A Peace Offering

A bold 1667 plea for liberty of conscience, addressed to Restoration-era civil authorities. Owen argues from Scripture, natural law, patristic testimony, and European history that coercing religious conscience is both spiritually lawless and politically self-defeating. Surveying the apostolic practice of forbearance, the failures of Constantine's successors, and the French Wars of Religion, he contends that peaceable Protestant dissenters pose no threat to civil order — and that mercy, not severity, is the path to lasting national peace.