had been put to
death elsewhere. "Bayle," says Hallam,[298] "has an excellent remark on
this controversy." Bayle's remark is as follows: "Whenever Protestants
complain, they are answered by the right which Calvin and Beza
recognised in magistrates; and to this day there has been nobody who has
not failed pitiably against this _argumentum ad hominem_."

No question of the merits of the Reformation or of persecution is
involved in an inquiry as to the source and connection of the opinions
on toleration held by the Protestant reformers. No man's sentiments on
the rightfulness of religious persecution will be affected by the
theories we have described, and they have no bearing whatever on
doctrinal controversy. Those who--in agreement with the principle of the
early Church, that men are free in matters of conscience--condemn all
intolerance, will censure Catholics and Protestants alike. Those who
pursue the same principle one step farther and practically invert it, by
insisting on the right and duty not only of professing but of extending
the truth, must, as it seems to us, approve the conduct both of
Protestants and Catholics, unless they make the justice of the
persecution depend on the truth of the doctrine defended, in which case
they will divide on both sides. Such persons, again, as are more
strongly impressed with the cruelty of actual executions than with the
danger of false theories, may concentrate their indignation on the
Catholics of Languedoc and Spain; while those who judge principles, not
by the accidental details attending their practical realisation, but by
the reasoning on which they are founded, will arrive at a verdict
adverse to the Protestants. These comparative inquiries, however, have
little serious interest. If we give our admiration to tolerance, we must
remember that the Spanish Moors and the Turks in Europe have been more
tolerant than the Christians; and if we admit the principle of
intolerance, and judge its application by particular conditions, we are
bound to acknowledge that the Romans had better reason for persecution
than any modern State, since their empire was involved in the decline of
the old religion, with which it was bound up, whereas no Christian
polity has been subverted by the mere presence of religious dissent. The
comparison is, moreover, entirely unreasonable, for there is nothing in
common between Catholic and Protestant intolerance. The Church began
with the principle of lib