will destroy them; and so is proper to do as much harm as good, (which seems strange enough;) I add (to increase the wonder) that in your indirect way it is much more proper and likely to make men receive and embrace error, than the truth and that, 1. Because men out of the right way are apt, and I think I may say apter, to use force than others; which is doubtless an irrefragable demonstration, that force used by the magistrate to bring men to receive and embrace the truth which must save them, is much more proper and likely to make men receive error than the truth." And then you ask me, "How we come to talk here of what men out of the right way are apt to do, to bring others into their, i. e. a wrong way; where we are only inquiring, what may be done to bring men to the right way? For you must put me in mind, you say, that this is our question, viz. Whether the magistrate has any right to use force, to bring men to the true religion?" Whether the magistrate has a right to use force in matters of religion, as you more truly state it, p. 78, is the main question between us, I confess. But the question here between us is about the usefulness of force, your way applied; which being to punish dissenters as dissenters, to make them consider, I showed would do more harm than good. And to this you were here answering. Whereby, I suppose, it is plain that the question here is about the usefulness of force, so applied. And I doubt not but my readers, who are not concerned, when the question in debate will not serve your turn, to have another substituted, will take this for a regular and natural way of arguing, viz. "That force, your way applied, is more proper and likely to make men embrace error than the truth; because men out of the right way are as apt, I think I may say apter, to use force than others." You need not then ask, as you do, "How we come to talk here of men out of the right way?" You see how. You see how. If you do not, I know not what help there is for your eyes. And I must content myself that any other reader, that has eyes, will not miss it. And I wonder that you should: since you

know I have on several occasions argued against the use of force in matters of religion, upon a supposition, that if any one, then all magistrates, have a just pretence and right to use it; which has served you in some places for matter of great reproof, and, in others, of sport and diversion. But because so plain a thing as that was so strange to you, that you thought it a ridiculous paradox to say, "That for all magistrates to suppose the religion they believed to be true, was equally just and reasonable;" and because you took no notice of the words adjoined that proved it, viz. "Unless we can imagine every where but in England, [or where the national religion is the true] men believe what at the same time they think to be a lie;" I have taken the pains to prove it to you more at large in another place, and therefore shall make bold to use it here as an argument against force, viz. That if it have any efficacy, it will do more harm than good: "Because men out of the right way are as apt, or apter, to use it ;" and I shall think it a good one till you have answered it.

It is a good and a sure way, and shows a zeal to the cause, still to hold fast the conclusion, and, whatever be in debate, return still to one's old position. I arguing against what you say for the use of force, viz. "That force used not to convince by its own proper efficacy, but only to make men consider, might indirectly, and at a distance, do some service towards the bring ing men to embrace the truth;" after other arguments against it, I say, that "whatever efficacy there is in force, your way applied, i. e. to punish all, and none but, dissenters from the national church, makes against you :" and the first reason I give for it, is in these words: "Because men out of the right way, are as apt, or apter, to use force than others:" which is what you are here answering. And what can be done better to answer it, than to the words I have above cited, to subjoin these following? "Now whereas our author says, that penalties or force is absolutely impertinent in this case, because it is not proper to convince the mind; to which you answer, that, though force be not proper to convince the

mind, yet it is not absolutely impertinent in this case, because it may, however, do some service towards the bringing men to embrace the truth which must save them, by bringing them to consider those reasons and arguments which are proper to convince the mind; and which, without being forced, they would not consider." Here I tell you, "No; but it is much more proper and likely to make men receive and embrace error than truth; because men out of the right way are as apt, and perhaps apter, to use force than others." Which, you tell me, "is as good a proof, you believe, as the thing would admit: for otherwise, you suppose, I would have given you a better." And thus you have certainly gained the cause. For I having proved that force, your way applied, whatever efficacy it had, would do more harm than good, have not sufficiently proved that it cannot do some service towards the bringing men to embrace the truth; and therefore it is not absolutely impertinent. But since you think this apt enough to prove the use of force in matters of religion impertinent, I shall farther show you that force, applied your way to make people consider, and so to make them embrace the truth, is impertinent.

