John Owen · 25 of 157

Of toleration; and the duty of the magistrate about religion. · Part 1

The times are busy, and we must be brief. Prefaces for the most part are at all times needless, — in these, troublesome. Mine shall only be, that ἄνευ προοιμίων καὶ παθῶν, “without either preface or solemnity,” I will fall to the business in hand. The thing about which I am to deal is commonly called Toleration in Religion, or toleration of several religions. The way wherein I shall proceed is not by contest, thereby to give occasion for the reciprocation of a saw of debate with any; but by the laying down of such positive observations, as being either not apprehended or not rightly improved by the most, yet lie at the bottom of the whole difference between men about this business, and tend in themselves to give light unto a righteous and equitable determination of the main thing contended about.

And lastly, herein for method I shall first consider the grounds upon which that non-toleration whereunto I cannot consent has been, and is still, endeavoured to be supported; which I shall be necessitated to remove —

I. By considering the arguments brought from holy writ;

II. From some other general observations. And then in order;

III. I shall assert the positive truth, as to the substance of the business under contest.

All in these ensuing observations.

I. As to the first of these —

1. Although the expressions of “toleration,” and “non-toleration,” wherewith the thing in controversy is vested, do seem to cast the affirmative upon them who plead for a forbearance in things of religion towards dissenting persons, yet the truth is, they are purely upon the negation, and the affirmative lies fully on the other part; and so the weight of proving, which ofttimes is heavy, lies on their shoulders Though non-toleration sound like a negation, yet punishment (which terms in this matter are ἰσοδυναμοῦντα is a deep affirmation. And, therefore, it sufficeth not men to say that they have consulted the mind of God, and cannot find that he ever spake to any of his saints or people to establish a toleration of error; and yet this is the first argument to oppose it produced in the late Testimony of the reverend and learned Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Affirmative precepts must be produced for a non-toleration; that is, the punishing of erring persona For actings of such high concernment, men do generally desire a better warrant than this — “There is nothing in the word against them.” Clear light is needful for men who walk in paths which lead directly to houses of blood. God hath not spoken of non-toleration, is a certain rule of forbearance; but God hath not spoken of toleration, is no rule of acting in opposition thereunto. What he hath spoken, one way or other, shall be afterward considered. Positive actings must have positive precepts and rules for them, as conscience is its own guide. If, then, you will have persons deviating in their apprehensions from the truth of the gospel civilly punished, you must bring better warrant than this, that God hath not spoken against it; or I shall not walk in your ways, but refrain my foot from your path.

2. That undoubtedly there are very many things under the command of the Lord, so becoming our duty, and within his promise, so made our privilege, which yet, if not performed, or not enjoyed, are not of human cognizance — as faith itself; yet because the knowledge of the truth is in that rank of things, this also is urged as of weight, by the same learned persons, to the business at hand.

3. Errors, though never so impious, are yet distinguished from peace-disturbing enormities. If opinions in their own nature tend to the disturbance of the public peace, either that public tranquility is not of God, or God alloweth a penal restraint of those opinions. It is a mistake, to affirm that those who plead for toleration do allow of punishment for offences against the second table — not against the first. The case is the same both in respect of the one and the other. What offences against the second table are punishable? Doubtless not all, but only such as, by a disorderly eruption, pervert the course of public quiet and society; yea, none but such fall under human cognizance. The warrant of exercising vindictive power amongst men is from the reference of offences to their common tranquillity. “Delicta puniri publicè interest.” Where punishment is the debt, “Bonum totius” the creditor to exact it. And this is allowed as to the offences against the first table. If any of them in their own nature (not some men’s apprehensions) are disturbances of public peace, they also are punishable. Only, let not this be measured by disputable consequences, no more than the other are. Let the evidence be in the things themselves, and “Actum est,” let who will plead for them. Hence —

Popish religion, warming in its very bowels a fatal engine against all magistracy amongst us, cannot upon our concessions plead for forbearance; it being a known and received maxim, that the gospel of Christ clashes against no righteous ordinance of man.

