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First Letter Concerning Toleration/25 


are the time and place of worship, habit and posture of him that wor- 
ships. These are circumstances, and perfectly indifferent, where God 
has not given any express command about them. For example: amongst 
the Jews the time and place of their worship and the habits of those that 
officiated in it were not mere circumstances, but a part of the worship 
itself, in which, if anything were defective, or different from the institu- 
tion, they could not hope that it would be accepted by God. But these, to 
Christians under the liberty of the Gospel, arc mere circumstances of 
worship, which the prudence of every Church may bring into such use 
as shall be judged most subservient to the end of order, decency, and 
edification. But, even under the Gospel, those who believe the first or 
the seventh day to be set apart by God, and consecrated still to Flis 
worship, to them that portion of time is not a simple circumstance, but a 
real part of Divine worship, which can neither be changed nor neglected. 

In the next place: As the magistrate has no power to impose by his 
laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any Church, so neither has 
he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are al- 
ready received, approved, and practised by any Church; because, if he 
did so, he would destroy the Church itself: the end of whose institution 
is only to worship God with freedom after its own manner. 

You will say, by this rule, if some congregations should have a mind 
to sacrifice infants, or (as the primitive Christians were falsely accused) 
lustfully pollute themselves in promiscuous uncleanness, or practise any 
other such heinous enormities, is the magistrate obliged to tolerate them, 
because they are committed in a religious assembly? I answer: No. These 
things are not lawful in the ordinary course of life, nor in any private 
house; and therefore neither are they so in the worship of God, or in any 
religious meeting. But, indeed, if any people congregated upon account 
of religion should be desirous to sacrifice a calf, I deny that that ought 
to be prohibited by a law. Meliboeus, whose calf it is, may lawfully kill 
his calf at home, and burn any part of it that he thinks fit. For no injury 
is thereby done to any one, no prejudice to another man’s goods. And 
for the same reason he may kill his calf also in a religious meeting. 
Whether the doing so be well-pleasing to God or no, it is their part to 
consider that do it. The paid of the magistrate is only to take care that 
the commonwealth receive no prejudice, and that there be no injury done 
to any man, either in life or estate. And thus what may be spent on a 
feast may be spent on a sacrifice. But if peradventure such were the 
state of things that the interest of the commonwealth required all slaughter