PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

and of Toleration.
4i9
hCi:8 transgressed the boundaries of his jurisdiction;,
bEcause the property, the l,berty, and the life of the
subject, may be taken away by the authority of the
laws, for any reaSOD, which, in the judgment of the
le~jslature, reIlders such a measure necessary to the ·
cOlnmon welfare.
Moreover, as the precepts of religion
may regulate all the offices of life, or may be
so construed as to extend to all, the exemption of re ...
ligion from the control of human laws might afford
a plea, which would eXdl!de. civil government from
evety authority over the conduct of its subjects. Re .. \:
Jigious liberty is like civil liberty, not an immunity
fronl restraint, but the being restrained by. no law ~
but what in a great~r degree conduces to the publi
we)far~.
Still it is right" to obey God rather than man."
Nothing that we have said encroaches upon the truth
of this sacred and undisputed maxim: the right of
the magistrate to ordain, and the obligation of the
subjt!ct to obey, in matters of religion, may be very
diffeJrent; and will be so as often as they ftow from
opposite apprehensions of the divine will. In affairsthat
are properly: of a civil nature; in " the thing~.
that are Cesar' 8,,1 this difference seldom happens.
The law authorizes the act which it enjoins; revelation
being either silent upon the subject, or-referring
to the laws of the country, or requiring only that
men ,let by some fixed rule, and ttlat this rule be es.
tablislled by competent authority. But when human
laws interpose their direction in matters of religion~
by dictating, for example, the objeat or the mode of
divil1C worship; by prohibiting the profession of some
articles of faith, and by exacting that of others, they
are liable to clash with what private persons believe
to be ;l:lready settled by precepts of revelation; or tQ
contradict what God himself, they think, hath det:lared·
to be trlle. In this case, on wllichever side
the mistake lies, or whatever pIca the state may al ...
lege to justify its edict, the subject can have none to
excuse his c{)lnpliance. 'fhe saIne cOllsideration also
OOiilt~ ,:)tlt ti1c distincti{)n .. a~ t() the autJlorit,· of tltf~
, . .