of men's souls, as not to vex and disease them with inefficacious remedies to no purpose, and let them miss of salvation, for want of more vigorous prosecutions. For if conformity to the church of England be necessary to salvation; for else what necessity can you pretend of punishing men at all to bring them to it? it is cruelty to their souls (if you have authority for any such means) to use some, and not to use sufficient force to bring them to conform. And I dare say you are satisfied, that the French discipline of dragooning would have made many in England conformists, whom your lower penalties will not prevail on to be so.

But to inform you that my apprehensions were not so wholly out of the way, I beseech you to read here what you have writ in these words: "For how confidently soever you tell me here, that it is more than I can say for my political punishments, that they were ever useful for the promoting true religion; I appeal to all observing persons, whether wherever true religion or Sound Christianity has been nationally received and established by moderate penal laws, it has not always lost ground by the relaxation of those laws: whether sects and heresies, (even the wildest and most absurd) and even Epicurism and atheism, have not continually thereupon spread themselves; and whether the very spirit and life of Christianity has not sensibly decayed, as well as the number of sound professors of it been daily lessened upon it: not to speak of what at this time our eyes cannot but see, for fear of giving offence; though I hope it will be none to any, that have a just concern for truth and piety, to take notice of the books and pamphlets which now fly so thick about this king. dom, manifestly tending to the multiplying of sects and divisions, and even to the promoting of scepticism in religion among us." Here you bemoan the decaying state of religion amongst us at present, by reason of taking off the penalties from protestant dissenters: and I beseech you what penalties were they? Such whereby many have been ruined in their fortunes; such whereby many have lost their liberties, and some

their lives in prisons; such as have sent some into banishment, stripped of all they had. These were the penal laws by which the national religion was estáblished in England; and these you call moderate: for you say, "Wherever true religion or sound Christianity has been nationally received and established by moderate penal laws;" and I hope you do not here exclude England from having its religion so established by law, which we so often hear of; or if to serve the present occasion you should, would you also deny, that in the following words you speak of the present relaxation in England? where after your appeal to all observing people for the dismal consequences, which you suppose to have every where followed from such relaxations, you add these pathetical words, "Not to speak of what at this time our eyes cannot but see, for fear of giving offence:" so heavy does the present relaxation sit on your mind; which since it is of penal laws you call moderate, I shall show you what they are.

In the first year of Queen Elizabeth, there was a penalty of 1s. a Sunday and holiday laid upon every one who came not to the common prayer then established. This penalty of 1s. a time not prevailing, as was desired, in the twenty-third year of her reign was increased to 201. a month, and imprisonment for nonpayment within three months after judgment given. In the twenty-ninth year of Elizabeth, to draw this yet closer, and make it more forcible, it was enacted, That whoever upon one conviction did not continue to pay on the 201. per month, without any other conviction or proceedings against him till he submitted and conformed, should forfeit all his goods, and two-thirds of his land for his life. But this being not yet thought sufficient, it was in the thirty-fifth year of that queen completed, and the moderate penal laws, upon which our national religion was established, and whose relaxation you cannot bear, but from thence date the decay of the very spirit and life of Christianity, were brought o perfection. For then going to conventicles, or a nonth's absence from church, was to be punished with imprisonment, till the offender conformed; and if he

conformed not within three months, then he was to ab jure the realm, and forfeit all his goods and chattels for ever, and his lands and tenements during his life: and if he would not abjure, or, abjuring, did not depart the realm within a time prefixed, or returned again, he was to suffer death as a felon. And thus your moderate penal laws stood for the established religion, till their penalties were, in respect of protestant dissenters, lately taken off. And now let the reader judge whether your.. pretence to moderate punishments, or my suspicion of what a man of your principles might have in store for dissenters, have more of modesty or conscience in it; since you openly declare your regret for the taking away such an establishment, as by the gradual increase of penalties reached men's estates, liberties, and lives; and which you must be presumed to allow and approve of, till you tell us plainly, where, according to your measures, those penalties should, or, according to your principles, they could, have stopped.

