what the punishments are, whereby you would have men brought to embrace the true religion, I leave you to consider.

If having said, "Whether true religion or sound Christianity has been nationally received and established by moderate penal laws;" you shall for your defence of the establishment of the religion in England by law, say, which is all is left you to say, that though such severe laws were made, yet it was only by the execution of moderate penal laws, that it was estabfished and supported: but that those severe laws that touched men's estates, liberties, and lives, were never put in execution. Why then do you so seriously bemoan the loss of them? But I advise you not to make use of that plea, for there are examples in the memory of hundreds now living, of every one of those laws of queen Elizabeth being put in execution; and pray remember, if by denying it you require this truth to be made good, it is you that force the publishing of a catalogue of men that have lost their estates, liberties, and lives in prison, which it would be more for the advantage of the religion established by law, should be forgotten.

But to conclude this great accusation of yours: if you were not conscious to yourself of some tendency that way, why such an outcry? Why were modesty and conscience called in question? Why was it less fair dealing than you could have expected from a pagan or Mahometan, for me to say, if in those words "you meant any thing to the business in hand, you seemed to have a reserve for greater punishments ?" Your business there being to prove, that there was a power vested in the magistrate to use force in matters of religion, what could be more beside the business in hand, than to tell us, as you interpret your meaning here, that the magistrate had a power to use force against those who rebelled; for whoever denied that, whether dissenters or not dissenters? where was it questioned by the author or me, that "whoever rebelled, were to fall under the stroke of the magistrate's sword?" And therefore, without breach of modesty or conscience, I

might say, what I again here repeat, "That if in those words you meant any thing to the business in hand, you seemed to have a reserve for greater punishments."

One thing more give me leave to add in defence of my modesty and conscience, or rather to justify myself from having guessed so wholly beside the matter, if I should have said, which I did not, "that I feared you had a reserve for greater punishments." For I having brought the instances of Ananias and Sapphira, to show that the apostles wanted not power to punish, if they found it necessary to use it; you infer, that therefore "punishment may be sometimes necessary. What punishments, I beseech you, for theirs cost them their lives? He that, as you do, concludes from thence, that therefore "punishments may be sometimes necessary," will hardly avoid, whatever he says, to conclude capital punishments necessary: and when they are necessary, it is you know the magistrate's duty to use them. You see how natural it is for men to go whither their principles lead them, though at first sight perhaps they thought it too far.

If to avoid this, you now say you meant it of the punishment of the incestuous Corinthian, whom I also mentioned in the same place; I think, supposing yourself to lie under the imputation of a reserve of greater punishments, you ought in prudence to have said so there. Next you know not what punishment it was the incestuous Corinthian underwent; but it being "for the destruction of the flesh," it seems to be no very light one and if you will take your friend St. Austin's word for it, as he in the very epistle you quote tells us, it was a very severe one, making as much difference between it, and the severities men usually suffer in prison, as there is between the cruelty of the devil and that of the most barbarous jailor: so that if your moderate punishments will reach to that laid on the incestuous Corinthian, for the destruction of the flesh, we may presume them to be what other people call severities.

CHAPTER V.

How long your Punishments are to continue.

THE measure of punishments being to be estimated as well by the length of their duration, as the intenseness of their degrees, it is fit we take a view also of your scheme in this part:

"I told you, that 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 hae 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, and you had reason at first to punish a dissenter, to make him consider, when you did not know but that he had considered already; it is as just, and you have as much reason to punish him on, even when he has performed what your punishment was designed for, and 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 great 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 if you please, the punishments which your method requires, must be either very immoderate, or none at all." But to this you say nothing, only for the adjusting of the length of your punishments, and therein vindicating the consistency and practicableness of your scheme, you tell us, "that as long as men reject the true religion duly proposed to them, so long they offend and deserve punishment, and therefore it is but just that so long they should be left liable to it." You promised to answer to this question, amongst others, "plainly and directly." The question is, how long they are to be punished? And your answer is, "It is but just that so long they should be liable to punishment." This extraordinary caution in speaking out, if it were not very natural to you, would be apt to make one suspect it was accommodated more to some difficulties of your scheme, than to your promise of answering plainly and directly; or possibly you thought it would not agree to that character of moderation you assume, to own, that all the penal laws which were lately here in force, and whose relaxation you bemoan, should be constantly put in execution. But your moderation in this point comes too late, For as your charity, as you tell us in the next paragraph, "requires that they be kept subject to penalties;" so the watchful charity of others in this age hath found out ways to encourage informers, and put it out of the magistrate's moderation to stop the execution of the law against dissenters, if he should be inclined to it.

We will therefore take it for granted, that if penal laws be made concerning religion, (for more zeal usually animates them than others) they will be put in execution and indeed I have heard it argued to be very absurd to make or continue laws, that are not constantly put in execution. And now to show you how

well your answer consists with other parts of your scheme, I shall need only to mind you, that if men must be punished as long as they reject the true religion; those who punish them must be judges what is the true religion. But this objection, with some others, to which this part of your answer is obnoxious, having been made to you more at large elsewhere, I shall here omit, and proceed to other parts of your answer.

You begin with your reason for the answer you afterwards give us in the words I last quoted: your reason runs thus: "For certainly nothing is more reasonable than that men should be subject to punishment as long as they continue to offend. And as long as men reject the true religion, tendered them with sufficient evidence of the truth of it, so long it is certain they offend." It is certainly very reasonable, that men should be subject to punishment from those they offend as long as they continue to offend: but it will not from hence follow, that those who offend God, are always subject to punishment from men. For if they be, why does not the magistrate punish envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness? If you answer, because they are not capable of judicial proofs: I think I may say it is as easy to prove a man guilty of envy, hatred, or uncharitableness, as it is to prove him guilty of "rejecting the true religion tendered him with sufficient evidence of the truth of it." But if it be his duty to punish all offences against God; why does the magistrate never punish lying, which is an offence against God, and is an offence capable of being judicially proved? It is plain therefore that it is not the sense of all mankind, that it is the magistrate's duty to punish all offences against God; and where it is not his duty to use force, you will grant the magistrate is not to use it in matters of religion; because where it is necessary, it is his duty to use it; but where it is not necessary, you yourself say, it is not lawful. It would be convenient therefore for you to reform your proposition from that loose generality it now is in, and then prove it, before it can be allowed you to be to your purpose; though it be