were prescribed. This, though not free from numerous objections, would at least have been requiring what it was in every man's power to perform, while it would have presented no temptation to sacrifice, at the entrance of his career, his candour, or at all events his veracity.

Whether we acquiesce or not, however, in the supposition, that an impression of the voluntary nature of belief had a considerable share in the first institution of articles and subscriptions, it is plain that the practice could not have been consistently enforced under the general prevalence of the contrary doctrine.

There is one thing, indeed, which even then might have justified the enforcement of such a regulation, the improbability of any one subscribing a creed who could not conscientiously do it. On this point, let those decide who are aware of the causes which necessarily generate diversities of opinion, and who can, at the same time, estimate the chance which, in such an affair, the scruples of conscience have of

maintaining their ground against the temptations of interest or the blandishments of

power.

But the most fatal consequences of the speculative error under consideration are to be found in the repeated attempts to regulate men's creeds by the application of intimidation and punishment; in the intolerance and persecution which have disgraced the history of the human race. The natural consequence of imputing guilt to opinions was an endeavour to prevent and to punish them; and, as such a course coincided with the gratification of the malignant passions of our nature, nothing less could be expected than that it would be pursued with eagerness and marked by cruelty.

It will probably be urged, that since a man's opinions are not to be read in his gestures or countenance, punishments cannot be applied till the opinions are expressed; and that when they have been inflicted, it has been done, not to alter his creed nor to punish him for hold

ing it, but to prevent its propagation. If we look, however, into the history of mankind, we shall discover, that to prevent the propagation of opinions has not been the sole object of such penal inflictions. We shall find, that the aim of the persecutor has been, not only to prevent obnoxious opinions from spreading, but to punish the presumed guilt of holding them, and sometimes to convert the sufferers. He has accordingly directed his fury against innocent actions, merely expressive or indicative of opinions, and having no tendency to propagate them, and has relented when his victims have been brought to profess a renunciation of their errors; his conduct evidently proceeding on the two assumptions, that belief was voluntary, so that a man might be induced or compelled to relinquish it; and, secondly, that if it differed from his own it was criminal, and therefore deserved to be punished.

The universal treatment of the Jews, from whom no contamination of faith could possibly

be apprehended, is a standing proof of the prevalence and effects of these pernicious errors; and we need not go farther than the pages of our own history for additional instances and ample corroboration. "The per

sons condemned to these punishments," says Hume, in reference to the persecutions in the reign of the bloody and bigotted Mary, "were not convicted of teaching or dogmatising, contrary to the established religion; they were seized merely on suspicion, and articles being offered them to subscribe, they were immediately upon their refusal condemned to the flames."

These persecutors it is plain (unless they were actuated solely by the vilest motives) must either have thought it possible to eradicate opinions from the mind by violence, and force others upon it, or have laboured under the strange infatuation of conceiving, that they could render God and man service by destroying the sincerity of their fellow-creatures, and compelling them to make professions at va

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riance with their real conviction. Perhaps, sometimes one and sometimes the other of these notions actuated the minds of the bigots. Sometimes they might think, that if a poor wretch could be forced by intimidation or torture to acknowledge the truth of a creed he would really believe it; and sometimes, that it was a valuable triumph to extort a few words from the weakness of nature, how contrary soever they might be to the real sentiments of their victims. It is probable, however, that their minds were never entirely free from confused notions of the voluntary nature of belief, of the consequent possibility of altering opinions by the application of motives, and of the criminality of holding any creed but their own. These principles seem to have actuated more or less all religious persecutors. Even the victims themselves appear, in many instances, not to have called in question the right of persecution, but only the propriety of its exercise on their own persons. Both the persecutors and the persecuted have united