How far this principle of toleration, thus intimately connected with the spirit of liberty, tends to promote the interests of true religion, will become evident from the following considerations. 1. As we have already proved that there subsists an inseparable union between the spirit of the Lord and Civil Liberty, so we may, from the whole tenor of history, stand assured, that there subsists a similar connection between Religious and Civil Slavery. The spiritual and temporal usurpers upon the rights of mankind, joined in one common interest, will mutually contribute to each others purposes; and where the secular arm has been made, or has voluntarily extended itself to be the executioner of ecclesiastical censures, and to force opinions upon mankind, it is natural to believe that unlimited obedience will be imposed as a religious tenet; that a dissent from this doctrine will be construed into impiety; and consequently that, in proportion as inordinate power is able to supersede the spirit of the Lord, all liberty to pronounce or even to inquire into his genuine dictates, will be restrained. Fear will generate a servile acquiescence, and hypocrisy, a vice, of all others, the most destructive to morality, the most abhorrent to the religion of Christ, will contribute its despicable artifices to conceal the real sentiments of the heart, or to feign an adherence to principles that it abhors. The advantages therefore derived to true religion from toleration are evident; it takes from men every plausible pretext for deviating from the truth; for what need of concealing our real principles, or affecting to embrace those we think false, can subsist, when our honest professions are freed from civil censure? 2. As toleration prevents hypocrisy, it also greatly promotes the spirit of meekness and Christian forbearance. For, by taking away all power of applying secular force, it allows spiritual contention to use only its natural weapons, reason, persuasion, and argument. Zeal in a religious cause is ever warmer than in any other, and consequently more apt to fly out into insult and outrage. Under such an impulse every advantage the law gives, the bigot is ready, with much acrimony, to take, and to vindicate the cause of Christ, by methods which every page of his Gospel condemns. An established toleration prevents this effectually, and, by preventing it, introduces candour and peace in its room. It is true it cannot do this immediately. Prejudices, especially such as concern religion, to be destroyed perfectly, must be rooted out leisurely; and, in this salutary work, if toleration operate slowly, it still operates surely; introducing one Christian virtue after another, till in the end it establishes that universal charity which is its highest aim, and most beneficent intention. 3 It does this by permitting a liberty of debate, and a freedom of religious inquiry: both which, if, from the spirit of controversy, they at first occasion unwarrantable heat, are, at length, productive of the best and most peaceable consequences: for, by these, new truths are struck out; inveterate errors destroyed; doctrines which ignorance held diabolical are often proved harmless, if not rational; and others, which the same ignorance held sacred, are shewn to be contradictory and absurd. Thus by degrees the minds of men are enlarged, the hearts of different sects opened one to another, and when neither have been made proselytes, both have been made friends, learning a lesson, the hardest for the zealot to learn, and which toleration only can teach, that there may be found honest men in every persuasion. Hence we see (to recur to ourselves) that as Persecution, the blackest fiend that ever rose from hell to obstruct the Gospel of light and immortality, has for a long time been expelled from these happy nations, if universal charity has not yet appeared in its place, we must look elsewhere for the reason than in any defect of our constitution. We must look for it in the obliquity of our own hearts, in the general depravity of our manners: for I am well aware, that to all which has been said, an objector may reply, "Does the nation, established on this principle of liberty, excel as much in piety and virtue? Is it really as religious as it is free; and, if it be not, does not that one contradictory fact confute all this general theory?" It does so. Yet surely it is still in our own power to make it not contradict it. It is in our own power to make the civil advantages we Do possess, productive of those religious advantages we do NOT possess. It has been shewn what these are, and they have been proved to be important enough to demand our election; nay, to inflame our ambition in the pursuit of them, if we are ambitious to be what our laws entitle us to be, Freemen and Britons; names we can never truly glory in, the privileges of which we can never fully enjoy, unless we be also sincere Christians. Let us reflect on this truth more particularly at this important season, when our gracious Sovereign is about to confirm to us these our natural rights by the sanction of a solemn oath taken upon the Gospels of Christ.* Let therefore those Gospels, which give the awful sanction, be looked upon by us all with love and veneration. Let the sacred truths they contain be diligently consulted and conscientiously practised. By these shall we be instructed to fear God, and honour the King; two Christian duties which will not fail, we may justly hope, to make us happy under the reign of a Prince, whom the genius of our constitution leads us to consider, not only as the GUARDIAN of our Liberties, but also under the more august title of DEFENDER OF OUR FAITH. *This Sermon was preached at St. James's Chapel before his present Majesty, the Sunday immediately preceding his Coronation. |