but ideots and madmen. Which what a measure it is to regulate penalties by, let all men of common discretion judge.

2. You may be pleased to consider, that all men of the same degree of discretion are not apt to be moved by the same degree of penalties. Some are of a more yielding, some of a more stiff temper; and what is sufficient to prevail on one, is not half enough to move the other; though both men of common discretion: so that common discretion will be here of no use to determine the measure of punishment: especially when in the same clause you except men desperately perverse and obstinate, who are as hard to be known, as what you seek, viz. the just proportions of punishments necessary to prevail with men to consider, examine, and weigh matters of religion; wherein, if a man tells you he has considered, he has weighed, he has examined, and so goes on in his former course; it is impossible for you ever to know whether he has done his duty, or whether he be desperately perverse and obstinate; so that this exception signifies just nothing.

There are many things, in your use of force and penalties, different from any I ever met with elsewhere.— One of them, this clause of yours concerning the measure of punishments, now under consideration, offers me: wherein you proportion your punishments only to the yielding and corrigible, not to the perverse and obstinate; contrary to the common discretion which has. hitherto made laws in other cases, which levels the punishments against refractory offenders, and never spares them because they are obstinate. This, however, I will

not blame, as an oversight in you. Your new method, which aims at such impracticable and inconsistent things as laws cannot bear, nor penalties be useful to, forced you to it. The uselessness, absurdity, and unreasonableness of great severities, you had acknowledged in the foregoing paragraphs. Dissenters you would have brought to consider by moderate penalties. They lie under them; but whether they have considered or no, (for that you cannot tell) they still continue dissenters. What is to be done now? Why, the incurable are to be left to God, as you tell us, p. 12. Your punishments were not meant to prevail on the desperately perverse and obstinate, as you tell us here; and so whatever be the success, your punishments are however justified.

You have given us in another place something like another boundary to your moderate penalties: but when examined, it proves just like the rest, trifling only, in good words, so put together as to have no direct meaning; an art very much in use amongst some sort of learned men. The words are these: "such penalties as may not tempt persons who have any concern for their eternal salvation, (and those who have none ought not to be considered) to renounce a religion which they believe to be true, or profess one which they do not believe to be so." If by any concern, you mean a true concern for their eternal salvation, by this rule you may make your punishments as great as you please; and all the severities you have disclaimed may be brought in play again: for none of those will be able to make a man, "who is truly concerned for his eternal salvation, renounce a religion he believes to be true, or profess one he does not believe to be

80."

If by those who have any concern, you mean such who have some faint wishes for happiness hereafter, and would be glad to have things go well with them in the other world, but will venture nothing in this world for it; these the moderatest punishments you can imagine will make change their religion. If by any concern, you mean whatever may be between these two; the degrees are so infinite, that to proportion

your punishments by that, is to have no measure of them at all.

One thing I cannot but take notice of in this passage, before I leave it: and that is, that you say here, "those who have no concern for their salvation, deserve not to be considered." In other parts of your letter, you pretend to have compassion on the careless, and provide remedies for them: but here, of a sudden, your charity fails you; and you give them up to eternal perdition, without the least regard, the least pity, and say they deserve not to be considered. Our Saviour's rule was, "the sick and not the whole need a physician." Your rule here is, those that are careless, are not to be considered, but are to be left to themselves. This would seem strange, if one did not observe what drew you to it. You perceived that if the magistrate was to use no punishments but such as would make nobody change their religion, he was to use none at all: for the careless would be brought to the national church, with any slight punishments; and when they are once there, you are, it seems, satisfied, and look no farther after them. So that by your own measures, "if the careless, and those who have no concern for their eternal salvation," are to be regarded and taken care of; if the salvation of their souls is to be promoted, there is to be no punishment used at all; and therefore you leave them out, as not to be considered.

There remains yet one thing to be inquired into, concerning the measure of the punishments, and that is the length of their duration. Moderate punishments that are continued, that men find no end of, know no way out of, sit heavy, and become immoderately uneasy. Dissenters you would have punished, to make them consider. Your penalties have had the effect on them you intended; they have made them consider; and they have done their utmost in considering. What now must be done with them? They must be punished on; for they are still dissenters. If it were just, if you had reason at first to punish a dissenter, to make him consider, when you did not know but that he had considered al

ready; it is as just, and you have as much reason to punish him on, eyen when he has performed what your punishments were designed for, when he has considered, but yet remains a dissenter. For I may justly suppose, and you must grant, that a man may remain a dissenter, after all the consideration your moderate penalties can bring him to; when we see greater punishments, even those severities you disown, as too great, are not able to make men consider so far as to be convinced, and brought over to the national church.

If your punishments may not be inflicted on men, to make them consider, who have or may have considered already, for aught you know; then dissenters are never to be once punished, no more than any other sort of men. If dissenters are to be punished, to make them consider, whether they have considered or no; then their punishments, though they do consider, must never cease, as long as they are dissenters; which whether it be to punish them only to bring them to consider, let all men judge. This I am sure; punishments, in your method, must either never begin upon dissenters, or never cease. And so, pretend moderation as you please, the punishments which your method requires must be either very immoderate, or none at all.

And now, you having yielded to our author, and that upon very good reasons which you yourself urge, and which I shall set down in your own words, "that to prosecute men with fire and sword, or to deprive them of their estates, to maim them with corporal punishments, to starve and torture them in noisome prisons, and in the end even to take away their lives, to make them Christians, is but an ill way of expressing men's desire of the salvation of those whom they treat in this manner. And that it will be very difficult to persuade men of sense, that he who with dry eyes and satisfaction of mind can deliver his brother to the executioner, to be burnt alive, does sincerely and heartily concern himself to save that brother from the flames of hell in the world to come. And that these methods are so very improper, in respect to the design of them, that they usually produce the quite contrary effect. For

whereas all the use which force can have for the advancing true religion, and the salvation of souls, is (as) has already been showed) by disposing men to submit to instruction, and to give a fair hearing to the reasons which are offered, for the enlightening their minds, and discovering the truth to them; these cruelties have the misfortune to be commonly looked upon as so just a prejudice against any religion that uses them, as makes it needless to look any farther into it; and to tempt men to reject it, as both false and detestable, without ever vouchsafing to consider the rational grounds and motives of it. This effect they seldom fail to work upon the sufferers of them; and as to the spectators, if they be not beforehand well instructed in those grounds and motives, they will be much tempted likewise, not only to entertain the same opinion of such a religion, but withal to judge much more favourably of that of the sufferers; who, they will be apt to think, would not expose themselves to such extremities, which they might avoid by compliance, if they were not thoroughly satisfied of the justice of their cause." And upon these reasons you conclude, "that these severities are utterly unapt and improper for the bringing men to embrace that truth which must save them." Again, you having acknowledged, that the authority of the magistrate is not an authority to compel any one to his religion." And again, "that the rigour of laws and force of penalties are not capable to convince and change men's minds." And yet farther, "that you do not require that men should have no rule but the religion of the court; or that they should be put under a necessity to quit the light of their own reason, and oppose the dictates of their own consciences, and blindly resign up themselves to the will of their governors; but that the power you ascribe to the magistrate, is given him to bring men not to his own, but to the true religion." Now you having, I say, granted this, whereby you directly condemn and abolish all laws that have been made here, or any where else, that ever I heard of, to compel men to conformity; I think the author, and who soever else are most for liberty of conscience,