Excerpt from An Essay Concerning Civil Government, Consider'd as It Stands Related to Religion: Wherein the Magistrate's Right to Support and Encourage True Religion by Human Laws Is Asserted, Against the Modern Pleaders for an Absolute, Unrestrained Toleration H E late Controverfiey ha, wing led me to confider the que/hon concerning the Ma gif'crate's Authority in Matters of Religion, I now ofer my Thoughty of it to the World. The Ufefulnefs of the Subjec't, nit/fl he my Apology for puhli/hing them now and the Difficulty of it, my Ezeufe for not puhii/hing them fooner. The one may invite the Attention of the Reader; The other certainly demands great Caution and Circumfireffion in the Writer: And if h} delaying I have gained this Advantage, that the Book comes out the more perfieft I may likemife hope that, the Heat of Contention being now pretty reel] over it A 2iv' The preface. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.