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LETTER II.

(ADDRESSED AS THE FORMER.)

GENTLEMEN,

FANATICISM is a kind of religious folly. We laughed at it in a former letter. Whoever has a mind to indulge his humour at our expence, is heartily welcome. You now expect a serious anfwer to a serious charge. I fend you fuch as occurs.

"The council of Conftance has openly "avowed violation of faith with heretics. But "it has never been openly difclaimed. There

fore," concludes Mr. Wefley," the Roman "Catholics fhould not be tolerated amongst "the Turks or Pagans."

A council fo often quoted in anniversary fermons, parlimentary debates, and flying. pamphlets,

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pamphlets, chalenges peculiar attention. We shall examine it with as much precision as poffible, and with the more impartiality, as ftrict juftice fhall be done to all parties. Mr. Wesley knows that we are all Adam's children, who feel the fatal impreffions of our origin, and that ambition which took its rife in Heaven itself, often lurks in a corner of the fanctuary where the minifters of religion offer up their prayers, as well as in the cabinets of kings, where fhrewd courtiers form their intrigues. At a time, then, when ambition, that infatiable defire of elevation, that worm which ftings the heart, and never leaves it at reft, prefented the univerfe with the extraordinary fight of three prelates reviving the restless spirit of the Roman triumvirate, and disturbing the peace of mankind as much with their spiritual weapons, as Octavius, Anthony, and Lepidus had disturbed it with their armed legions. At a time when the broachers of new doctrines were kindling up the fire of fedition, and after shaking the foundations of what was then the established religion, were fhaking the foundations of thrones and empires. At that critical time, in fourteen hundred and fourteen, was held the council of Conftance, with a design, as the fathers of that council exprefs themselves, to reform the church in her head and members; and put an end to the calamities which the restless pride of

three

three bishops, affuming the titles of popes by. the names of Gregory the twelfth, Benedict the thirteenth, and John the twenty-third, had brought on Europe, fplit into three grand factions by the ambition of the above mentioned competitors. Such transactions in the ministers of a religion that preaches up peace and humility as the folid foundations on which the structure of all Chriftian virtues is to be raised, may startle the unthinking reader, and give him an unfavourable idea of religion: but we are never to confound the weakness of the minifter with the holinefs of his miniftry.-We refpect the fanctuary in which Stephen officiated, though Nicholas profaned it: we revere the place from whence Judas fell,—and to which Matthias was promoted: the fcriptures respect the chair of Mofes,-though they cenfure feveral pontiffs who fat in it; and no Catholic canonizes the vices of popes,-though he refpects their ftation and dignity. The pontifical throne is ftill the fame, whether it be filled by a cruel Alexander the fixth, or a benevolent Ganganelli.

To the council of Conftance was cited then John Hufs, a Bohemian, famous for propagating errors tending to tear the mitre from the heads of bishops, and wreft the fceptre from the hands of kings in a word, he was ob

noxious

noxious to church and ftate; and if Mr. Wefley and I preached up his doctrine in the name of God, we would be condemned in the name of the king. The Proteftant and Catholic divines would banish us from their univerfities, and the judges of affize would exterminate us from civil fociety. Such a doctor had no indulgence to expect from a council, which, after deposing two rivals for the popedom, condemned a third for contumacy, and elected another in his

room.

But in mentioning John Hufs, whofe trial and execution at Conftance have given rife to the foul charge of violation of faith with heretics, let none imagine that I am an apologift for the fiery execution of perfons, on the score of religious opinions. Let the legiflators who were the first to invent the cruel method · of punishing the errors of the mind with the excruciating tortures of the body, and anticipating the rigor of eternal juftice, answer for their own laws. I am of opinion, that the true religion, propagated by the effufion of the blood of its martyrs, would ftill triumph without burning the flesh of heretics; and that the Proteftant and Catholic legiflators who have

The imperial laws which condemned heretics to the flames, have been put into execution by Calvin, queen Elizabeth, James the firft, &c. fubftituted

fubftituted the blazing pile in the room of Phalaris's brazen bull, might have pointed out à more lenient punishment for victims who, in their opinion, had no profpect during the interminable space of a boundless eternity, but that of paffing from one fire into another. If in enacting fuch laws, they had confulted the true fpirit of religion, I believe the reformation of their own hearts would have been a more acceptable facrifice to the Divinity, than heçatombs of human victims. "No God nor man," fays Tertullian, "fhould be pleased with a "forced fervice." "We are not to perfecute "thofe whom God tolerates," fays St. Auguftine. That faith is fictitious which is infpired by the edge of the fword.

But fill the nature of fociety is fuch, that when once the common land-marks are fet up, it opposes the hand of the individual that attempts to remove them. Where one common mode of worship is established, and fenced by the laws of the ftate, whoever attempts to overthrow it, muft expect to meet with oppofition and violence, until custom softens the rigour of early prejudices, and reconciles us to men whofe features and lineaments are like our own, but ftill feem ftrange to us, because their thoughts are different.

How

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