And let this be spoken to the third argument of the fore-named reverend persons, from the analogy of delinquencies against the first and second table.

4. The plea for the punishment of erring persons from the penal constitution under the Old Testament against idolaters (which in the next place is urged), seems not very firm and convincing. The vast distance that is between idolatry and any errors whatsoever, as merely such, however propagated or maintained with obstinacy, much impaireth the strength of this argumentation.

Idolatry is the yielding unto a creature the service and worship due to the Creator, Rainold. de Idol., lib. ii. cap. 1, sect. 1. “Idololatria est circa omne idolum famulatus et servitus,” Tertul. de Pol. — “The attendance and service of any idol.” “Idololatræ dicuntur Qui similacris eam servitutem exhibent, quæ debertur Deo,” August., lib. i. de Trinit. cap. 6 — “They are idolaters who give that service to idols which is due unto God.” To render glory to the creature as to God is idolatry, say the Papists, Bell, de Eccles. Triumph, lib. ii. cap. 24; Greg. de Valen. de Idol, lib. i. cap. 1; — suitable to the description of it given by the apostle, Rom. i. 25: plainly, that whereunto the sanction under debate was added, as the bond of the law against it (which was the bottom of the commendable proceedings of divers kings of Judah against such), was a voluntary relinquishment of Jehovah revealed unto them, to give the honour due unto him to dunghill idols. Now, though error and ignorance ofttimes lie at the bottom of this abomination, yet error, properly so called, and which under the name of heresy is opposed, is sufficiently differenced therefrom. That common definition of heresy — that it is an error, or errors, in or about the fundamentals of religion, maintained with stubbornness and pertinacy after conviction (for the main received by most Protestant divines) — will be no way suited unto that which was before given of idolatry, and is as commonly received, being indeed much more clear; as shall be afterward declared. That this latter is proper and suitable to those scriptural descriptions which we have of heresy, I dare not assert; but being received by them who urge the punishment thereof it may be a sufficient ground of affirming that those things whose definitions are so extremely different are also very distant and discrepant in themselves; and therefore constitutions for the disposal of things concerning the one cannot “eo nomine” include the other. Neither is the inference any stronger, than that a man may be hanged for coveting, because he may be so for murdering.

The penal constitutions of the Judaical polity (for so they were, which yet I urge not) concerning idolaters, must be stretched beyond their limits, if you intend to inwrap heretics within their verge. If heretics be also idolaters, as the Papists (the poor Indians who worship a piece of red cloth, the Egyptians who adored the deities which grew in their own gardens, being not more besotted with this abomination than they who prostrate their souls unto, and lavish their devotion upon, a piece of bread, a little before they prepare it for the draught — so casting the stumbling-block of their iniquities before the faces of poor Heathens and Jews, causing Averroes to breathe out his soul in this expression of that scandal, “Quoniam Christiani manducant Deum quem adorant, sit anima mea cum Philosophis!”) then, the case seems to me to have received so considerable an alteration, that the plea of forbearance is extremely weakened as to my present apprehension. However, for the present I remove such from this debate.

5. The like to this also may be said concerning blasphemy, the law whereof is likewise commonly urged in this cause. The establishment for the punishment of a blasphemer is in Lev. xxiv. 16. Given it was upon the occasion of the blaspheming and cursing of the son of an Egyptian, upon his striving and contending with an Israelite. Being probably, in his own apprehension, wronged by his adversary, he fell to reviling his God. The word here used to express his sin, is נֹקֵב‎, signifying also to pierce, and is twice so rendered — Isa. xxxvi. 6; Heb. iii. 14. Desperate expressions, piercing the honour and glory of the Most High willingly and willfully, were doubtless his death-deserving crime. It is the same word that Balak used to Balaam, when he would have persuaded him to a deliberate cursing and pouring out of imprecations on the people of God, Num. xxiii. 13, 14. A resolved piercing of the name and glory of God, with cursed reproaches, is the crime here sentenced to death. The schoolmen tell us, that to complete blasphemy, the perverse affection of the heart, in detestation of the goodness of God, joined with the reproaches of his name, is required. Which, how remote it is from error of any sort (I mean within the compass of them whereof we speak), being a pure misapprehension of the understanding, embraced (though falsely) for the honour of God, I suppose is easily conceived; and so, consequently, that the argument for the death of a person erring, because he came off no easier of old who blasphemed, is “à baculo ad angulum.

