ng the sectaries, their attachment to their
particular modes of religion decays; the common occupations and
pleasures of life succeed to the acrimony of disputation; and the same
man who, in other circumstances, would have braved flames and tortures,
is induced to change his sect from the smallest prospect of favor
and advancement, or even from the frivolous hope of becoming more
fashionable in his principles. If any exception can be admitted to this
maxim of toleration, it will only be where a theology altogether new,
nowise connected with the ancient religion of the state, is imported
from foreign countries, and may easily, at one blow, be eradicated,
without leaving the seeds of future innovation. But as this exception
would imply some apology for the ancient pagan persecutions, or for
the extirpation of Christianity in China and Japan, it ought surely,
on account of this detested consequence, to be rather buried in eternal
silence and oblivion.

Though these arguments appear entirely satisfactory, yet such is the
subtlety of human wit, that Gardiner and the other enemies to toleration
were not reduced to silence; and they still found topics on which
to maintain the controversy. The doctrine, said they, of liberty of
conscience, is founded on the most flagrant impiety, and supposes such
an indifference among all religions, such an obscurity in theological
doctrines, as to render the church and magistrate incapable of
distinguishing with certainty the dictates of Heaven from the mere
fictions of human imagination. If the Divinity reveals principles
to mankind, he will surely give a criterion by which they may be
ascertained; and a prince who knowingly allows these principles to be
perverted or adulterated, is infinitely more criminal than if he gave
permission for the vending of poison, under the shape of food, to all
his subjects. Persecution may, indeed, seem better calculated to make
hypocrites than converts; but experience teaches us, that the habits of
hypocrisy often turn into reality; and the children, at least, ignorant
of the dissimulation of their parents, may happily be educated in more
orthodox tenets. It is absurd, in opposition to considerations of such
unspeakable importance, to plead the temporal and frivolous interests
of civil society; and if matters be thoroughly examined, even that topic
will not appear so universally certain in favor of toleration as by some
it is represented. Where sects arise wh