t whether those different forms of religion might not all come from
God, who might inspire men in a different manner, and be pleased with
this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man
to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear
to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true,
and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at
last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of
argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on
the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and
tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best
and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is
with briars and thorns; he therefore left men wholly to their liberty,
that they might be free to believe as they should see cause; only he
made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate
from the dignity of human nature as to think that our souls died with
our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise
overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a
state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life;
and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be
counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon
it no better than a beast's: thus they are far from looking on such men
as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered
commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he
dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt
to be made that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and
apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all
the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he
may satisfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these maxims,
either to honours or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but
despise them, as men of base and sordid minds: yet they do not punish
them, because they lay this down as a maxim that a man cannot make
himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble
their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or
disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the
Utopians. They take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of
these o