that opposite effects are in different circumstances worked out by causes seemingly similar; and that they who in seasons of tranquillity are the objects of our kindest affections, become in times of discord the victims of our most implacable resentments. Hence all the endearments of domestic relation, and all the bonds of social and religious intercourse, by which those who adhered to Christ had been once united to those who rejected him, served only to make the guilt of a pretended apostacy from Judaism more flagrant, in the eyes of men who were themselves too stubborn to be converted, and too malicious to be soothed. When Christianity was preached among the Gentiles, the reproach which was by implication cast upon their impure and monstrous system of popular belief, necessarily called forth a most determined spirit of opposition. Ashamed to transfer their hopes and fears from a host of subordinate deities to the one unknown God, and afraid to embrace a scheme of morality very adverse to the sensual gratifications in which they had without remorse indulged themselves, they thought no indignity too gross, no injury too oppressive, if it tended to check the progress of the Gospel. The intrinsic purity of the Christian religion, and the consistency with which it was supported, exposed its advocates to peculiar hardships. Paganism, destitute as it was, not only of divine authority, but of any fixed principle in reason, indiscriminately and eagerly patronized any number of Gods, and any traditions concerning their attributes and actions. Christianity, on the contrary, not only excluded the multitude of heathen deities, but all their impurities, and all the absurd, impious qualities ascribed to them. It therefore appeared harsh and unsocial in the eyes of the vulgar, who were attached to their ancient theology, and of the philosophers, who looked down with contempt upon all forms of religion, new or old, whether rational or absurd. Unhappily too for the first teachers of the Gospel, both the passions of the vulgar and the pride of the philosopher were supported by the tyranny of the magistrate. And hence arose that long train of persecutions which harassed the Christian Church before the time of Constantine. But if the blood of the martyrs was shed wantonly and barbarously by the enemics of the Gospel, we might expect that after its establishment by the civil power all would be peace and harmony among its friends. This expectation, alas! however reasonable, is disappointed by the contentions of Christians themselves. While Christianity was yet in its infancy, and various adversaries were conspiring to stifle it before it could arrive at its full vigour, a most violent debate about the celebration of Easter had severed the Asiatic and European churches. In Constantine's time it was unnecessarily and angrily revived, for the purpose of settling what might have been safely and properly left undetermined, because no determination could add to the credibility of the fact commemorated, or elevate the rational piety of those by whom it was believed. But the disputes upon this subject were inconsi - derable, when compared with all the acts of cruel intolerance and impious dogmatism, which followed upon the controversy between the partizans and the opponents of Athanasius. Senseless and groundless distinctions were multiplied every day. The Church was split into innumerable factions, who were actuated by a shameless emulation in presumption and uncharitableness. The sword was lifted up by the father against the son, and all thoughts of peace were laid aside by those who were of the same household. It would be a painful task to expatiate upon the intemperate debates which were agitated in some succeeding ages upon the insolence and barbarity of the victorious parties or upon the malignity which rankled in the bosom of the vanquished, who eagerly seized every opportunity of > retaliation. To say the fact, whatever doctrines they might be anxious to disseminate, and by whatever spirit they might profess to be influenced, it seems, by a kind of fatality, to have been the disgrace of every party, not to have acted up to the dignity of that virtue, which St. Paul has emphatically called charity. All of them seem to have exchanged the humbleness of adversity for the insolence of powerto have passed at once from patience under wrong to impatience of control-to have felt the inclination, as soon as they had acquired the ability to oppress-and, in short, to have disregarded every virtue, which they had formerly commended-to have refused every indulgence, which they had formerly solicited-and to have heaped without compunction those severities upon others, of which themselves had complained without redress. But when the Church of Rome gained the ascendancy, all tranquillity and concord were banished from the Christian world. Hence the progress of that Church to an unprecedented and intolerable dominion is marked by destructive wars, by secret conspiracies, by the assassination of prelates and princes, and by convulsions in the laws and government of various states. Were history indeed silent upon the occasion, we might justly conclude, that mankind would not have been reconciled to the irrational tenets and daring pretensions of the Romish Church without long and vigorous struggles. During those struggles, the still voice of reason was lost among the clamours of the angry controversialists; all the worst affections of the mind were inflamed, and mankind were hurried by superstition and bigotry into the most horrid excesses of fraud and injustice. We must not forget that the power of this Church has been uniformly supported by the same means which first established it. The contest for supremacy on the part of the Pope at Rome over the Patriarch of Constantinople, who claimed an independency; the formal declaration against heretics in the Popedom of Alexander the Third; the ridiculous yet barbarous severities exercised against the Jews; the romantic and unprovoked depredations committed against the Saracens; the unjust punishments inflicted upon those who attempted a reformation in different ages in different countries; the open institution of the inquisitorial court-that most terrible and irresistible engine of spiritual tyranny; the execrable barbarities committed at the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the sanguinary fury of the inflamed rabble, and the unrelenting vengeance of a bigoted king-these, I say, are decisive proofs of the justice with which our Saviour predicted the sad effects of perverted religion. They are melancholy indications of the depravity, to which human nature may be debased by superstition and blind zeal, when leagued, as they often are leagued, with pride, rapacity, and malevolence. As contentions in states often take their rise from the restlessness of the strong to trample upon the feeble, so the mischievous consequences of religious disputes may be generally ascribed to the combination of the worst members in the community against the most useful. For against whom is the sword of persecution for the most part lifted up? Against men of enlightened understanding and exalted spirits-men who glow with a generous love of knowledge, and who feel a jealous solicitude for the dearest rights of their species men who have the sagacity to hunt down imposture through all the labyrinths of scholastic theology, and the courage to maintain truth amidst the denunciations of ecclesiastical vengeance. By whom too is it pointed? Not merely by the sullen and vindictive bigot, or the captious and heated enthusiast, but by the wily and unprincipled statesman, who, acting under the veil of picty, is always ready to take advantage of vulgar credulity and popular phrenzy-to make religious hypocrisy the surer and more fatal engine of political-and to entangle the pretended interests of |