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DISSENTERS. Penal Laws
A zeal for a Church as such, if to be gratified by methods 
 in any degree partaking of coercion, is if rightly 
 understood, a crime against the State; since the 
 gratification it seeks is to be accomplished at the
 expense of a portion of the happiness of a number of the 
 members of that state, in whose conduct the coercion 
is to operate: certainly in this life, by the very supposition: 
 for to say any thing as to a future, would be to beg 
 the question in favour of one side or the other.
Any expression of such a zeal, is but a disguised expression 
  profession  of an itch to play the Tyrant.Men of otherwise of conscience & of worth.
A zeal in a man for the magnifying of a Church, is not a desire 
 to serve God in his own way 
for that, as to he is in the same case whether the has many members of his church do,  whatever becomes of other people by few or many
[in the manner, he thinks, but will 
 please him,] but a zeal to make others do so 
 too.
There is no deliverance from which.. ..
never can escape
Either men will hold to your Church  I speak as between Christians. if left to themselves,
 or they will think another better: if the first,
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your pains are to no purpose; if the latter, it comes 
to the old story tale, by 
I am the only one in whom reason is to be found
Grant that you have a right to judge what is necessary to salvation for others as well as yourself, If this be admitted, & welfare in future life be taken unto consideration,  it is a justifiable  duty    out of 2 million if they will not otherwise be  converted, to cut the throats of one in order to save the Souls of  another the remainder.
Those men who have such an opinion of the reasonableness
 of their persuasion, as that if placed on fair even>
 ground with it's rivals it must fall sink: who think, that 
 in that comfortable comforting prophicy assurance of the Author of our 
the the  Religion or, "the Gates of Hell shall not prevail 
 against it," their our branch of it is an exception,
 let it be judged whether it be for the prosperity on behalf of the interests of 
 their Religion that they are jealous, or of the damnnation
 of their own will.
| Identifier: | JB/073/022/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 73. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 073 | law in general | ||
| 022 | dissenters penal laws | ||
| 001 | |||
| text sheet | 1 | ||
| recto | |||
| jeremy bentham | [[watermarks::gr [crown motif]]] | ||
| 23862 | |||