of the Church? And yet there’s no avoiding this, if we admit the literal Sense of the Parable. All their Violences and Barbaritys must be so many reputed Acts of Piety, and of filial Obedience to the Son of God. We are constrain’d then to affirm, that the literal Sense is not only a false Interpretation of Scripture, but an execrable Impiety to boot. <99>
We have by this time partly seen how very odious this pretended Precept of JESUS CHRIST must needs render his Religion to all the World: I shall now, from what has bin said in the former Chapter, draw a new Argument in the matter before us.
All literal Sense of Scripture including an universal Command, which cannot be practis’d without a Complication of Crimes, must needs be false.
Now the literal Sense of the Words, Compel ’em to come in, is of this kind:
It’s therefore false.
The major Proposition carries its own Evidence; so that ’tis needless insisting on proof. Let’s proceed then to the second Proposition, tho there’s no need of dwelling long upon this, because ’tis partly clear’d already by the several Proofs advanc’d in the former Chapters, and that, properly speaking, it’s only a branch of my general Medium. It won’t trouble me, if I am accus’d of multiplying my Proofs without necessity; I’l rather bear this reproach, than leave several Faces of my general Argument shaded and in-<100>volv’d. ’Twill certainly have the greater force, if every Part is considered separately.
The greatest Patrons of Persecution will own, that the Order of Compelling has not bin committed to the discretion of every private Person: So that shou’d I reproach ’em with the sad Disorders which are apt to spring from their Principle thro popular Tumults, or thro the blind Zeal of a giddy Curate, or Portrieve of a Town, who as often as the maggot bites might raise the Mob upon all the Sectarys within his Jurisdiction; they’l tell me, they have quite a different Notion of the matter: Their Sense of it, they’l say, is, that JESUS CHRIST directs the Command only to those who have the power of the Sword in every Country, and who are entrusted with the Civil Authority, to whom the Spiritual Guides are to apply themselves, when ’tis expedient, to compel Hereticks. Let’s see then whether with this Limitation, which strikes off the whole Article of popular Fury, and private Violence at once, there still remains not a strange Complication of Crimes in the regular way, according to our Adversarys, of executing this Order of JESUS CHRIST. I shall even carry my Complaisance for ’em so far, as not to alledg those sanguinary wholesale Executions which History furnishes; but confine my self to that which they reckon the most orderly and most moderate of the kind, to wit, the present Persecution in France.
Good God! What Iniquity, what Crime has bin uncommitted in the course of this regular Persecution? How many Orders of Council, void of all Sincerity and good Faith? How many Decrees of Parliament contrary to the establish’d <101> Rules? How many Subornations of Witnesses? How many vexatious Prosecutions? Nor can it be pretended that these are personal Faults in those who have the Executive part, since they are the natural and unavoidable Consequences of the literal Sense they give to the Parable. In effect, this Sense importing, as they pretend, a general Right of Compelling, it’s left to the Discretion and Zeal of the Prince in each Country, to make choice of that method of Compulsion which to him seems properest. The method they begun with in France, was by Proceedings against the Ministers and Temples, and by Civil Actions against private Partys. Here’s a Choice founded upon the words of JESUS CHRIST: it follows then, that the ways devis’d for compelling under this Head, are Dependances on the first Choice; and if these be so far necessary, that without ’em there cou’d be no Compulsion, it’s plain they are the natural and regular Consequences of the Command of JESUS CHRIST, and not any personal Obliquity in him who executes the Command. For it’s plain, this Method had bin too gentle and unoperative, were the Rules of Equity and upright Dealing observ’d in the Courts of Law. And yet a compulsive Virtue in it being absolutely necessary to answer the Intention of the Command, ’twas consequently necessary to mingle all the Arts of Fraud and Collusion, that the temporal damage done the Protestants by the Wager of Law might constrain ’em to turn Catholicks.
Now what a train of Crimes besides hangs after this method, which we suppose chosen in execution of the Command of God? For can <102> any one doubt but this must raise a thousand Passions in the Souls of those who suffer, and in the Souls of those who are the Authors of their Sufferings? Must not this exasperate the Spirits of both sides, kindle a deadly Hatred to one another, force ’em to traduce and slander each other, and become mutually wickeder and worse Christians than they were before? Supposing Popery the true Religion, must not these Proceedings tempt the Hereticks, who suffer, to blaspheme it in their Heart, to detest it, and thereby bring ’em under a proximate Occasion of sinning and stiffning in their Heresy? Wou’d People but think a little of this, I persuade my self they’d agree that nothing tends more to the banishing from the Hearts of Men that Gospel-Peace of Heart, that Calm of the human Passions which is the surest Foundation of a Spirit of Piety, and the proper Soil of all Christian Vertues.
Yet this is nothing in comparison of that Deluge of Iniquity which in the issue overspread the Kingdom, when they proceeded to force the Protestants, by the quartering of Soldiers, to renounce their Religion. For on the one hand, what Insolences, what Outrages did not these Soldiers commit; and on the other, how much Hypocrisy, how much Profaneness were the Protestants guilty of who sign’d? What Intemperance, what Rapines, what Blasphemys did these Soldiers stick at; what Injurys and Crueltys to their Neighbor? Must we place the Disorders committed by ’em to the account of the Persecution or no? I wou’d fain know how a Confessor behaves himself, when a Dragoon confesses he has buffeted his Hugonot Landlord. If the Father <103> looks not on this as a Sin, he falls into the Absurdity I have spoke to sufficiently already, to wit, That an Action, which might be a Crime in any other case, ceases to be so, when committed against one of a false Religion, with a design of bringing him over to the true: An Absurdity, which opens a door to the fearfullest State ’tis possible to imagine. If the Confessor accounts it a Sin, as in reason he ought, it follows, that the late Persecution has necessarily and unavoidably oblig’d the Soldiers to commit an infinite number of Sins; since it was absolutely necessary to distress their Landlords either in Body or Goods, else there had bin no Constraint, nor had the Command of the Son of God bin obey’d. Whether the Dragoon confess the Injury he did his Neighbor or no, it’s all one; his Action is equally opposite to another Gospel-Command, of not doing wrong to our Neighbor.
The Question may possibly be here ask’d, Whether a Dragoon, in executing the Orders of his Prince, may not innocently drub his Landlord; as he might innocently have hang’d him, if duly appointed to be the Executioner? To this I answer, (1.) Be that how it will, still the Insolences of these Soldiers are Sins in him who authorizes ’em; so that the number of Crimes is still the same. In the second place, there’s as much certainty as we can have of any human thing, that all the Abuses and ill Treatment committed to the discretion of these Soldiers will become Sins in them, because they’l undoubtedly execute their Orders with pleasure, and even exceed ’em. A Hangman who executes a Criminal innocently, when he only acts in obedience to the <104> Sentence of Justice, sins manifestly against Charity and against his Duty towards his Neighbor, if he takes pleasure in performing his Office, if he be glad of the occasion, and studies how to aggravate
