Page images
PDF
EPUB

1

REJOINDER

MR. WESLEY'S REPLY.

THE following extract from Locke's letter on toleration, together with Mr. Wesley's reply, has been fent to the author, with a request to answer it, if in his power, fays the writer of the letter. Mr. Locke in a profound manner opens the gate of toleration to all mortals, who do not entertain any principles injurious to the rights of civil fociety: but my corref pondent is furprised that fuch an impartial writer fhould make an oblique charge on the Roman Catholics, if it were not grounded on truth.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"WE cannot find any fect that teaches expressly and openly, that men are not obliged

to keep their promife; that princes may be "dethroned by those that differ from them in "religion, or that the dominion of all things be"longs only to themfelves. But nevertheless

66

we find thofe, that fay the fame thing in other "words,

U 2

"words. What else do they mean who teach, "that faith is not to be kept with heretics? "What can be the meaning of their afferting "that kings, excommunicated, forfeit their "crowns and kingdoms?That dominion "is founded in grace, is an affertion by which "those that maintain it, do plainly lay a claim "to the poffeffion of all things.I fay, thefe "have no right to be tolerated by the magif"trate."

Again: "That church can have no right to "be tolerated by the magiftrate, which is con"ftituted upon fuch a bottom, that all those "who enter into it, do thereby, ipfo facto, deli

૬૯

ver themselves up to the protection and fer"vice of another prince: for by this means the

[ocr errors]

magiftrate would give way to the setting up "of a foreign jurifdiction in his own country, "and fuffer his own people to be enlifted, as it

[ocr errors]

were, for foldiers against his own govern"ment. Nor does the frivolous and fallacious diftinction, between the court and the church, "afford any remedy to this inconvenience; efpecially, when both the one and the other, Li are equally fubject to the abfolute authority of "the fame perfon; who has not only power to σε perfuade the members of his Church to what

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ever he lifts, either as purely religious, or as in

"order

order thereunto, but also can enjoin it them, 66 on pain of eternal fire.

[ocr errors]

હે

"It is ridiculous for any one to profess himself to be a Mahometan only in his religion; but "in every thing else a faithful fubject to a Chrif"tian magiftrate, whilft at the fame time, he "acknowledges himself bound to yield blind "obedience to the Mufti of Conftantinople; "who himfelf is entirely obedient to the Ottoman emperor, and frames the feigned oracles ❝of that religion according to his pleasure. But "this Mahometan, living amongst Christians, "would yet more apparently renounce their

6.6

46

government, if he acknowledged the fame "perfon, to be head of his church, who is the fupreme magiftrate in the ftate."

Locke on toleration, p. 59:

MR. O'LEARY's

MR. OLEARY'S ANSWER.

MR. Locke's supposed principles are fully an

fwered in "Loyalty afferted." With every respect due to fo great a man, he has totally miftaken the Catholics creed. He was born at a time when the nice hand of the legislature had not drawn the line between their real and imputed principles. And the prejudices of education often tinge a philofopher's imagination with the colours of deception. "That the dominion "of all things belongs to the faints," was the doctrine of Wickliff, Hufs, and the English regicides in the time of Charles the firft: a doctrine condemned by the council of Conftance, in thirtieth propofition extracted from Hufs's writings.

Mr. Locke, in fhutting the gates of toleration against the profeffors of fuch a doctrine, fully juftifies the emperor Sigifmund in putting Hufs to death as that unhappy man not only preached, but practifed it. In matters more within the verge of his knowledge, I widely differ from Mr. Locke. When he denies any innate ideas, or the leaft notion of a God implanted in our fouls, independent of the fenfes, I prefer the Cartefian philofophers, messieurs de Portroyal, the bishop of Rochester, and feveral

others

« PreviousContinue »