Not even Americans,subjected unto a Christian prince,are to be punished either in body or goods for not embracing our faith and worship.If they are persuaded that they please God in observing the rites of their own country and that they shall obtain happiness by that means,they are to be left unto God and themselves.Let us trace this matter to the bottom.
Thus it is:An inconsiderable and weak number of Christians,destitute of everything,arrive in a Pagan country;these foreigners beseech the inhabitants,by the bowels of humanity,that they would succour them with the necessaries of life;those necessaries are given them,habitations are granted,and they all join together,and grow up into one body of people.
The Christian religion by this means takes root in that country and spreads itself,but does not suddenly grow the strongest.While things are in this condition peace,friendship,faith,and equal justice are preserved amongst them.At length the magistrate becomes a Christian,and by that means their party becomes the most powerful.Then immediately all compacts are to be broken,all civil rights to be violated,that idolatry may be extirpated;and unless these innocent Pagans,strict observers of the rules of equity and the law of Nature and no ways offending against the laws of the society,I say,unless they will forsake their ancient religion and embrace a new and strange one,they are to be turned out of the lands and possessions of their forefathers and perhaps deprived of life itself.Then,at last,it appears what zeal for the Church,joined with the desire of dominion,is capable to produce,and how easily the pretence of religion,and of the care of souls,serves for a cloak to covetousness,rapine,and ambition.Now whosoever maintains that idolatry is to be rooted out of any place by laws,punishments,fire,and sword,may apply this story to himself.
For the reason of the thing is equal,both in America and Europe.And neither Pagans there,nor any dissenting Christians here,can,with any right,be deprived of their worldly goods by the predominating faction of a court-church;nor are any civil rights to be either changed or violated upon account of religion in one place more than another.But idolatry,say some,is a sin and therefore not to be tolerated.
If they said it were therefore to be avoided,the inference were good.
But it does not follow that because it is a sin it ought therefore to be punished by the magistrate.For it does not belong unto the magistrate to make use of his sword in punishing everything,indifferently,that he takes to be a sin against God.Covetousness,uncharitableness,idleness,and many other things are sins by the consent of men,which yet no man ever said were to be punished by the magistrate.The reason is because they are not prejudicial to other men's rights,nor do they break the public peace of societies.Nay,even the sins of lying and perjury are nowhere punishable by laws;unless,in certain cases,in which the real turpitude of the thing and the offence against God are not considered,but only the injury done unto men's neighbours and to the commonwealth.And what if in another country,to a Mahometan or a Pagan prince,the Christian religion seem false and offensive to God;may not the Christians for the same reason,and after the same manner,be extirpated there?But it may be urged farther that,by the law of Moses,idolaters were to be rooted out.True,indeed,by the law of Moses;but that is not obligatory to us Christians.Nobody pretends that everything generally enjoined by the law of Moses ought to be practised by Christians;but there is nothing more frivolous than that common distinction of moral,judicial,and ceremonial law,which men ordinarily make use of.For no positive law whatsoever can oblige any people but those to whom it is given."Hear,O Israel,"sufficiently restrains the obligations of the law of Moses only to that people.And this consideration alone is answer enough unto those that urge the authority of the law of Moses for the inflicting of capital punishment upon idolaters.
But,however,I will examine this argument a little more particularly.The case of idolaters,in respect of the Jewish commonwealth,falls under a double consideration.The first is of those who,being initiated in the Mosaical rites,and made citizens of that commonwealth,did afterwards apostatise from the worship of the God of Israel.These were proceeded against as traitors and rebels,guilty of no less than high treason.For the commonwealth of the Jews,different in that from all others,was an absolute theocracy;nor was there,or could there be,any difference between that commonwealth and the Church.The laws established there concerning the worship of One Invisible Deity were the civil laws of that people and a part of their political government,in which God Himself was the legislator.