8. Of this we take the nine months reign of the emperor Jovianus to be an excellent demonstration; whose great wisdom, and admirable prudence in granting toleration, expresly saying, "He would have none

molested for the exercise of their religion, calmed the impetuous storms of diffention betwixt the Homooufians and Arrians; and reduced the whole empire, before agitated with all kind of commotions during the reigns of Constantine, Conftantius, and Julian, to a wonderful serenity and peace, as Socrates Scholasticus affirms,

9. That little kingdom of Ægypt had no less than forty thousand persons retired to their private and separate ways of worship, as Eusebius, out of Philo Judæus and Jofephus, relates.

10. And here let me bring in honest Chaucer, whose matter (and not his poetry) heartily affects me: it was in a time when priests were as rich and lofty as they are now, and causes of evil alike.

THE time was once, and may return again,

(for oft may happen that hath been beforn)
when shepherds bad none inberitance,
ne of land, nor fee in sufferance,
But what might arise of the bare sheep,
( were it more or less) which they did keep,
Well ywis it with foepberds tho' :
nought having, nought fear'd they to forgo,
For PAN (God) himself was their inheritance,

and little them feru'd for their maintenance,
The shepherd's God so well them guided,

that of nought were they unprovided;

Butter enough, honey, milk, and whay,

and their flock fleeces them to array.

* The primitive state of things, observed by a poet, more than 300 years old, by which the clergy may read their own apoftacy and character.

• Time and prosperity corrupted them, and then they grew fatesmen.

But

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But trait of time and long prosperity,

(that nurse of vice, this of infolency) Lulled the shepherds in such security,

that not content with loyal obeysance, Some gan to gap for greedy governance, ,

and match themselves with mighty potentates.

Lovers of lordships and troublers of states ;

then gan shepherds swains to look aloft, And leave to live hard, and learn to lig soft,

though under colour of Mepherds same while There crept in Wolves full of fraud and guile,

that often devour'd their own sheep, And often the shepherd that did them keep.

This was the first source of the shepherds forrow,

that nor will be quit, with bale nor borrow.

11. Who knows not that our first reformers were great champions for Liberty of Conscience? as Wickliff in his remonftrance to the parliament; the Albigenses to Lewis the 11th and 12th of France : Luther to the several diets under Frederick and Charles the fifth; Calvin to Francis the first; and many of our English martyrs, as the poor “ Plowman's Famous

Complaint,” in “ Foxe's Martyrology,” &c. 12. The present affairs of Germany plainly tell

us, that toleration is the preservation of their states; the contrary having formerly almost quite wasted them.

13. The same in France : who can be so ignorant of their story, as not to know that the timely indulgence of Henry the Fourth, and the discreet toleration of

It was now they began to persecute ; they hated any that were more devout than themselves : devotion was counted disaffection ; religious assemblies, conventicles; primitive-spirited Christians, upstart hereticks : thus the tragedy began, Cain naying. Abel about religion.

He truly maketh their avariçe the cause of their degeneration ; for it is the root of all evil.

Richlieu

Richlieu and Mazarin, saved that kingdom from being ruined, both by the Spaniards and one another ?.

14. Holland, than which what place is there so improved in wealth, trade and power, chiefly owes it to her indulgence in matters of faith and worship.

15. Among the very Mahometans of Turkey and Persia, what variety of opinions, yet what unity and concord is there? We mean in matters of a civil importance.

16. It was the opinion of that great master of the « fentences,” Dominicus à Soto, “That every man • had a natural right to instruct others in things that

are good: and he may teach the gospel-truths also, but cannot compel any to believe them; he may explain them: and to this, (says he) every man has

a right,' as in his 4 Sent. dift. 5. art. 13. pag. 115. 7.

17. Strifes about religion,' said judicious and learned Grotius, ' are the most pernicious and destructive, ' where provision is not made for Dissenters: the con• trary most happy; as in Muscovy.' He farther says, upon the occasion of Campanella, “That not a rigid, • but easy government, fuits best with the northern

people.' He often pleads the relaxation of temporary laws to be reasonable and necessary; as in the case of the Curatii and Horatii, and Fabius Vitulanus ; and others stinted to time and place, as the Jewish laws, &c. Polit. Maxims, p. 12, 18, 78, 98.

