Nor does the frivolous and fallacious distinction between the Court and the Church afford any remedy to this inconvenience;especially when both the one and the other are equally subject to the absolute authority of the same person,who has not only power to persuade the members of his Church to whatsoever he lists,either as purely religious,or in order thereunto,but can also enjoin it them on pain of eternal fire.It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion,but in everything else a faithful subject to a Christian magistrate,whilst at the same time he acknowledges himself bound to yield blind obedience to the Mufti of Constantinople,who himself is entirely obedient to the Ottoman Emperor and frames the feigned oracles of that religion according to his pleasure.But this Mahometan living amongst Christians would yet more apparently renounce their government if he acknowledged the same person to be head of his Church who is the supreme magistrate in the state.Lastly,those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of a God.Promises,covenants,and oaths,which are the bonds of human society,can have no hold upon an atheist.The taking away of God,though but even in thought,dissolves all;besides also,those that by their atheism undermine and destroy all religion,can have no pretence of religion whereupon to challenge the privilege of a toleration.As for other practical opinions,though not absolutely free from all error,if they do not tend to establish domination over others,or civil impunity to the Church in which they are taught,there can be no reason why they should not be tolerated.It remains that I say something concerning those assemblies which,being vulgarly called and perhaps having sometimes been conventicles and nurseries of factions and seditions,are thought to afford against this doctrine of toleration.But this has not happened by anything peculiar unto the genius of such assemblies,but by the unhappy circumstances of an oppressed or ill-settled liberty.These accusations would soon cease if the law of toleration were once so settled that all Churches were obliged to lay down toleration as the foundation of their own liberty,and teach that liberty of conscience is every man's natural right,equally belonging to dissenters as to themselves;and that nobody ought to be compelled in matters of religion either by law or force.The establishment of this one thing would take away all ground of complaints and tumults upon account of conscience;and these causes of discontents and animosities being once removed,there would remain nothing in these assemblies that were not more peaceable and less apt to produce disturbance of state than in any other meetings whatsoever.
But let us examine particularly the heads of these accusations.You will say that assemblies and meetings endanger the public peace and threaten the commonwealth.I answer:If this be so,why are there daily such numerous meetings in markets and Courts of Judicature?Why are crowds upon the Exchange and a concourse of people in cities suffered?You will reply:"Those are civil assemblies,but these we object against are ecclesiastical."I answer:It is a likely thing,indeed,that such assemblies as are altogether remote from civil affairs should be most apt to embroil them.Oh,but civil assemblies are composed of men that differ from one another in matters of religion,but these ecclesiastical meetings are of persons that are all of one opinion.As if an agreement in matters of religion were in effect a conspiracy against the commonwealth;or as if men would not be so much the more warmly unanimous in religion the less liberty they had of assembling.
But it will be urged still that civil assemblies are open and free for any one to enter into,whereas religious conventicles are more private and thereby give opportunity to clandestine machinations.I answer that this is not strictly true,for many civil assemblies are not open to everyone.
