Extract of Remarks by Mr. Wieland.

The reflections that must crowd upon the mind of every thinking reader, on perusing this credible though too uncircumstancial account, are in no need, it is to be hoped, of any obstetrical assistance. We will only take the liberty to offer a few questions to the common sense of our readers, of whatever party, religion, or tribe they may be. What is the toleration about which there has been so much writing and noise in our days? Is it merely the arbitrary favour of a monarch who can do whatever he will—or a duty arising from an unalienable right of man, the right to liberty of conscience? Have they who profess themselves to be of the Augsburg, or of the Helvetic confession, any other and better right to be tolerated than the general right of every man, by virtue whereof he cannot be compelled by outward acts to declare that to be true which he is persuaded in his mind to be conceit and error? Does the law of nature allow the setting bounds to liberty of conscience? And (if any one should think he may reply to this question in the affirmative) whereon can this right of setting bounds to liberty of conscience be founded? What is a liberty which may be confined within as narrow bounds as he chuses who has the authority in his hands?

Methinks all these questions are easily to be answered. What decides in this matter is either ratio status, or common sense. If the former, and it depends solely on the will of a ruler, or on his opinion of political conveniency, whether the persons who live under his government ought, or ought not, to have liberty of belief or conscience; then it is clear that it also depends on his will to revoke the imparted liberty, whenever his judgment concerning what he holds to be compatible with his political interest, shall alter. Let who will rejoice in such a liberty!-But, to speak roundly and honestly on the subject, it is absurd to say, "that liberty of belief depends on any man's will." It is an universal, inborn, unalienable right of human nature. He that has the right to fetch his breath, to see with his eyes, to go upon his feet, &c. he has also the right to believe what he believes, and is not obliged to give any man an account of his belief. All religions are grounded upon opinion and belief. Were they grounded on mathematical certainty, on complete and palpable evidence, then there would never have been more than one sole religion in the world. As this is not the case, then has every man the right to be of that

The "Prospect," from which this extract is taken, does not particularize this Mr. Wieland. It is presumed to be the celebrated German writer of that

name.

opinion, in religious matters, i. e. in all that concerns his belief in the Supreme Being and his relation towards him, of the truth whereof he feels himself convinced, and whereby his mind and conscience are composed. The man that has other religious opinions cannot indeed fail of believing that the former is mistaken; he is even at liberty to acquaint him with his opinion: but he has no right to force him to his opinion. The legislator in any civil society has no right to do this. He has no right to establish any religion by compulsory laws, and none to hinder or suppress any by compulsory laws. The established religion is nothing more than the religion of the majority; and the epithet dominant connected with religion is complete nonsense. For no religion can have a right to dominate over another. The ruler, as sovereign of the state, is protector and overseer of religion. The former he is inasmuch as the general duty is incumbent on him, to protect every member of the state in all his rights, i. e. not to permit that he be deprived of their enjoyment, or disturbed in it. He is therefore obliged to protect every individual in that religion which he has; and if two hundred religions were to start up at once in his dominions, all the two hundred have equal right to his protection.

All these positions are natural and mostly immediate consequences from the incontrovertable axiom: "Opinion and belief, by the very nature of them, cannot be subject to any outward coercion." Their application to the Bohemian deists follows of itself. However, such a number as fifty-two families of Bohemian countrymen, who publicly and before their magistrate make profession of deism, is so extraordinary and singular a phenomenon in the moral world, that nothing is more natural and reasonable than the wish to be exactly and consistently informed of all the circumstances of the transaction with these Bohemian deists. How came such a rude people as the Bohemian boors are usually represented to be, and how came precisely these 52 families at Rockitno and Chwoynetch, in the Krudimer circle, to embrace so simple and philosophical a religion? The reasons assigned by the excellent bishop of Koenigsgrætz, may be indeed but too well founded: but it seems as if there must have been nearer and more determinate causes for producing so extraordinary an effect. These fifty-two deistical boor-families declared themselves it is said, directly against the general belief of Christians; and therefore, it is presumable, did not partake, or at least would not in future partake in the public worship of christians. But would they set up no social religious exercises in its stead? or in what might these have consisted ?—Farther: What interpretation are we to put upon the persecution of their families, of which they are accused? How could people who themselves could hope to be tolerated no otherwise than by virtue of the law of nature, which exempts the human intellect

