ce cas même, seroit surement succedée par quelque secte nouvelle. Une rigidité exacte à exiger la profession d'un Formulaire commun, de tous ceux qui entrent dans quelque poste ou dans quelque societé publique que ce puisse être, & une indulgence entiere à l'égard des opinions des simples particuliers, assureroient la tranquillité de l'Etat contre les efforts non seulement des sectes actuelles, mais encore de toutes celles qui pourroient se former par la suite.

Je soumets toutes ces reflexions, M., aux lumieres de votre Eminence, & j'ai l'honneur d'être, &c.

THE

ALLIANCE

BETWEEN

CHURCH AND STATE.

BOOK I.

OF THE NATURE AND END OF CIVIL AND OF RELIGIOUS SOCIETY.

CHAP. I.

THE OCCASION AND NATURE OF THIS DISCOURSE.

N ESTABLISHED RELIGION, and a TEST LAW,

AN

the two great solecisms, as we are told, in modern politics, are the subject of the following Discourse. A subject that hath not only, in common with most others of importance, been much perplexed by the bringing in, on both sides, men's civil and religious prejudices into the question; but likewise, which is almost peculiar to this controversy, by their concurring in one and the same erroneous principle for where the two parties go on different grounds, they naturally begin with examining one another's principles, which leads to the discovery of the true; and consequently to the timely determination of the controversy. But where a false principle has the luck to be unquestioned, the disputants

may wrangle for ever, and be, after all, no nearer to the truth. This hath been the fate of the subject in question; while both parties placed their arguments on the same mistaken foundation, the one defended a Test on such reasonings as destroyed a Toleration; and the other opposed it on such as conclude equally against the very essence and being of a National Religion.

Inveterate mistakes, therefore, upon a subject of such importance, would be a sufficient apology for the Expediency of this Discourse at any time, although some late occurrences had not made it particularly seasonable at the present. Our unhappy divisions in the state have, it seems, amongst the various intrigues of parties, afforded opportunity and encouragement to the Protestant Dissenters to enter upon measures for the Repeal of the Test Law; that is, as we shall prove, for throwing the state into convulsions, by a dissolution of the original union between the two Societies. In the mean time it hath unhappily befallen, that some, to whom this kingdom is greatly indebted for their reasonings in defence of public liberty, have thought hardly of a Test-Law and of an Established Religion so secured. From what their mistake hath arisen will be shewn in its place. However, the authority of these great names hath induced many unprejudiced persons to shew too much countenance to this destructive project; and hath emboldened the promoters of it to appeal to the abstract principle of Right. I shall therefore attempt to shew THE NECESSITY AND EQUITY OF AN ESTABLISHED RELIGION AND A TEST-LAW FROM THE ESSENCE AND END OF CIVIL SOCIETY, UPON THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF NATURE AND NATIONS.

This

This being our subject, I do not propose to defend an Established Religion and a Test, by the laws of this or that state, or on the principles of this or that scheme of religion, but on the great and unerring maxims of the law of nature and nations: and when, on occasion, I may happen to apply the reasoning here enforced, to this or that church or state, it will be only so far forth as they are conformable to that law.

And this is all now wanting to determine this long controversy. For the adversaries of establishments having been beaten off from their attacks of the Test-Law, on the frame and principles of our own constitution, by many excellent vindications of the Corporation and Test-Acts, have left this partial question, and appealed to the law of nature and nations. To that tribunal we now propose to follow them.

The Principles of Society, Civil and Religious, here delivered, will serve to lay open the absurd reasonings of those, who, thinking an Establishment of divine right, defend it on the doctrine of intolerance, which makes a church an inquisition; and the necessary consequences deduced from those principles will as plainly expose the mischievous reasonings of those, who, holding a Test to be against all human rights, oppose it on a doctrine of licentiousness, which makes the church a rope of sand. Having done this, from those clear principles, and these necessary consequences, we shall demonstrate the perfect concord and agreement between Religious Liberty and a Test-Law; and, in the last place, detect the delusive Principle, above mentioned, upon which both parties have gone, and shew how it hath led both, as extraordinary as it may seem, to quite contrary conclusions. From all this it will appear, which is one of

the principal purposes of this Discourse, that our present happy Constitution, both of Church and State, is erected on solid and lasting Foundations.

CHAP. II.

OF THE STATE OF NATURE; AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SOCIETY.

TO lay my foundation therefore with sufficient strength, it will be necessary, though in as few words as may be, to consider the nature of man in general, and of that civil community which he invented with so much benefit to himself and fellows: that, seeing his wants, and the remedies he applied to them, we may better judge of their fitness to, and operations on, each other.

The appetite of self-preservation being indispensably necessary to every animal, nature has made it the strongest of all. And though, in rational animals, reason alone might be supposed sufficient to answer the end for which this appetite is bestowed on others, yet, the better to secure that end, nature has given man likewise a very considerable share of the same instinct with which she has endowed brutes so admirably to provide for their preservation. Now, whether it were some plastic nature that was here in fault, which, Lord Verulam says, knows not how to keep a mean*, or that it was all owing to the perverse use of human liberty, certain it is, that, borne away with the lust of gratifying this appetite, man, in a state of nature, soon ran into very violent excesses ; and never thought he had sufficiently provided for his own being, till he had deprived his fellows of the