saved without being of it. And then the magistrate can upon your principles have no authority to use force to bring men to be of it. For you tell us, force is not lawful, unless it be necessary; and therefore the magistrate can never lawfully use it, but to bring men to believe and practise what is necessary to salvation. You must therefore either hold, that there is nothing in the doctrine, discipline, and ceremonies of the church of England, as it is established by law, but what is necessary to salvation: or else you must reform your terms of communion, before the magistrate, upon your principles, can use penalties to make men consider till they conform; or you can say that the national religion of England is the only true religion, though it contain the only true religion in it; as possibly most, if not all, the differing Christian churches now in the world do.

You tell us farther, in the next paragraph, "That wherever this only true religion, i. e. the national religion now in England, is received, all other religions ought to be discouraged." Why, I beseech you, discouraged, if they be true any of them? For if they be true, what pretence is there for force to bring men who are of them to the true religion? If you say all other religions, varying at all from that of the church of England, are false; we know then your measure of the one only true religion. But that your care is only of conformity to the church of England, and that by the true religion you mean nothing else, appears too from your way of expressing yourself in this passage, where you own that you suppose that as this only true reli gion, to wit, the national religion now in England, backed with the public authority of law, "ought to be received wherever it is preached; so wherever it is received, all other religions ought to be discouraged in some measure by the civil powers." If the religion established by law in England be the only true religion, ought it not to be preached and received every where, and all other religions discouraged throughout the world? and ought not the magistrates of all countries to take care that it should be so? But you only say, wherever it is preached it ought to be received; and

VOL. VI.

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wherever it is received, other religions ought to be discouraged, which is well suited to your scheme for enforcing conformity in England, but could scarce drop from a man whose thoughts were on the true religion, and the promoting of it in other parts of the world.

Force then must be used in England, and penalties laid on dissenters there. For what?" to bring them to the true religion," whereby it is plain you mean not only the doctrine but discipline and ceremonies of the church of England, and make them a part of the only true religion: why else do you punish all dissenters for rejecting the true religion, and use force to bring them to it? when yet a great, if not the greatest, part of dissenters in England own and profess the doctrine of the church of England, as firmly as those in the communion of the church of England. They therefore, though they believe the same religion with you, are excluded from the true church of God, that you would have men brought to, and are amongst those who reject the true religion.

I ask whether they are not in your opinion out of the way of salvation, who are not joined in communion with the true church? and whether there can be any true church without bishops? If so, all but conformists in England that are of any church in Europe, beside the Lutherans and papists, are out of the way of salvation; and so according to your system have need of force to be brought into it: and these too, one for their doctrine of transubstantiation, the other for that of consubstantiation, to omit other things vastly differing from the church of England, you will not, I suppose, allow to be of the true religion: and who then are left of the true religion but the church of England? For the Abys sines have too wide a difference in many points for me to imagine, that is one of those places you mean where toleration would do harm as well as in England. And I think the religion of the Greek church can scarce be supposed by you to be the true. For if it should, it would be a strong instance against your assertion, that the true religion cannot subsist, but would quickly be effectually extirpated without the assistance of authority;

since this has subsisted without any such assistance now above two hundred years. I take it then for granted, and others with me cannot but do the same; till you tell us, what other religion there is of any church, but that of England, which you allow to be the true religion; that all you say of bringing men to the true religion, is only bringing them to the religion of the church of England. If I do you an injury in this, it will be capable of a very easy vindication: for it is but naming that other church differing from that of England, which you allow to have the true religion, and I shall yield myself convinced, and shall allow these words, viz. "The national religion now in England, backed by the public authority of law, being the only true religion," only as a little hasty sally of your zeal. the mean time I shall argue with you about the use of force to bring men to the religion of the church of England, as established by law: since it is more easy to know what that is, than what you mean by the true religion, if you mean any thing else.

