Franco-Gallia | Page 4

Estate, or that whatever he does (how wicked soever) is just: but
the Meaning is, he has no lawful Power to do such Things; and our
Constitution considers no Power as irresistible, but what is lawful.
And since Religion is become a great and universal Concern, and
drawn into our Government, as it affects every single Man's
Conscience; tho my private Opinion, they ought not to be mingled, nor
to have any thing to do with each other; (I do not speak of our Church
Polity, which is a Part of our State, and dependent upon it) some
account must be given of that Matter.
Whiggism is not circumscrib'd and confin'd to any one or two of the
Religions now profess'd in the World, but diffuses it self among all. We
have known Jews, Turks, nay, some Papists, (which I own to be a great
Rarity) very great Lovers of the Constitution and Liberty; and were
there rational Grounds to expect, that any Numbers of them cou'd be so,
I shou'd be against using Severities and Distinctions upon Account of
Religion. For a Papist is not dangerous, nor ought to be ill us'd by any
body, because he prays to Saints, believes Purgatory, or the real
Presence in the Eucharist, and pays Divine Worship to an Image or
Picture (which are the common Topicks of our Writers of Controversy
against the Papists;) but because Popery sets up a _foreign Jurisdiction
paramount to our Laws. So that a real Papist_ can neither be a true
Governor of a Protestant Country, nor a true Subject, and besides, is

the most Priest-Ridden Creature in the World: and (when uppermost)
can bear with no body that differs from him in Opinion; little
considering, that whosoever is against Liberty of Mind, is, in effect,
against Liberty of Body too. And therefore all Penal Acts of Parliament
for Opinions purely religious, which have no Influence on the State, are
so many Encroachments upon Liberty, whilst those which restrain Vice
and Injustice are against Licentiousness.
I profess my self to have always been a Member of the Church of
England and am for supporting it in all its Honours, Privileges and
Revenues: but as a Christian and a Whig, I must have Charity for those
that differ from me in religious Opinions, whether Pagans, Turks, Jews,
Papists, Quakers, Socinians, Presbyterians, or others. I look upon
Bigotry to have always been the very Bane of human Society, and the
Offspring of Interest and Ignorance, which has occasion'd most of the
great Mischiefs that have afflicted Mankind. We ought no more to
expect to be all of one Opinion, as to the Worship of the Deity, than to
be all of one Colour or Stature. To stretch or narrow any Man's
Conscience to the Standard of our own, is no less a Piece of Cruelty
than that of Procrustes the Tyrant of Attica, who used to fit his Guests
to the Length of his own Iron Bedsted, either by cutting them shorter,
or racking them longer. What just Reason can I have to be angry with,
to endeavour to curb the natural Liberty, or to retrench the Civil
Advantages of an honest Man (who follows the golden Rule, of doing
to others, as he wou'd have others do to him, and is willing and able to
serve the Publick) only because he thinks his Way to Heaven surer or
shorter than mine? No body can tell which of us is mistaken, till the
Day of Judgment, or whether any of us be so (for there may be different
Ways to the same End, and I am not for circumscribing God Almighty's
Mercy:) This I am sure of, one shall meet with the same Positiveness in
Opinion, in some of the Priests of all these Sects; The same Want of
Charity, engrossing Heaven by way of Monopoly to their own
Corporation, and managing it by a joint Stock, exclusive of all others
(as pernicious in Divinity as in trade, and perhaps more) The same
Pretences to _Miracles, Martyrs, Inspirations, Merits, Mortifications,
Revelations, Austerity, Antiquity_, &c. (as all Persons conversant with
History, or that travel, know to be true) and this cui bono? I think it the

Honour of the Reformed Part of the Christian Profession, and the
Church of England in particular, that it pretends to fewer of these
unusual and extraordinary Things, than any other Religion we know of
in the World; being convinced, that these are not the distinguishing
Marks of the Truth of any Religion (I mean, the assuming obstinate
Pretences to them are not;) and it were not amiss, if we farther enlarg'd
our Charity, when we can do it with Safety, or Advantage to the State.
Let us but consider, how hard and how impolitick it is