You tell us, That where this only true religion, viz, of the church of England, is received, other religions. ought "to be discouraged in some measure." A pretty expression for undoing, imprisonment, banishment; for those have been some of the discouragements given to dissenters here in England. You will again, no doubt, cry aloud, that you tell me you condemn these as much as I do. If you heartily condemn them, I wonder you should say so little to discourage them; I wonder you are so silent in representing to the magistrate the unlawfulness and danger of using them, in a discourse where you are treating of the magistrate's power and duty in matters of religion; especially this being the side on which, as far as we may guess by experience, their prudence is aptest to err: but your modesty, you know, leaves all to the magistrate's prudence and experience on that side, though you over and over again encourage them not to neglect their duty in the use of force, to which you set no bounds.

You tell us, "Certainly no man doubts but the prudence and experience of governors and law-givers enables them to use and apply it," viz. your rule for

the measure of punishments, which I have showed to be no rule at all: "And to judge more exactly what penalties do agree with it; and therefore you must be excused if you do not take upon you to teach them what it becomes you rather to learn from them." If your modesty be such, and you then did what became you, you could not but learn from your governors and law-givers, and so be satisfied till within this year or two, that those penalties which they measured out for the establishment of the true religion, though they reached to men's estates, liberties, and lives, were such as were fit. But what But what you have learned of your lawmakers and governors since the relaxation, or what opinion you have of their experience and prudence now, is not so easy to say.

you

Perhaps you will say again, that have in express words declared against "fire and sword, loss of estate, maiming with corporal punishments, starving and tormenting in noisome prisons;" and one and one cannot either in modesty or conscience disbelieve you: yet in the same letter you with sorrow and regret speak of the relaxation of such penalties laid on nonconformity, by which men have lost their estates, liberties, and lives too, in noisome prisons, and in this too must we not believe you? I dare say, there are very few who read that passage of yours, so feelingly it is penned, who want modesty or conscience to believe you therein to be in earnest; and the rather, because what drops from men by chance, when they are not upon their guard, is always thought the best interpretation of their thoughts.

You name "loss of estate, of liberty, and tormenting, which is corporal punishment, as if you were against them" certainly you know what you meant by these words, when you said, you condemned them; was it any degree of loss of liberty or estate, any degree of corporal punishment that you condemned, or only the utmost, or some degree between these? unless you had then some meaning, and unless you please to tell us, what that meaning was; where it is, that in your

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opinion, the magistrate ought to stop; who can believe you are in earnest? This I think you may and ought to do for our information in your system, without any apprehension that governors and law-givers will deem themselves much taught by you, which your modesty makes you so cautious of. Whilst you refuse to do this, and keep yourself under the mask of moderate, convenient, and sufficient force and penalties, and other such-like uncertain and undetermined punishments, I think a conscientious and sober dissenter might expect fairer dealing from one of my pagans or Mahometans, as you please to call them, than from one, who so professes moderation, that what degrees of force, what kind of punishments will satisfy him, he either knows not, or will not declare. For your moderate and convenient may, when you come to interpret them, signify what punishments you please: for the cure being to be wrought by force, that will be convenient, which the stubbornness of the evil requires; and that moderate, which is but enough to work the cure. And therefore I shall return your own compliment: "That I would never wish that any man who has undertaken a bad cause, should more plainly confess it than by serving it, as here (and not here only) you serve yours." should beg your pardon for this sort of language, were it not your own. And what right you have to it, the skill you show in the management of general and doubtful words and expressions, of uncertain and undetermined signification, will, I doubt not, abundantly convince the reader. An instance we have in the argument before us; for I appeal to any sober man, who shall carefully read what you write, where you pretend to tell the world plainly and directly what punishments are to be used by your scheme, whether, after having weighed all you say concerning that matter, he can tell what a nonconformist is to expect from you, or find any thing but such acuteness and strength as lie in the uncertainty and reserve of your way of talking; which whether it be any way suited to your modesty and conscience, where you have undertaken to tell us