In

To proceed therefore; in the next place I tell you, by using force your way to bring men to the religion of the church of England, you mean only to bring them to an outward profession of that religion; and that, as I have told you elsewhere, because force used your way, being applied only to dissenters, and ceasing as soon as they conform, (whether it be intended by the lawmaker for any thing more or no, which we have examined in another place) cannot be to bring men to any thing more than outward conformity. For if force be used to dissenters, and them only, to bring men to the true religion, and always, as soon as it has brought men to conformity, it be taken off, and laid aside, as having done all is expected from it; it is plain, that by bring. ing men to the true religion, and bringing them to outward conformity, you mean the same thing. You use and continue force upon dissenters, because you expect some effect from it: when you take it off, it has wrought that effect, or else, being in your power, why do you not continue it on? The effect then that you talk of being the embracing the true religion, and the thing you are

satisfied with, without any further punishment, expectation, or inquiry, being outward conformity, it is plain embracing the true religion and outward conformity, with you, are the same things.

Neither can you say it is presumable that those who outwardly conform do really understand, and inwardly in their hearts embrace with a lively faith and a sincere obedience, the truth that must save them. 1. Because it being, as you tell us, the magistrate's duty to do all that in him lies for the salvation of all his subjects, and it being in his power to examine, whether they know and live suitable to the truth that must save them, as well as conform; he can or ought no more to presume that they do so, without taking an account of their knowledge and lives, than he can or ought to presume that they conform, without taking any account of their coming to church. Would you think that physician discharged his duty, and had, as was pretended, a care of men's lives; who having got them into his hands, and knowing no more of them but that they come once or twice a week to the apothecary's shop, to hear what is prescribed them, and sit there a while; should say it was presumable they were recovered, without ever examining whether his prescriptions had any effect, or what estate their health was in?

2. It cannot be presumable, where there are so many visible instances to the contrary. He must pass for an admirable presumer, who will seriously affirm that it is presumable that all those who conform to the national religion, where it is true, do so understand, believe, and practise it, as to be in the way of salvation.

3. It cannot be presumable, that men have parted with their corruption and lusts to avoid force, when they fly to conformity, which can shelter them from force without quitting their lusts. That which is dearer to men than their first-born is, you tell us, their lusts; that which is harder than the hardships of false religions is the mortifying those lusts: here lies the difficulty of the true religion, that it requires the mortifying of those lusts; and till that be done, men are not of the true religion, nor in the way of salvation and it is upon this

account only that you pretend force to be needful. Force is used to make them hear: it prevails; men hear: but that is not enough, because the difficulty lies not in that; they may hear arguments for the truth, and yet retain their corruption. They must do more; they must consider those arguments. Who requires it of them? The law that inflicts the punishment does not; but this we may be sure their love of their lusts, and their hatred of punishment, requires of them, and will bring them to, viz. to consider how to retain their beloved lusts, and yet to avoid the uneasiness of the punishment they lie under; this is presumable they do; therefore they go one easy step farther, they conform, and then they are safe from force, and may still retain their corruption. Is it therefore presumable they have parted with their corruption, because force has driven them to take sanctuary against punishment in conformity, where force is no longer to molest them, or pull them from their darling inclinations? The difficulty in religion is, you say, for men to part with their lusts; this makes force necessary: men find out a way by conforming to avoid force without parting with their lusts; therefore it is presumable when they conform, that force, which they can avoid without quitting their lusts, has made them part with them; which is indeed not to part with their lusts because of force, but to part with them gratis; which if you can say is presumable, the foundation of your need of force, which you place in the prevalency of corruption, and men's adhering to their lusts, will be gone, and so there will be no need of force at all. If the great difficulty in religion be for men to part with, or mortify their lusts, and the only counterbalance in the other scale, to assist the true religion, to prevail against their lusts, be force; which, I beseech you, is presumable, if they can avoid force, and retain their lusts, that they should quit their lusts, and heartily embrace the true religion, which is incompatible with them; or else that they should avoid the force, and retain their lusts? To say the former of these, is to say that it is presumable, that they will quit their lusts, and heartily embrace the true religion for its own sake: