indeed, if any people congregated upon account of religion should be
desirous to sacrifice a calf, I deny that that ought to be
prohibited by a law. Meliboeus, whose calf it is, may lawfully kill
his calf at home, and burn any part of it that he thinks fit. For no
injury is thereby done to any one, no prejudice to another man's
goods. And for the same reason he may kill his calf also in a
religious meeting. Whether the doing so be well-pleasing to God or no,
it is their part to consider that do it. The part of the magistrate is
only to take care that the commonwealth receive no prejudice, and that
there be no injury done to any man, either in life or estate. And thus
what may be spent on a feast may be spent on a sacrifice. But if
peradventure such were the state of things that the interest of the
commonwealth required all slaughter of beasts should be forborne for
some while, in order to the increasing of the stock of cattle that had
been destroyed by some extraordinary murrain, who sees not that the
magistrate, in such a case, may forbid all his subjects to kill any
calves for any use whatsoever? Only it is to be observed that, in this
case, the law is not made about a religious, but a political matter;
nor is the sacrifice, but the slaughter of calves, thereby prohibited.

  By this we see what difference there is between the Church and the
Commonwealth. Whatsoever is lawful in the Commonwealth cannot be
prohibited by the magistrate in the Church. Whatsoever is permitted
unto any of his subjects for their ordinary use, neither can nor ought
to be forbidden by him to any sect of people for their religious uses.
If any man may lawfully take bread or wine, either sitting or kneeling
in his own house, the law ought not to abridge him of the same liberty
in his religious worship; though in the Church the use of bread and
wine be very different and be there applied to the mysteries of
faith and rites of Divine worship. But those things that are
prejudicial to the commonweal of a people in their ordinary use and
are, therefore, forbidden by laws, those things ought not to be
permitted to Churches in their sacred rites. Only the magistrate ought
always to be very careful that he do not misuse his authority to the
oppression of any Church, under pretence of public good.

  It may be said: "What if a Church be idolatrous, is that also to
be tolerated by the magistrate?" I answer: What power can be given
to the magistrate for the suppression of an idolatrous Church, which
may not in time and place be made use of to the ruin of an orthodox
one? For it must be remembered that the civil power is the same
everywhere, and the religion of every prince is orthodox to himself.
If, therefore, such a power be granted unto the civil magistrate in
spirituals as that at Geneva, for example, he may extirpate, by
violence and blood, the religion which is there reputed idolatrous, by
the same rule another magistrate, in some neighbouring country, may
oppress the reformed religion and, in India, the Christian. The
civil power can either change everything in religion, according to the
prince's pleasure, or it can change nothing. If it be once permitted
to introduce anything into religion by the means of laws and
penalties, there can be no bounds put to it; but it will in the same
manner be lawful to alter everything, according to that rule of
truth which the magistrate has framed unto himself. No man
whatsoever ought, therefore, to be deprived of his terrestrial
enjoyments upon account of his religion. Not even Americans, subjected
unto a Christian prince, are to be punished either in body or goods
for not embracing our faith and worship. If they are persuaded that
they please God in observing the rites of their own country and that
they shall obtain happiness by that means, they are to be left unto
God and themselves. Let us trace this matter to the bottom. Thus it
is: An inconsiderable and weak number of Christians, destitute of
everything, arrive in a Pagan country; these foreigners beseech the
inhabitants, by the bowels of humanity, that they would succour them
with the necessaries of life; those necessaries are given them,
habitations are granted, and they all join together, and grow up
into one body of people. The Christian religion by this means takes
root in that country and spreads itself, but does not suddenly grow
the strongest. While things are in this condition peace, friendship,
faith, and equal justice are preserved amongst them. At length the
magistrate becomes a Christian, and by that means their party
becomes the most powerful. Then immediately all compacts are to be
broken, all civil rights to be violated, that idolatry may be
extirpated; and unless these innocent Pagans, strict observers of
the rules of equity and the law of Nature and no ways offending
against the laws of the society, I say, unless they will forsake their
ancient religion and embrace a new and strange one, they are to be
turned out of the lands and possessions of their forefathers and
perhaps deprived of life itself. Then, at last, it appears what zeal
for the Church, joined with the desire of dominion, is capable to
produce, and how easily the pretence of religion, and of the care of
souls, serves for a cloak to covetousness, rapine, and ambition.

  Now whosoever maintains that idolatry is to be rooted out of any
place by laws, punishments, fire, and sword, may apply this story to
himself. For the reason of the thing is equal, both in America and
Europe. And neither Pagans there, nor any dissenting Christians
here, can, with any right, be deprived of their worldly goods by the
predominating faction of a court-church; nor are any civil rights to
be either changed or violated upon account of religion in one place
more than another.

  But idolatry, say some, is a sin and therefore not to be
tolerated. If they said it were therefore to be avoided, the inference
were good. But it does not follow that because it is a sin it ought
therefore to be punished by the magistrate. For it does not belong
unto the magistrate to make use of his sword in punishing
everything, indifferently, that he takes to be a sin against God.
Covetousness, uncharitableness, idleness, and many other things are
sins by the consent of men, which yet no man ever said were to be
punished by the magistrate. The reason is because they are not