If any shall say that blasphemy is of a larger extent and more general acceptation in the Scripture, I shall not deny it; but yet that that kind of blasphemy which was punishable with violent death, was comprehensive of any inferior crime, I suppose cannot be proved. However, blasphemy in the Scripture is never taken in any place, that I can remember, for a man’s maintaining his own error; but for his reviling and speaking evil of the truth which he receiveth not: and so Paul before his conversion was a blasphemer. Now, if men to whom forbearance is indulged in by-paths of their own, shall make it their work to cast dirt on the better ways of truth, it is to me very questionable whether they do not offend against that prime dictate of nature for the preservation of human society, “Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris;” and for such I will be no advocate. Neither can, indeed, the law of blasphemy be impartially urged by us in any case of heresy whatsoever. For —

(1.) The penal sanctions of the laws of God are not in England esteemed of moral equity, and perpetually indispensable; for if so, why do adulterers unmolested behold the violent death of stealers?

(2.) The blasphemer by that law was not allowed his clergy; die he must without mercy, no room being left for the intervention of repentance, as to the removal of his temporal punishment; when once the witnesses’ garments were rent, he was anathema. But in case of any heresy, repentance, yea, recantation, is a sure antidote (at least for once, so it is among the Papists) against all corporeal sufferings.

6. Neither doth that place in Zech. xiii. 3, concerning the running through of the false prophet, more prove or approve of the punishment of death to be inflicted for misapprehensions in the matters of religion (and if it proves not that, it proverb nothing; for slaying is the thing expressed, and certainly if proofs be taken from the letter, the letter must be obeyed, or we force the word to serve our hypothesis) than that place of John x. 1, “He that entereth not by the door is a thief and a robber;” which Bellarmine strongly urgeth to this very purpose, because thieves and robbers are so dealt withal righteously. If such deductions may be allowed, it will be easy to prove “quidlibet ex quolibet,” at any time.

If the letter be urged, and the sense of the letter as it lies (indeed the figurative sense of such places is the proper, literal sense of them), let that sense alone be kept to. Let parents, then, pass sentence, condemn, and execute their children, when they turn seducers; and that in any kind whatsoever — into what seduction soever they shall be engaged, be it most pernicious, or in things of less concernment. The letter allows of none of our distinctions; be they convinced or not convinced, obstinate or not obstinate, all is one — so it must be: thrust through and slain by their parents must they fall to the ground. Only observe, his father and his mother that begat him must be made magistrates — prophets with unclean spirits be turned into heretics:— only “thrusting through,” that must be as it is in the letter; yea, though plainly the party of whom it is said, “Thou shalt not live,” verse 3, is found alive, verse 6. Surely such an Orleans gloss is scarce sufficient to secure a conscience in slaying heretics. But, when men please, this whole place shall directly point at the discipline of the churches, and their spiritual censures under the gospel — curing deceivers, and bringing them home to confession and acknowledgment of their folly. See the late Annot. of the Bible.

7. From the asserting of the authority and description of the duty of the magistrate, Rom. xiii., the argument is very easy that is produced for the suppressing by external force of erroneous persona The paralogism is so foul and notorious in this arguing — “He is to suppress evil deeds; heresy is an evil deed: therefore that also” that it needs no confutation. That he is to punish all evil deeds was never yet affirmed. Unbelief is a work of the flesh — so is coveting; one, the root-sin, against the first, the other against the second table: yet in themselves both exempted from the magistrate’s cognizance and jurisdiction. The evil-doers, doubtless, for whose terror and punishment he is appointed, are such as by their deeds disturb that human society the defence and protection whereof is to him committed. That among the number of these are errors, the depravations of men’s understandings, hath not yet been proved.

8. The case of the seducer, from Deut. xiii., is urged with more show of reason than any of the others to the business in hand; but yet the extreme discrepancies between the proof and the thing intended to be proved make any argumentation from this place, as to the matter in hand, very intricate, obscure, and difficult. For —

(1.) The person here spoken of pretends an immediate revelation from heaven: he pretends dreams, and gives signs and wonders, verse 1, and so exempts his spirit from any regular trial Heretics, for the most part, offer to be tried by the rule that is “in medio,” acknowledged of all — a few distempered enthusiasts excepted.

(2.) His business is to entice from the worship of Jehovah — not in respect of the manner, but the object, verse 5. All heretics pretend the fear of that great name.

(3.) The accepting and owning idol, dunghill gods in his room, is the thing persuaded to, verse 2 (and those were only stocks and stones); and this in opposition to Jehovah, who had revealed himself by Moses. Heretics worship him, own him, and abhor all thoughts of turning away from following after him, according to their erroneous apprehensions. Manichees, Marcionites, Valentinians, and such like names of infidels, I reckon not among heretics; neither will their brain-sick, paganish follies be possibly comprehended under that definition of heresy which is now generally received. Mohammedans are far more rightly termed heretics than they.

(4.) This seducer was to die without mercy. And Ainsworth observes from the rabbins, that this offender alone had traps laid to catch him; and were he but once overheard to whisper his seduction, though never so secretly, there was no expiation of his transgression without his own blood. But now this place is urged for all kind of restraint and punishment whatsoever. Now, where God requires blood, is it allowed to man to commute at an inferior rate? So, I confess, it is urged. But yet what lies at the bottom, in the chambers of their bellies who plead for the power of the magistrate to punish erring persons from those, and such like places as these, is too apparent. Blood is there: swiftly or slowly, they walk to the chambers of death.

(5.) Obstinacy after conviction, turbulency, etc., which are now laid down as the main weights that turn the scale on the side of severity, are here not once mentioned, nor by any thing in the least intimated. If he have done it, yea, but once, openly or secretly, whether he have been convinced of the sinfulness of it or no, be he obstinate or otherwise, it is not once inquired — die he must, as if he had committed murder, or the like indispensable death-procuring crime. If the punishment, then, of erring persons be urged from this place, all consideration of their conviction, obstinacy, pertinacy, must be laid aside: the text allows them no more plea in this business than our law doth in the case of wilful murder.

(6.) Repentance and recantation will, in the judgment of all, reprieve an erring person from any sentence of any punishment corporeal whatsoever; and many reasons may be given why they should so do. Here is no such allowance. Repent or not repent, recant or not recant, he hath no sacrifice of expiation provided for him — die he must.

(7.) The law contains the sanction of the third commandment, as the whole was a rule of the Jewish polity in the land of Canaan. This amongst us is generally conceived not binding, as such.

(8.) The formal reason of this law, by some insisted on — because he sought to turn a man from Jehovah, —

[1.] Is of force only in this case of the object whereunto seduction tends — viz., strange gods — and no other.

[2.] Turning from Jehovah respects not any manner of backsliding in respect of the way of worship, but a falling away from him as the object of worship.

Now, there being these and many other discrepancies hindering the cases proposed from running parallel, I profess, for my part, I cannot see how any such evident deductions can possibly be drawn from hence as to be made a bottom of practice and acting in things of so high concernment. What may be allowed from the equity of those and the like constitutions, and deduced by analogy and proportion to the business in hand, I shall afterward declare.

