A third Letter for Toleration.

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have thought you so rational a man, as to be led by your own principles 5and so honest, charitable, and zealous for the salvation of men’s fouls, as notto vex and disease them with inefficacious remedies to no purpose, and letthem mils of salvation, for want of more vigorous prosecutions. For itConformity to the church of England be necessary to salvation ; for el le whatnecessity can you pretend of punishing men at all to bring them to it? it iscruelty to their fouls (if you have authority for any such means) to uie some,and not to use sufficient force to bring them to conform. And I dare layyou are satisfied, that the French discipline of dragooning would have mademany in England Conformists, whom your lower penalties will not prevail onto be so.

But to inform you that my apprehensions were not so wholly out of theWay, I beseech you to read here what you have writ in these words : " For" how consistently soever you tell me here, that it is more than I can fay for" my political punishments, that they were ever useful for the promoting" true religion ; I appeal to all observing persons, whether wherever true“ religion or found Christianity has been nationally received and established" by moderate penal laws, it has not always lost ground by the relaxation of“ those laws : whether sects and heresies, (even the wildest and most absurd)" and even Epicurism and Atheism, have not continually thereupon spread“ themselves ; and whether the very spirit and life of Christianity has not" sensibly decayed, as well as the number of found professors of it been daily“ lessened upon it: not to speak of what at this time our eyes cannot but“ fee, for fear of giving offence ; though I hope it will be none to any," that have a just concern for truth and piety, to take notice of the books“ and pamphlets which now fly so thick about this kingdom, manifestly" tending to the multiplying of sects and divisions, and even to the pro-“ moting of scepticism in religion among us." Here you bemoan the de-caying state of religion amongst us at present, by reason of taking off thepenalties from Protestant Dissenters : and I beseech you what penalties werethey ? Such whereby many have been ruined in their fortunes ; such wherebymany have lost their liberties, and some their lives in prisons; such as havesent some into banishment, stripped of all they had. These were the penallaws by which the national religion was established in England; and theseyou call moderate : for you say, “ Wherever true religion or found Christia-“ nity has been nationally received and established by moderate penal lawsand I hope vou do not here exclude England from having its religion soestablished by law, which we so often hear of; or if to serve the presentoccasion you should, would you also deny, that in the following words youspeak of the present relaxation in England ? where after your appeal to allobserving people for the dismal consequences, which you suppose to haveevery-where followed from such relaxations, you add these pathetical words," Not to speak, of what at this time our eyes cannot but fee, for fear of giv-“ ing offence so heavy does the present relaxation sit on the mind ; whichsince it is of penal laws you call moderate, I shall shew you what they.are..

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