absolutely and equally necessary to their respective ends, because those ends cannot be attained without them.

You say farther, " Cutting for the stone is not always necessary in order to the cure: but the penalties you speak of are altogether necessary (without extraordinary grace) to cure that pernicious and otherwise untractable aversion." Let it be so; but do the surgeons know who has this stone, this aversion, so that it will certainly destroy him, unless he be cut? Will you undertake to tell when the aversion is such in any man, that it is incurable by preaching, exhortation, and entreaty, if his spiritual physician will be instant with him in season, and out of season; but certainly curable, if moderate force be made use of? till you are sure of the former of these, you can never say your moderate force is necessary: till you are sure of the latter, you can never say, it is competent means. What you will determine concerning extraordinary grace, and when God bestows that, I leave you to consider, and speak clearly of it at your leisure.

You add, that even where "cutting for the stone is necessary, it is withal hazardous by my confession. But your penalties can no way endanger or hurt the soul, but by the fault of him that undergoes them." If the magistrate use force to bring men to the true religion, he must judge which is the true religion; and he can judge no other to be it but that which he believes to be the true religion, which is his own religion. But for the magistrate to use force to bring men to his own religion has so much danger in it to men's souls, that by your own confession, none but an atheist will say that magistrates may use force to bring men to their own religion.

This I suppose is enough to make good all that I aimed at in my instance of cutting for the stone, which was, that though it were judged useful, and I add now necessary, to cut men for the stone, yet that was not enough to authorize a surgeon to cut a man, but he must have, besides that general one of doing good, some more special commission; and that which I there men

tioned, was the patient's consent. But you tell me, "That though, as things now stand, no surgeon has any right to cut his calculous patient without his consent; yet if the magistrate should by a public law appoint and authorize a competent number of the most skilful in that art to visit such as labour under that disease, and to cut those (whether they consent or not) whose lives they unanimously judge it impossible to save otherwise you are apt to think I would find it hard to prove that in so doing he exceeded the bounds of his power and you are sure it would be as hard to prove that those artists would have no right in that case to cut such persons." Show such a law from the great Governor of the universe, and I shall yield that your surgeons shall go to work as fast as you please. But where is the public law?" Where is the competent number of magistrates skilful in the art, who must unanimously judge of the disease and its danger?" You can show nothing of all this, yet you are so liberal of this sort of cure, that one cannot take you for less than cutting Morecraft himself. But, sir, if there were a competent number of skilful and impartial men, who were to use the incision-knife on all in whom they found this stone of aversion to the true religion; what do you think, would they find no work in your hospital?

Aversion to the true religion you say is of absolute necessity to be cured: what I beseech you is that true religion? that of the church of England? For that you own to be the only true religion; and, whatever you say, you cannot upon your principles name any other national religion in the world that you will own to be the true. It being then of absolute necessity that men's aversion to the national religion of England should be cured has all mankind, in whom it has been absolutely necessary to be cured, been furnished with competent and necessary means for the cure of this aversion?

In the next place, what is your necessary and sufficient means for this cure that is of absolute necessity? and that is moderate penalties made use of by the magistrate, where the national is the true religion, and sufficient means are provided for all men's instruction

in the true religion. And here again I ask, have all men to whom this cure is of absolute necessity been furnished with this necessary means?

