Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/195

 the civil magistrate for their protector and head; but if, in this case, he should compel their assent to his own opinions, would it not be thought that, notwithstanding their choice of the civil magistrate for their head, if they submitted to his impositions, they ceased to be what they were before, and the society changed its nature and character! In like manner, christians act altogether out of character in chusing a temporal head; and no person who has a just regard to his religion, and the liberty wherewith Christ has made him free, will ever acknowledge such a dependence on the civil power.

Whenever, therefore, the civil magistrate, either in consequence of becoming a member of the christian church, by incorporating christianity into his system of civil policy, or by being chosen supreme head of the church in a christian nation, introduces into the gospel such laws and sanctions as are evidently unsuitable to the nature of it; as, for instance, when, instead of voluntary contributions to the church