n religious
subjects can be owing, at first, to the stupid ignorance alone and
barbarism of the people, who never indulge themselves in any speculation
or inquiry; and there is no expedient for maintaining that uniformity
so fondly sought after, but by banishing forever all curiosity, and
all improvement in science and cultivation. It may not indeed appear
difficult to check, by a steady severity, the first beginnings of
controversy; but besides that this policy exposes forever the people
to all the abject terrors of superstition, and the magistrate to the
endless encroachments of ecclesiastics, it also renders men so delicate
that they can never endure to hear of opposition; and they will some
time pay dearly for that false tranquillity in which they have been so
long indulged. As healthful bodies are ruined by too nice a regimen, and
are thereby rendered incapable of bearing the unavoidable incidents
of human life, a people who never were allowed to imagine that their
principles could be contested fly out into the most outrageous violence
when any event (and such events are common) produces a faction among
their clergy, and gives rise to any difference in tenet or opinion. But
whatever may be said in favor of suppressing, by persecution, the first
beginnings of heresy, no solid argument can be alleged for extending
severity towards multitudes, or endeavoring, by capital punishments, to
extirpate an opinion which has diffused itself among men of every
rank and station. Besides the extreme barbarity of such an attempt, it
commonly proves ineffectual to the purpose intended, and serves only to
make men more obstinate in their persuasion, and to increase the number
of their proselytes. The melancholy with which the fear of death,
torture, and persecution inspires the sectaries, is the proper
disposition for fostering religious zeal: the prospect of eternal
rewards, when brought near, overpowers the dread of temporal
punishments: the glory of martyrdom stimulates all the more furious
zealots, especially the leaders and preachers: where a violent animosity
is excited by oppression, men naturally pass from hating the persons of
their tyrants to a more violent abhorrence of their doctrines: and the
spectators, moved with pity towards the supposed martyrs, are easily
seduced to embrace those principles which can inspire men with a
constancy that appears almost supernatural. Open the door to toleration,
mutual hatred relaxes amo