Thirdly, How is your necessary remedy to be applied? And that is in a way wherein it cannot work the cure, though we should suppose the true religion the national every where, and all the magistrates in the world zealous for it. To this true religion, say you, men have a natural and great aversion of absolute necessity to be cured, and the only cure for it is force your way applied, i. e. penalties must be laid upon all that dissent from the national religion, till they conform. Why are men averse to the true? Because it crosses the profits and pleasures of this life; and for the same reason they have an aversion to penalties: these, therefore, if they be opposed one to another, and penalties be so laid that men must quit their lusts, and heartily embrace the true religion, or else endure the penalties, there may be some efficacy in force towards bringing men to the true religion: but if there be no opposition between an outward profession of the true religion, and men's lusts; penalties laid on men till they outwardly conform are not a remedy laid to the disease. Punishments so applied have no opposition to men's lusts, nor from thence can be expected any cure. Men must be driven from their aversion to the true religion by penalties they have a greater aversion to. This is all the operation of force. But if by getting into the communion of the national church they can avoid the penalties, and yet retain their natural corruption and aversion to the true religion, what remedy is there to the disease by penalties so applied? You would, you say, have men made uneasy. This no doubt will work on men, and make them endeavour to get out of this uneasy state as soon as they can. But it will always be by that way wherein they can be most easy; for it is the uneasiness alone they fly from, and therefore they will not exchange one uneasiness for another; not for a greater, nor an equal, nor any at all, if they can help it. If therefore it be so uneasy for men to mortify their lusts, as you tell us, which the true religion requires of

them, if they embrace it in earnest; but which outward conformity to the true religion, or any national church, does not require; what need or use is there of force applied so, that it meets not at all with men's lusts, or aversion to the true religion, but leaves them the liberty of a quiet enjoyment of them, free from force and penalties in a legal and approved conformity? Is a man negligent of his soul, and will not be brought to consider? obstinate, and will not embrace the truth? is he careless, and will not be at the pains to examine matters of religion? corrupt, and will not part with his lusts, which are dearer to him than his first-born? It is but owning the national profession, and he may be so still: if he conform, the magistrate has done punishing, he is a son of the church, and need not consider any thing farther for fear of penalties; they are removed, and all is well. So that at last there neither being an absolute necessity that aversion to the true religion should in all men be cured: nor the magistrate being a competent judge who have this stone of aversion, or who have it to that degree as to need force to cure it, or in whom it is curable, were force a proper remedy, as it is not nor having any commission to use it, notwithstanding what you have answered: it is still not only as, but more reasonable for the magistrate, upon pretence of its usefulness or necessity, to cut any one for the stone without his own consent, than to use force your way to cure him of aversion to the true religion.

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To my question, in whose hands this right, we were a little above speaking of, was in Turkey, Persia, or China? you tell me, you answer roundly and plainly, "in the hands of the sovereign, to use convenient penalties for the promoting the true religion." I will not trouble you here with a question you will meet with elsewhere, who in these countries must be judge of the true religion? But I will ask, whether you or any wise man would have put a right of using force into a Mahommedan or pagan prince's hand, for the promoting of Christianity? Which of my pagans or Mahommedans would have done otherwise?

But God, you say, has done it, and you make it good by telling me in the following words, "If this startle me, then you must tell me farther, that you look upon the supreme power to be the same all the world over, in what hands soever it is placed, and this right to be contained in it: and if those that have it do not use it as they ought, but instead of promoting true religion by proper penalties, set themselves to enforce Mohammedism or paganism, or any other false religion: all that can, or that needs be said to the matter, is, that God will one day call them to an account for the neglect of their duty, for the dishonour they do to him, and for the souls that perish by their fault." Your taking this right to be a part of the supreme power of all civil sovereigns, which is the thing in question, is not, as I take it, proving it to be so. But let us take it so for once, what then is your answer? "God will one day call those sovereigns to an account for the neglect of their duty." The question is not, what God will do with the sovereigns who have neglected their duty; but how mankind is furnished with your competent means of promoting God's honour in the world, and the good of souls in countries where the sovereign is of a wrong religion? For there, how clearly soever the right of using it be in the sovereign, yet as long as he uses not force to bring his subjects to the true religion, they are destitute of your competent means. For I imagine you do not make the right to use that force, but the actual application of it by penal laws, to be your useful and necessary means. For if you think the bare having that right be enough, if that be your sufficient means without the actual use of force, we readily allow it you. And, as I tell you elsewhere, I see not then what need you had of miracles "to supply the want of the magistrates' assistance till Christianity was supported and encouraged by the laws of the empire:" for, by your own rule, the magistrates of the world, during the three first centuries after the publishing the Christian religion, had the same right, if that had been enough, that they have now in Turkey, Persia, or China. That this is all that can be