!
never! Sir, they constantly carried on persecution against that
doctrine. I will not give heathens the glory of a doctrine which I
consider the best part of Christianity. The honorable gentleman must
recollect the Roman law, that was clearly against the introduction of
any foreign rites in matters of religion. You have it at large in Livy,
how they persecuted in the first introduction the rites of Bacchus; and
even before Christ, to say nothing of their subsequent persecutions,
they persecuted the Druids and others. Heathenism, therefore, as in
other respects erroneous, was erroneous in point of persecution. I do
not say every heathen who persecuted was therefore an impious man: I
only say he was mistaken, as such a man is now. But, says the honorable
gentleman, they did not persecute Epicureans. No: the Epicureans had no
quarrel with their religious establishment, nor desired any religion for
themselves. It would have been very extraordinary, if irreligious
heathens had desired either a religious establishment or toleration.
But, says the honorable gentleman, the Epicureans entered, as others,
into the temples. They did so; they defied all subscription; they defied
all sorts of conformity; there was no subscription to which they were
not ready to set their hands, no ceremonies they refused to practise;
they made it a principle of their irreligion outwardly to conform to any
religion. These atheists eluded all that you could do: so will all
freethinkers forever. Then you suffer, or the weakness of your law has
suffered, those great dangerous animals to escape notice, whilst you
have nets that entangle the poor fluttering silken wings of a tender
conscience.

The honorable gentleman insists much upon this circumstance of
objection,--namely, the division amongst the Dissenters. Why, Sir, the
Dissenters, by the nature of the term, are open to have a division among
themselves. They are Dissenters because they differ from the Church of
England: not that they agree among themselves. There are Presbyterians,
there are Independents,--some that do not agree to infant baptism,
others that do not agree to the baptism of adults, or any baptism. All
these are, however, tolerated under the acts of King William, and
subsequent acts; and their diversity of sentiments with one another did
not and could not furnish an argument against their toleration, when
their difference with ourselves furnished none.

But, says the honorable gent