Your way is to lay penalties on men for non-conformity, as you say, to make men consider: now here let me ask any one but you, whether it be not utterly impertinent so to lay penalties on men, to make them consider, when they can avoid those penalties without considering? But because it is not enough to prove force, your way applied, utterly impertinent, I shall show you, in the next place, that were a law made to punish not barely non-conformity, but non-consideration, those penalties, laid on not considering, would be utterly impertinent; because it could never be proved that a man had not considered the arguments offered him. And therefore all law-makers till you, in all their penal laws about religion, laid all their penalties upon not embracing; and it was against that that our author was arguing, when he said penalties, in this case, are absolutely impertinent; because they are not proper to convince

you

the mind. For in that case, when penalties are laid on men for not embracing, it is plain they are used as a means to make men embrace: which, since those who are careless in matters of religion can do without considering, and those who are conscientious cannot do without conviction; and since penalties can in no wise convince; this use of them is absolutely impertinent, and will always be so till you can show a way how they can be used in religion, not as motives to embrace, but as motives barely to make men consider. For if punish them on when they tell you they have considered your arguments, but are not convinced by them; and you judge of their having not considered, by nothing but their not embracing; it is plain you use penalties instead of arguments to convince them; since without conviction, those whom our author pleads for cannot embrace; and those who do embrace without conviction, it is all one as if they did not embrace at all; they being not one jot the more in the way of salvation; and so penalties are absolutely impertinent. But embracing in the sense of the law, and yours too, when you say men have not considered as they ought as long as they reject, is nothing but outward conformity, or an outward profession of embracing, wherewith the law is satisfied, and upon which the penalties cease. Now penalties used to make men in this sense embrace, are absolutely impertinent to bring men to embrace in earnest, or, as the author calls it, believe: because an outward profession, which in this case is the immediate end to which penalties are directed, and beyond which they do not reach, is no proper means to produce in men consideration, conviction, or believing.

What can be more impertinent than to vex and disease people with the use of force, to no purpose? and that force must needs be to no purpose, which is so applied as to leave the end for which it is pretended to be used, without the means which is acknowledged necesfor its attainment. That this is so, in your way of using force, will casily appear from your hypothesis. You tell us at large, in your Argument considered, that men's lusts hinder them from even impartial consi

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deration and examination of matters in religion: and therefore force is necessary to remove this hinderance. You tell us likewise at large in your letter, that men's corrupt nature and beloved lusts hinder them also from embracing the true religion, and that force is necessary likewise to remove this obstacle. Now, in your way of using force, wherein penalties are laid on men till, and no longer than till, they are made outwardly to conform, force is so applied, that notwithstanding the intention of the law-maker, let it be what it will, neither the obstacle to impartial examination, arising from men's lusts, nor the aversion to the embracing the true religion, arising from men's corrupt nature, can be removed; unless they can be removed without that which you suppose necessary to their removal. For since a man may conform, without being under the necessity of impartial examining or embracing, on the one hand, or suffering the penalties, on the other; it is unavoidable, that he should neither impartially examine nor embrace, if penalties are necessary to make him do either; because penalties, which are the necessary remedies to remove those hinderances, were never applied to them; and so those obstacles, not being removed for want of their necessary remedy, must continue on to hinder both examining and embracing. For penalties cannot be used as a means to any end, or be applied to the procuring any action to be done, which a man, from his lusts, or any other cause, has an aversion to; but by putting them as it were in one scale as a counterbalance to that aversion, and the action in the other scale, and putting a man under the necessity of choosing the one or the other: where that is not done, the penalty may be avoided, the aversion or obstacle hath nothing to remove it, and so the action must remain undone. So that if penalties be necessary to make men impartially examine and really embrace; if penalties are not so laid on men as to make the alternative to be either suffering the penalties or conforming; it is impossible that men who, without penalties, would not impartially examine, or really embrace, the true religion, should ever

VOL. VI.

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