[374]. The laws, in some of our States, which make clergymen ineligible to certain civil offices, are unjust, and inconsistent with our republican institutions. Every man has equal civil rights, and the exclusion of any class of men from the enjoyment of any of those rights, is an odious proscription. It is, indeed, desirable, that no clergyman should accept a civil office, because his duties as a minister of the Gospel ought to be sufficient to occupy his mind. But he has a right, as a citizen, to be elected to any office; and to exclude him is an assumption of the power to establish a national religion, for if a man may be excluded from office, because he is a minister, he may, by the same authority, be invested with office, because he is a minister. It is remarkable, that those who clamor so loudly against church and state, do not see any inconsistency in the exclusion of clergymen, as such, from office.
[375]. Life of Jeremy Taylor, Am. ed. p. 37.
[376]. Mr. Williams speaks of this work, in his rejoinder to Mr. Cotton’s reply: “Dr. J. Taylor, what an everlasting monumental testimony did he publish to this truth, in that his excellent discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying.” pp. 316–17.
[377]. Works, vol. x. pp. 45–7.
[378]. In 1649, the Assembly of Maryland enacted, “that no persons professing to believe in Jesus Christ, shall be molested, in respect of their religion, or in the free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the belief or practice of any other religion, against their consent, so that they be not unfaithful to the proprietary, or conspire against the civil government. That persons molesting any other in respect of his religious tenets shall pay treble damages to the party aggrieved, and twenty shillings to the proprietary. That the reproaching any with opprobrious epithets of religious distinctions, shall forfeit ten shillings to the persons aggrieved. That any one speaking reproachfully against the Blessed Virgin, or the Apostles, shall forfeit five pounds, but blasphemy against God shall be punished with death.” Chalmers’ Pol. Ann. vol. i. p. 218. These latter provisions might easily be made terrible engines of persecution, in the hands of ill-disposed magistrates.
[379]. 2 Mass. His. Col. viii. p. 79.
[380]. There is a thin book, in the Library of Harvard College, which purports to be a copy of this work, but it contains only the Preface and Dedicatory Epistles.
[381]. Alluding to the “Eikon Basilike,” a book, which purported to have been written by Charles I. and which, it is thought, contributed to the restoration of his son. It was, however, an imposition, Dr. Gauden being the real author. Mr. Williams, it seems had sagacity enough to doubt its authenticity. Milton assailed it with his “Eiconoclastes.”
[382]. N. E. Firebrand Quenched, p. 9.
[383]. See Humphrey Norton’s letter to Governor Prince, of Plymouth, Backus, vol. i. p. 322.