persecuting spirit can be better shown than by exhibiting their effects, as exemplified in the temper and conduct of a man otherwise great and venerable. Why should the conduct of popish persecutors be held up to execration, their names be loaded with infamy, their cruel deeds be proclaimed from age to age, and a veil be drawn over the conduct of protestant persecutors, their religious murders be passed over in silence, and their names be embalmed in the incense of praise? Why should one party of christians, when put to death for following the dictates of their consciences, be honored with the venerable name of martyrs, and men of another party, when they suffer death for the same cause, be only heard of under the odious appellation of heretics? Nothing but prejudice and party spirit can have tolerated such invidious and unjust distinctions. Persecution on account of religion is always unjust. It is totally unauthorized by Jesus Christ, and violates the first principles of moraity. The question is not whether the opinions of the persecuted be true or false; allow them o be absolutely false, it will not follow that hose who believe and propagate them ought to De persecuted.Every man has a natural right o judge for himself, to express his own opinions and to follow the dictates of his own conscience, in all religious matters. Respecting these things he is accountable to none but God. Every species of persecution violates the natural rights of man. As the persecutor assumes dominion over the consciences of others, he invades the prerogative of God, to whom alone dominion over conscience belongs. Jesus Christ prohibited the persecution of those who refused to receive him, declaring that he came not to destroy men's lives but to save them. The persecutor imitates not Jesus and his apostles, but the unbelieving Jews who persecuted both him and them. The gospel guarantees the rights of conscience, the full exercise of religious liberty; by teaching that christians are all brethren and fellow servants, that they have no master but Christ. The spirit of persecution is directly contrary to the spirit of christianity, which is love, and transgresses the new command which Jesus gave his disciples; This is my commandment that ye love one another; for love worketh no ill to another. No man would wish another to persecute him: consequently the persecutor violates one of the first principles of morality, and of the gospel: i. e. whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you do ye even so unto them. Though it can be proved that Dr. Servetus was a virtuous and good man, and that he had, at least, as much truth on his side as his persecutors, yet, if the contrary had been the fact, it would have been unjust and cruel to persecute him, merely for the publication of his religious opinions. 7 T Persecutors always take for granted the very point in question: i. e. that their opinions are true and those of their opponents false. The romanists, who pretended to be infallible, granting them the infallibility they claimed, had some grounds for this conclusion; but protestants, who acknowledged themselves fallible could have none. Those who admitted that infallibility was no where to be found but in the scriptures, could not take for granted that their own opinions were indubitably true, and those of their opponents indubitably false, without manifest absurdity and self-contradiction. They might, according to their own admission, be mistaken, their opponents might be right, even in those things in which they thought them most wrong; for as they allowed themselves to be fallible, they certainly were capable of erring nor was it possible to say to what subjects their errors in judgment might extend, seeing they pretended not to infallibility on any subject. Yet, with the profession of fallibility in their mouths, they acted, in some instances, as if they thought themselves infallible. Several other things were taken for granted, by the persecutors of former times, which are incapable of proof. They took for granted that an erroneous opinion is heresy, that heresy is a capital crime, and that it ought to be punished by the magistrate. These notions long passed as unquestionable. They were founded in lignorance and pride, and produced intellectual bondage and murder. Allowing that they could be infallibly certain that those who differed from them were in error, it would by no means follow that such error constituted them heretics, or that a mere error in opinion is a moral evil. In the New Testament the word heresy, when used in a bad sense, implies something that is evidently contrary to the spirit and precepts of the gospel: consequently mere error in opinion is not heresy. Wrong opinions are not injuri. ous any further than they have a bad moral influence. Those opinions which lead men to hate, persecute, and destroy others are certainly wrong; for they produce wrong actions, their tendency is murderous. Even granting that it could be proved that their opponents were real heretics, it by no means follows that they were quilty of any crime of which human laws should take cognizance, or which any civil magistrate had a right to punish. To suppose it is to contradict the plain assertion of Christ, that he is the only master of christians. It is not necessary a man should be what others deem sound in the faith in order to his being a good member of society: the belief of any particular creed, or the observance of any particular ritual cannot be essential to this. Religious tests are not necessary to the well being of the community. A man may be a catholic or a protestant, a christian or a mahommedan, a jew or a pagan, without forfeiting the protection of the laws, or any of the privileges of civil Society. Nothing but overt acts, inconsistent with the peace and welfare of society, ought to be punishable by the magistrate. The glory of the reformation was tarnished, and its progress interrupted, by the persecuting temper of some of the reformers. So far as bigotry and a persecuting spirit remain the revival of pure and primitive christianity is necessarily obstructed. That every such obstruction to the progress of the gospel may be removed it is necessary that wherever these evils are found they be exposed and exploded. This is necessary to the effecting more union among D |