consent of the people, because no man can so far abandon the care of
his own salvation as blindly to leave to the choice of any other,
whether prince or subject, to prescribe to him what faith or worship
he shall embrace. For no man can, if he would, conform his faith to
the dictates of another. All the life and power of true religion
consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is
not faith without believing. Whatever profession we make, to
whatever outward worship we conform, if we are not fully satisfied
in our own mind that the one is true and the other well pleasing
unto God, such profession and such practice, far from being any
furtherance, are indeed great obstacles to our salvation. For in
this manner, instead of expiating other sins by the exercise of
religion, I say, in offering thus unto God Almighty such a worship
as we esteem to be displeasing unto Him, we add unto the number of our
other sins those also of hypocrisy and contempt of His Divine Majesty.

  In the second place, the care of souls cannot belong to the civil
magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true
and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind,
without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature
of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of
anything by outward force. Confiscation of estate, imprisonment,
torments, nothing of that nature can have any such efficacy as to make
men change the inward judgement that they have framed of things.

  It may indeed be alleged that the magistrate may make use of
arguments, and, thereby; draw the heterodox into the way of truth, and
procure their salvation. I grant it; but this is common to him with
other men. In teaching, instructing, and redressing the erroneous by
reason, he may certainly do what becomes any good man to do.
Magistracy does not oblige him to put off either humanity or
Christianity; but it is one thing to persuade, another to command; one
thing to press with arguments, another with penalties. This civil
power alone has a right to do; to the other, goodwill is authority
enough. Every man has commission to admonish, exhort, convince another
of error, and, by reasoning, to draw him into truth; but to give laws,
receive obedience, and compel with the sword, belongs to none but
the magistrate. And, upon this ground, I affirm that the
magistrate's power extends not to the establishing of any articles
of faith, or forms of worship, by the force of his laws. For laws
are of no force at all without penalties, and penalties in this case
are absolutely impertinent, because they are not proper to convince
the mind. Neither the profession of any articles of faith, nor the
conformity to any outward form of worship (as has been already
said), can be available to the salvation of souls, unless the truth of
the one and the acceptableness of the other unto God be thoroughly
believed by those that so profess and practise. But penalties are no
way capable to produce such belief. It is only light and evidence that
can work a change in men's opinions; which light can in no manner
proceed from corporal sufferings, or any other outward penalties.

  In the third place, the care of the salvation of men's souls
cannot belong to the magistrate; because, though the rigour of laws
and the force of penalties were capable to convince and change men's
minds, yet would not that help at all to the salvation of their souls.
For there being but one truth, one way to heaven, what hope is there
that more men would be led into it if they had no rule but the
religion of the court and were put under the necessity to quit the
light of their own reason, and oppose the dictates of their own
consciences, and blindly to resign themselves up to the will of
their governors and to the religion which either ignorance,
ambition, or superstition had chanced to establish in the countries
where they were born? In the variety and contradiction of opinions
in religion, wherein the princes of the world are as much divided as
in their secular interests, the narrow way would be much straitened;
one country alone would be in the right, and all the rest of the world
put under an obligation of following their princes in the ways that
lead to destruction; and that which heightens the absurdity, and
very ill suits the notion of a Deity, men would owe their eternal
happiness or misery to the places of their nativity.

  These considerations, to omit many others that might have been urged
to the same purpose, seem unto me sufficient to conclude that all
the power of civil government relates only to men's civil interests,
is confined to the care of the things of this world, and hath
nothing to do with the world to come.

  Let us now consider what a church is. A church, then, I take to be a
voluntary society of men, joining themselves together of their own
accord in order to the public worshipping of God in such manner as
they judge acceptable to Him, and effectual to the salvation of
their souls.

  I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody is born a member of
any church; otherwise the religion of parents would descend unto
children by the same right of inheritance as their temporal estates,
and everyone would hold his faith by the same tenure he does his
lands, than which nothing can be imagined more absurd. Thus,
therefore, that matter stands. No man by nature is bound unto any
particular church or sect, but everyone joins himself voluntarily to
that society in which he believes he has found that profession and
worship which is truly acceptable to God. The hope of salvation, as it
was the only cause of his entrance into that communion, so it can be
the only reason of his stay there. For if afterwards he discover
anything either erroneous in the doctrine or incongruous in the
worship of that society to which he has joined himself, why should
it not be as free for him to go out as it was to enter? No member of a
religious society can be tied with any other bonds but what proceed
from the certain expectation of eternal life. A church, then, is a
society of members voluntarily uniting to that end.