from all constraint, how came they to fall on the senseless thought of forcing their families to embrace deism? It must be confessed, that the accusation, though it contains nothing impossible, yet is very little probable. No less were it to be wished that the world were more accurately informed, wherein the seduction consisted which they are charged with having used towards other neighbouring congregations Nothing is more natural and allowable than that one who belives his own to be the best way of walking, should shew it (as occasion offers) to another, who, according to his opinion, walks wrong. This is no more seduction than it would be seduction if I, for example, should unreservedly impart to a catholic who should afford me an opportunity thereto, the causes wherefore, according to my conviction, I cannot be a catholic; even supposing this should lead to discussion, that might make my Catholic waver in his faith. To converse with one another on religious opinions, to give reasons to each other, to examine and endeavour to refute the counter-reasons of the other, and the like, is no seduction. But there are men in office and parish priests in the world who do not so nicely mince matters. I am very far from intending to say, that the priest and seneschal mentioned in the foregoing letter were actually in this predicament. But as there is always a possibility of it, it were well if the public were put in a condition of doing justice to these gentlemen. Also the manner and way in which the abovementioned deists were treated by the magistracy, after they had declared themselves as such, and laid claim to the general right of toleration that belongs to all men in religious matters? How their transposition to Transylvania was managed? How much or how little mildness or severity was shewn to them on that occasion? And what may have been the true cause why nothing further has been heard of these people?-All these are questions, the circumstantial impartial and authenticated answers to which are so much the more earnestly to be desired, as the whole of this transaction seems deserving, above a thousand others, of being preserved in the annals of mankind.

GALILEO.

Superstition has always been at war with science--this will be extremely evident if we resort to the declarations of the bible and the decisions of ecclesiastical councils in its favour. All heritics are proscribed by the church and denounced as bad men.— But what is heresy, or what is it to be a bad man in the estimation of the church? The following bitter decree against Galileo, one of the greatest men that ever existed on earth, will demonstrate sufficiently the rancorous hostility in which christian superstition formerly indulged itself. If modern christian philosophers have become more civil, it is because the demonstrations of Newton and others have thrown in the way an everlasting bar to their calumnies against these physical truths. The following is the decree to which we have reference.-Editor of the Prospect.

The following literary curiosity is said to be a correct translation of the famous sentence of the inquisition passed upon Galileo for his heretical opinions in astronomy and natural philosophy.

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We, Gaspar, of the title of the holy cross of Jerusalem, Borgia, brother Felix Certinus, of the title of St. Anastatia, sirnamed of Asculum.

Guides of the title of St. Mary, of the people, Bentivolus, brother Desiderius Coaglia, of the title of Saint Charles, sirnamed of Cremona.

Brother Antonius Barbarinas, sirnamed of St. Onuphrins, Landivions Zacchia, of the title of St. Peter in Vinculis, sirnamed of St. Sixtus.

Belingerious, of the title of St. Augustine Gyposius.
Fabaricius of St. Lawrence.

Francis of St. Lawrence.

Martin of the new St. Mary and Ginethis, Deacons, by the mercy of God, cardinals of the holy Roman catholic church, and specially deputed by the holy apostolical See, as inquisitors general against heretical perverseness throughout the whole Christian commonwealth.

Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vincent Galileo, of Florence, being seventy years of age, had a charge brought against you, in the year 1615, in this holy office, that you held as true an erroneous opinion held by many namely, that the sun is the centre of the world, and immoveable, and that the earth moves even with a diurnal motion: also, that you had certain scholars into whom you instilled the same doctrine: also, that you maintained a correspondence on this point with certain mathematicians of Germany : also, that you published certain epistles, treating of the solar spots, in which you explained the same doctrine as true, because you answered to the objections which, from time to time were brought against you, taken from the holy scripture, by glossing over the said scripture according to your own sense; and that afterwards, when a copy of writing in the form of an epistle, written by you to a certain great scholar of yours was presented to you (it following the hypothesis of Copernicus) you stood up for and defended certain propositions in it, which are against the true sense and authority of the holy scripture.

This holy tribunal desiring, therefore, to provide against the inconveniences and mischief, which have issued hence, and increased to the danger of our holy faith-agreeable to the mandate of Lord N―, and the very eminent doctors, cardinals of this supreme and universal inquisition, two propositions respecting the immobility of the sun, and the motion of the earth, were propounded, as under :

That the sun is in the centre of the world, and immoveable in respect to local motion, is an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, and formerly heretical, seeing it is expressly contrary to holy scripture.

That the earth is not the centre of the world, nor immoveable, but moves even with a diurnal motion, is also an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, and considered theologically, is at least an error in faith.

To the end such pernicious doctrine might be intirely extirpated, and spread no farther to the grevious detrement of the catholic verity, a decree was issued by the holy congregation Indicis, prohibiting the printing of books which treat of such sort of doctrine which was therein pronounced false, and altogether contrary to holy and divine scripture.

But that your grievous and pernicious error and transgression may not remain unpunished, and that you may hereafter be more cautious, serving as an example to others, that they may abstain from the like offences, we decree that the book of the dialogue of Galileo be prohibited by public edict, and we condemn yourself to the prison of this holy office, to a time to be limited by our discretion; and we enjoin, under the title of salutary penance, that during three years to come, you recite once a week, the seven