Toleration | Page 6

They must be established by means suitable to the nature of
such things, whereof the external profession and observation -- if not
proceeding from a thorough conviction and approbation of the mind --
is altogether useless and unprofitable. The arms by which the members
of this society are to be kept within their duty are exhortations,
admonitions, and advices. If by these means the offenders will not be
reclaimed, and the erroneous convinced, there remains nothing further
to be done but that such stubborn and obstinate persons, who give no
ground to hope for their reformation, should be cast out and separated
from the society. This is the last and utmost force of ecclesiastical
authority. No other punishment can thereby be inflicted than that, the
relation ceasing between the body and the member which is cut off.
The person so condemned ceases to be a part of that church.
These things being thus determined, let us inquire, in the next place:
How far the duty of toleration extends, and what is required from
everyone by it?
And, first, I hold that no church is bound, by the duty of toleration, to
retain any such person in her bosom as, after admonition, continues
obstinately to offend against the laws of the society. For, these being
the condition of communion and the bond of the society, if the breach
of them were permitted without any animadversion the society would
immediately be thereby dissolved. But, nevertheless, in all such cases
care is to be taken that the sentence of excommunication, and the
execution thereof, carry with it no rough usage of word or action
whereby the ejected person may any wise be damnified in body or
estate. For all force (as has often been said) belongs only to the
magistrate, nor ought any private persons at any time to use force,
unless it be in self-defence against unjust violence. Excommunication
neither does, nor can, deprive the excommunicated person of any of
those civil goods that he formerly possessed. All those things belong to
the civil government and are under the magistrate's protection. The
whole force of excommunication consists only in this: that, the
resolution of the society in that respect being declared, the union that
was between the body and some member comes thereby to be dissolved;
and, that relation ceasing, the participation of some certain things

which the society communicated to its members, and unto which no
man has any civil right, comes also to cease. For there is no civil injury
done unto the excommunicated person by the church minister's refusing
him that bread and wine, in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, which
was not bought with his but other men's money.
Secondly, no private person has any right in any manner to prejudice
another person in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church
or religion. All the rights and franchises that belong to him as a man, or
as a denizen, are inviolably to be preserved to him. These are not the
business of religion. No violence nor injury is to be offered him,
whether he be Christian or Pagan. Nay, we must not content ourselves
with the narrow measures of bare justice; charity, bounty, and liberality
must be added to it. This the Gospel enjoins, this reason directs, and
this that natural fellowship we are born into requires of us. If any man
err from the right way, it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee; nor
therefore art thou to punish him in the things of this life because thou
supposest he will be miserable in that which is to come.
What I say concerning the mutual toleration of private persons differing
from one another in religion, I understand also of particular churches
which stand, as it were, in the same relation to each other as private
persons among themselves: nor has any one of them any manner of
jurisdiction over any other; no, not even when the civil magistrate (as it
sometimes happens) comes to be of this or the other communion. For
the civil government can give no new right to the church, nor the
church to the civil government. So that, whether the magistrate join
himself to any church, or separate from it, the church remains always as
it was before -- a free and voluntary society. It neither requires the
power of the sword by the magistrate's coming to it, nor does it lose the
right of instruction and excommunication by his going from it. This is
the fundamental and immutable right of a spontaneous society -- that it
has power to remove any of its members who transgress the rules of its
institution; but it cannot, by the accession of any new members, acquire
any right of jurisdiction over those