II. The sum of what is usually drawn from holy writ against such forbearance as I suppose may be asserted, and for the punishing heretics with capital punishments, being briefly discussed, I proceed, in the next place, to such other general observations as may serve to the farther clearing of the business in hand; and they are these that follow:—

The forbearance of or opposition unto errors, may be considered with respect either unto civil or spiritual judicature.

First, For the latter, it is either personal or ecclesiastical, properly so called. Personal forbearance of errors, in a spiritual sense, is a moral toleration or approbation of them; so also is ecclesiastical. The warrant for procedence against them on that hand is plain and evident: certainly this way no error is to be forborne. All persons who have any interest and share in truth are obliged, in their several ways and stations, to an opposition unto every error — an opposition to be carried on by gospel mediums and spiritual weapons. Let them, according as they are called or opportuned, disprove them from the word, “contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints.” Erring persons are usually “bono animo,” says Salvian — very zealous to propagate their false conceptions; and shall the children of truth be backward in her defence? Precepts unto this as a duty, commendations of it, encouragements unto it, are very frequent in the gospel. Alike is this duty incumbent on all churches walking to the rule. The spiritual sword of discipline may be lawfully sheathed in the blood of heresies. No spiritual remedy can be too sharp for a spiritual disease. When the cure is suited to the malady, there is no danger of the application. And this is not denied by any. He that submits himself to any church society, does it “ea lege,” — of being obedient to the authority of Christ in that church in all its censures. “Volenti non fit injuria.” Error is offensive, and must be proceeded against. Examples and precepts of this abound in the Scriptures. The blood of many erring persons, I doubt not, will one day have a “quo warranto” granted them against their (as to the particulars in debate) orthodox slayers, who did it to promote the service of God. Let them not fear an after-reckoning who use the discipline of Christ according to his appointment.

This being considered, the occasion of a most frequent paralogism is removed. If errors must be tolerated, say some, then men may do what they please, without control. No means, it seems, must be used to reclaim them. But is gospel conviction no means? Hath the sword of discipline no edge? Is there no means of instruction in the New Testament established, but a prison and a halter? Are the hammer of the word and the sword of the Spirit, which in days of old broke the stubbornest mountains, and overcame the proudest nations, now quite useless? God forbid! Were the churches of Christ established according to his appointment, and the professors of the truth so knit up “in the unity of the Spirit and bond of peace” as they ought to be, and were in the primitive times, I am persuaded those despised instruments would quickly make the proudest heretic to tremble. When the churches walked in sweet communion, giving each other continual account of their affairs, and warning each other of all or any such persons as, either in practice or doctrine, walked not with a right foot (as we have examples in Clem. Epist. ad Corinth. — the churches of Vienne and Lyons to those of Asia, Euseb.; — of Ignatius to several persons and churches — of Irenæus to Victor., Euseb.; — to Stephen, ibid., and the like), heretics found such cold entertainment as made them ashamed, if not weary, of their chosen wanderings. But this is not my present business.

Secondly, There is an opposition or forbearance in reference to a civil judicature and procedence of things which respecteth errors in a. real sense, as to the inflicting or not inflicting of punishment on religious delinquents. And this is the sole thing under debate, viz. —

Whether persons enjoying civil authority over others — being intrusted therewithal according to the constitutions of the place and nation where the lot of them both, by providence, is fallen — are invested with power from above, and commanded in the word of God, to coerce, restrain, punish, confine, imprison, banish, hang, or burn, such of those persons under their jurisdiction as shall not embrace, profess, believe, and practice, that truth and way of worship which is revealed unto them of God? or how far, into what degrees, by what means, in any of these ways, may they proceed?

