212 CIVIL POWER IN TRINOS SACRED. XIV. I knowit will be objected here, that those few rights and powers, which I have allowed to princes and states, do not arise to the notion of an established church : But in every nation there must be some establishment of religion, say they, there must be somenational church, or settled worship appointed by the state, without which religion cannot subsist. Answer. Nb particular religion or worship can be fully established by civil powers without some sort of penalties, on those people or officers who comply not with it; and is not this very doctrine of the necessity of an established religion, and an established church, which has fixed so many wicked and mischievous religions Throughout the world, and which hath excluded the only true religion of Christ and the New Testament, out of most of the nations of the earth in former and later ages ? And shall christian and protestant rulers, think that things so necessary in civil government, which is liable to such horrid consequences, and which they so much complain of in all other rulers ; as being highly injurious to God and men, and to the religion of the bles- sed Jesus. XV. And I cannot but remark here, that there are many persons highly zealous for au established religion, who are ever urging the pattern of the primitive churches, and especial- ly that of the three first centuries, as the standard and rule to which our present christianity should be reduced, in discipline and worship : They are ever informing us what a glorious thing the christian religion was in those days, how divinely the church flourished, and grew in piety and devotion, as well as in numbers, and in every spiritual grace and beauty. We allow this account of the glory of those early churches, and the beauty of holiness, and the amazing success of the gospel which was found among them, though we cannot admit all their practices to be a perfect rule or standard of christianity, which honour belongs only to the New Testament. But let those persons re- member that in those three first centuries there was no such thing as a church established by law ; and then let all those glories be confessed to belong to the christian church, when it had no national establishment, no royal supports, no settled revenues, no civil power to aggrandize and to adorn it : And let it be remembered too, that when it became an established church under the Emperor Constantine and his successors, its true other :" Which was translated with an excellent preface, written by Mr. Barbeyrac, and printed 1n English by John Watts at the Rose in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1719. These chief mistakes or faults may be found from the forty -fifth to the fiftieth section. I could not comply with these opinions, when I read it many years ago : Otherwise I think it is the best book that ever I met with on this subject and the principles on which it is written, do not only give us a happy clue for the juxtest sentiments in this controversy, but even contradict and overturn those very mistakes of the author, which he bath slid into for want of care and attention in those sections which are most excep- tionable.
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