and be happy, when it cannot even do it with the help of human laws: no; nor, say they, with the help of Christianity. But it is certain, that as honesty and virtue do still prevail among some, it is as certain, that, if Christianity were entirely laid aside, and no religious alternative substituted in its place, virtue must be effectually banished with it, even from the breasts of those who are now honest; for, in a state of pure infidelity, a temporal self-interest, in which there is no virtue, would always predominate, though ever so much in prejudice of right, though ever so much against those sentiments of morality which we now reverence as natural.

Now if, with the little religion that is left, the little honesty too were once banished, our country, like Sodom, after the departure of Lot, must perish, even though there were no Providence to pour down fire and brimstone on it from heaven.

Since then, society cannot subsist without virtue, nor virtue be expected without religion; and since every constitution, as well as every particular man, hath a principle of self-preservation; it is its chief business and interest to secure to itself so necessary a preservative. And as it is its interest to be religious, so it has the same right, with an individual, to choose its religion; for, if it is absolutely necessary that it should be religious, considered as a society, it must be as necessary that it should have some particular religion. Now this is impossible, unless it have a right to choose; for civil constitutions, or societies, no more than single persons, since they are made up of such, can believe without due conviction, or embrace without choice.

It may be asked here, How can a society choose one religion to be publicly adhered to, without taking away from its several members their individual right of choice? I answer, That, by society, I only mean such a combination of men as approve one form of government, and one religion; and who are therefore determined, by their own particular choice, to profess the one, and enter into the other. If, in any country, there is a mixture of such as do dissent from the constitution, either on a civil or spiritual account, they are only members in part, and not properly; and, if they dissent on both accounts, they are no members at all.

Every man hath a right to choose a religion for himself, which no power on earth can take from him; but, if it be his choice to join himself to a religion different from, or contrary to, that of the society of which in civil matters he is a member, the society has as undoubted a right to preserve itself, and its religion, from the inconsistent or opposite effects of his, by laying him under such constitutional disabilities as may answer that end, without bearing on his conscience, in what regards himself only.

A constitution without religion in it, or a God above it, must be such as none but devils could desire to enter into, and none but devils could live in. An infidel society, or an atheistical nation, if it could be supposed, must be shocking to reason and humanity, and a monster infinitely more fierce and mishapen than even the Leviathan of Hobbes. Our nature turns from it with terror and abhorrence, as a thing hideous to the imagination and heart of man.

Some religion therefore the constitution must choose. But there are certain difficulties in relation to the extent of this right to choose a religion, which have given society no small disturbance, and which are not yet adjusted.

There is certainly a wide difference as to the merits of various religions; I mean such merits, more especially, as come under the political consideration of a civil community; for while some systems of religion tend more or less to promote honesty, and preserve the public peace; others, for instance Popery, by I know not what species of superstition, priestcraft, and dispensing powers, tend as directly to frustrate the good intention of the laws, to pervert dr nullify the power of the magistrates, and, in the end, to dissolve society. It therefore seems a thing evident to common sense, that as one sort of religion may greatly hurt, and another as considerably serve society, society ought to lend its countenance and encouragement to such principles of religion, and such only as are most likely to promote social virtue, and civil obedience. But to what degree of encouragement, on the one side, or discountenance, on the other, society may or ought to proceed, is a point which concerns us all thoroughly to consider; and on which, therefore, I beg leave to enter a little, promising to avoid prolixity as much as the nature of the subject will permit.

If a religion is to be chosen by the state, it must be by the supreme power. But if this power shall attempt to impose its own religious choice universally on all its members, it will thereby effectually frustrate all the ends and intentions of religion; because the force of religion, on the conscience proceeds from the belief of its coming from God, and being derived from divine authority; which can never be the case, where it is manifestly imposed by the civil power. For though it were really and truly a divine revelation, yet if it came to those, who are not yet convinced of its truth, in the form of a statute or human law, it must expect a very cold reception. Our inward thoughts have a right to be free; and if the magistrate shall presume to exercise the same dominion over them that he does over our outward actions, they will give a strong resistance, as well when he imposes the belief of what is true, as that which is false.