The general propositions and considerations of the penal laws of God, which were before laid down, have, as I suppose, left this business to a naked debate from the word of truth, without any such prejudices on either part as many take from a misapprehension of the mind of God in them; and therefore, by the reader’s patience, I shall venture upon the whole anew, as if no such arguments had ever been proposed for the affirmative of the question in hand, not declining the utmost weight that is in any of them, according to equity and due proportion. And here, first, I shall give in a few things —

(1.) To the question itself.

(2.) To the manner of handling it.

(1.) To the question itself. For herein I suppose —

[1.] That the persons enjoying authority do also enjoy the truth; which is to the advantage of the affirmative.

[2.] That their power in civil things is just and unquestionable; which also looks favorably on that side.

[3.] That non-toleration makes out itself in positive infliction of punishment; which is so, or is nothing. Casting men out of protection, exposing them to vulgar violence, is confessedly unworthy of men representing the authority of God, and contrary to the whole end of their trust.

(2.) To the manner of handling this question among persons at variance. And here I cannot but observe —

[1.] That if I have taken my aim aright, there is no one thing under debate amongst Christians that is agitated with more confidence and mutual animosity of the parties litigant — each charging other with dreadful inferences — streams of blood, and dishonour to God, flowing out from their several persuasions; so that ofttimes, instead of a fair dispute, you meet on this subject with a pathetical outcry, as though all religion were utterly contaminated and trampled under foot, if both these contradictory assertions be not embraced. Now, seeing that in itself it is a thing wherein the gospel is exceedingly sparing, if not altogether silent, certainly there must be a farther interest than of judgment alone, or else that very much prejudicated with corrupt affections, or men could not possibly be carried out with so much violence upon supposed self-created consequences, wherewith in this cause they urge one another.

[2.] That generally thus much of private interest appears in the several contesters, that non-toleration is the opinion of the many, and these enjoying the countenance of authority — toleration, of the oppressed, who always go under the name of the faction, or factions — the unavoidable livery of the smaller number professing a way of worship by themselves, be it right or wrong. I do not desire to lay forth the usual deportment of men seeking the suppressing of others differing from them, towards those in authority. It is but too clearly made out by daily experience. If they close with them, they are “custodes utriusque tabulæ,” — the church’s nursing-fathers, etc. — what they please; but if they draw back, for want of light or truth to serve them, logs and storks find not worse entertainment from frogs than they from some of them. Such things as these may, nay, ought to be, especially heeded by every one that knows what influence corrupt affections have upon the judgments of men, and would willingly take the pains to wipe his eyes for the discerning of the truth.

These things premised, I assert that —

Non-toleration — in the latitude which is for persons in authority enjoying the truth (or supposing they do enjoy it) to punish in an arbitrary way, according to what they shall conceive to be condign, men who will not forsake their own convictions about any head or heads of Christian religion whatsoever, to join with what they hold out, either for belief or worship, after the using of such ways of persuasion as they shall think fit — is no way warranted in the gospel; nor can any sound proof for such a course be taken from the Old Testament.

The testimonies out of the law, which I can apprehend to have any colour or appearance of strength in them, with the examples approved of God that seem to look this way, I considered at our entrance into this discourse.

I speak of punishing in an arbitrary way; for all instances produced to the purpose in hand, that speak of any punishment, mention nothing under death itself; which yet, at least in the first place, is not aimed at by those that use them in our days, as I suppose. Now, some divines of no small name maintain, that God hath not left the imposition of punishment in any measure to the wills of men.

Some arguments for the proof of the former assertion as laid down I shall in due place make use of; for the present, I desire to commend to the serious pondering of all Christians in general, especially of those in authority, these ensuing considerations —

1. That it is no privilege of truth to furnish its assertors with this persuasion, that the dissenters from it ought forcibly to be opposed, restrained, punished.

No false religion ever yet in the world did enthrone itself in the minds of men enjoying a civil sovereignty over the persons of others, but it therewithal commanded them, under pain of neglect and contempt of itself, to crush any underling worship that would perk up in inferior consciences.