18. The famous Raleigh tells us, “That the way • for magistrates to govern well, and gain the esteem ? of their people, is to govern by piery, justice, wif' dom, and a gentle and moderate carriage towards < them: and that disturbance attends those states, < were men are raised, or depressed by parties.' See his observations and maxims of state.

19. If I mistake not, the French and Dutch Proteftants enjoy their separate ways of worship in London, if not in other parts of these lands, without molestation: we do the like in remote countries, “but not « in our own,"

20. This

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20. This must needs be the meaning of the learned doctor to his inquisitive student, in their judicious dialogue about the fundamental laws of the kingdoms, when he says, “That such laws as have not their foundation in nature, justice and reason, are void, ipfa fa£to' And whether persecution or restraint upon conscience be congruous with either, let the impartial judge, Lib. 1. chap. 6.

21. Doctor Hammond himself, and the grand patron of the English church, was so far from urging the legality of restriction in matters relating to conscience, that he writ, argued, and left upon his dyingbed, his sense to the contrary; as the author of his life might have been pleased to observe, but that interest stood in the way; the doctor exhorting his party, • not to seek to displace those then in the University,

or to persecute them for any matter of religious difference.

22. That a person of no less ability, in the Irish Protestant church, did the same, I mean Dr. Jer. Taylor, his whole discourse of “ Liberty of Prophecy,” is a most pregnant demonstration.

23. It was the saying of a person once, too great to be named now, "That Liberty of Conscience is every ç man's natural right; and he who is deprived of it,

is a Nave in the midst of the greatest liberty; and ! since every man should do as he would be done to, { such only do not deserve to have it, that will not ' give it.'

24. Lactanțius reflects upon persecutors thus, 'If

you will with blood, with evil, and with torments ! defend your worship, it shall not thereby be des ( fended, but polluted.' Lib. 5. cap. 20.

25. Hillary against Auxentius faith, The Christian ( church does not persecute, but is persecuted,'

26. Jerom, thus; · Heresy must be cut off with the sword of the spirit. Proæm. lib. 4.

27. Chryfoftom faith, “That it is not the manner of r the children of God to persecute about their reli

<

gion, but an evident token of antichrift.' Relig. Urif. pag. 192.

28. Stephen, king of Poland, declared his mind in the point controverted, thus ; I am king of men,

not of conscience; a commander of bodies, not of fouls.'

29. The king of Bohemia was of opinion, "That « men's consciences ought in no fort to be violated, ' urged, or constrained.

30, And lastly, let me add (as what is, or should be now, of more force) the sense of king James and Charles the First, men famed for their great natural abilities and acquired learning, that no man ought to be punished for his religion, nor disturbed for his conscience; in that it is the duty of every man to give what he would receive. • It is a sure rule in divinity ( said king James, that God never loves to plant his s church by violence and bloodshed.' And in his Exposition on Revel. 20. he faith, That persecution is

the note of a false church.' And in the last king's advice to the present king, he says, " Take heed of

abetting any factions : your partial adhering to any o one side, gains you not so great advantages in some • men's hearts, (who are prone to be of their king's

religion) as it loseth you in others, who think them.
selves and their profession first despised, then perle-
cuted by you.'
Again, Beware of exasperating any factions, by

the crossness and asperity of some men's passions, « humours, or private opinions employed by you,

grounded only upon their difference in lesser mat, ters, which are but the skirts and suburbs of religion; wherein a charitable connivance, and Christian tole,

ration, often dissipates their strength, whom rougher r opposition fortifies; and puts the despised and op< pressed party into such combinations as may most • enable them to get a full revenge on those they

count their persecutors; who are commonly aslifted « by that vulgar cornmiferation which attends all that are said to suffer under the notion of religion.'

• Always