Besides, if that, which should be derived from divine authority, be transferred and founded on mere human power, the people who are to receive it immediately from the hands of the magistrate, and who, generally speaking, can look no higher than the hand that is next, and delivers it immediately to themselves, will never embrace it instead of their old religion, which they believe to be from God. Civil power, therefore, can be no instrument of conversion.

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A religion imposed by the magistrate might, indeed, be outwardly professed by some; but could only teach them falsehood and hypocrisy; so far would it be from inspiring them with that honesty and virtue which the well-being of society so necessarily requires.

All revealed religion is founded on faith: now faith can never be the matter or object of human law. There is no commanding one to believe. Such a usurpation on the mind, which can only believe on credibilities, would rather prevent and hinder belief; because it would immediately be supposed, that a religion, relying on such foreign helps, had no truth nor likelihood of its own to support it.

A system of religious principles, imposed by the magistrate, could, at least, have but the force and virtue of a human law; and, consequently, could never reach the conscience; could never guard the society from secret frauds;

could never establish a court in the heart, sufficient to see justice done in times and places that are out of the reach of the civil court.

The use of religion to society, is, to support and enforce the laws by a higher law, a law of conscience. But this it can never do, if it is to borrow its own force and authority from those very human laws which it ought to back and fortify with the strength of an obligation superior to that with which they are imposed.

No power but that of the Divine can impose a religion. God, we see, distinguished between his own power and that of human laws, when he imposed the Christian. He supported it with miracles, which were the signs and credentials of his authority, which no civil power could counterfeit; nay, he planted and established his religion in direct opposition to all civil power. Thus only the mind can be convinced thus only the conscience and the heart can be converted. As to the magistrate, or the legislature, they can only give the encouragement of the state to the professors of that religion they like best; and leave others to their own consciences or humours, without attempting either to entice or terrify them into a conformity with their establishment.

The civil magistrate, therefore, cannot impose a religion; and yet, if he establishes no religion, but leaves the power of the constitution to be shared by the professors of any religion, he will soon find the constitution destroyed by that which alone can preserve it: for,

The professors of each religion will either be zealous for it, or they will not; if they will not, then there is, in effect, no religion in the society. A religion merely professed, but neither preferred to other religions, nor zealously loved and adhered to, can have no influence on the lives of its professors; can neither make them honest, nor answer any ends of the society. Such a lukewarmness is next to infidelity; in which it must soon end, if some novelty in religion do not prevent it, and excite a new spirit. Nay, I will be bold to say, that, unless a man loves his religion more than riches, power, in short, than every thing in the world; unless he is more afraid of acting against its rules, than of offending the greatest man on earth, or all mankind; unless

it hath engaged and subdued all his affections, and attached to itself the whole force of all his passions; it can by no means make him a good member of society, although it is the only thing that can.

But if each religious system is zealously maintained, it must also be warmly contended for, by its adherents: for such is the nature of man, that, generally speaking, he cannot help thinking his disputing, or even fighting, for his religion, must be highly serviceable to it, and therefore his duty; and no doubt so it is, as often as the tongues, the pens, or the swords, of its adversaries happen to be em.ployed against it. Contentions about religion, if they were confined to words only, would not much concern society. But this is not always the case. They frequently end in the most outrageous battles and bloodshed; for wars, commenced on religious differences, are always the most bitter and furious. The souls on each side are engaged, as well as the bodies; and the spirit of opposition is strained infinitely higher than when mere earthly possessions are contended for, by the imagination that the glory of God, and heaven itself, are at stake.

Now the society has no other way of guarding against the mischievous effects of these religious bickerings, and preventing its own ruin, but by restraining the civil power to the professors of one religion. By this means the rest, having no power, can give no disturbance; and lest they should be disturbed by the established party, such laws must be provided, as may not only secure to them their own possessions on the same footing with the rest of their fellowsubjects, but also effectually secure to them the free and peaceable exercise of those several religions their consciences have embraced. If this be not done, the power of the society, which ought by all means to be firmly and inseparably united, will be unavoidably divided, and divided too by such a cause of division, as will set it in the most direct and fierce opposition to itself. When religious differences tear the members of any society asunder, if the civil power be parcelled out among them, no civil expedient will be strong enough to keep them together.

If, to clear up the afore-mentioned difficulties, we would