The inquisition established by Catholics.

ceiving that the sacerdotal power increased by the terrors with which it struck the imagination of mankind, soon became obdurate. The monks, deaf with impunity to the cry of compassion, to the tears of misery, and the groans of tortures, spared neither virtue nor talents; it was by confiscation of property, by the aid of tortures and butcheries that they at last usurped over the people an authority superior to that of the magistrates, and frequently even to that of kings. The bold hand of sacerdotal ambition dared in a Christian country to lay the foundation of such a tribunal; and the stupidity of the people, and of princes, suffered it to be completed,

Are there no longer in the Catholic church a Fenelon or a Fitzjames, who, touched with the misfortunes of their brethren, behold this tribunal with horror? There are still Jansenists virtuous enough to detest the inquisition, even though it should burn a Jesuit; but in general men are not at once religious and tolerant : humanity supposes intelligence.

A man of an enlightened mind knows that force makes hypocrites, and persuasion Christians; that a heretic is a brother, who does not think as he does on certain metaphysical dogmas: that this brother, deprived of the gift of faith, is to be pitied, not persecuted (78); and that if no one can believe that to be true, which appears to him to be false, no human power can command belief.

The consequence of religious intolerance is the misery

YOL. I.

2 A

of

Inconsistency of the consult and professions of Catholic priests.

of nations. What sanctifies intolerance? Sacerdotal ambition. The excessive love of the monk for power produces his excessive barbarity. The monk, cruel by system, is still more so by education. Weak, hypocritical, cowardly by situation, every Catholic priest in general must be atrocious (79); so that in countries. subject to his power he exercises perpetually all that the most refined cruelty and injustice can imagine. If, while professing a religion instituted to inspire gentleness and charity, he became the instrument of persecutions and massacres; if, reeking with the blood spilt at an auto da fe, he ventures at the altar to raise his murderous hands to Heaven, let no one wonder the monk is as he ought to be. Covered with the blood of a heretic, he regards himself as the avenger of the divine wrath. But can he at such a time implore the clemency of Heaven? Can his hands be pure because the church has declared them so? What community has not legitimated the most abominable crimes, when they served to increase its power?

The approbation of the church is sufficient to sanctify any crime. I have regarded the different religions, and have seen their several followers snatch the torch from each other's hands to burn their brethren; I have seen the several superstitions serve as footstools to ecclesiastical pride. Who is then, I have said to myself, the truly impious? Is it the infidel? No: the ambitious fanatic (80). It is he who persecutes and murders his brethren; it is he who, wishing to exe

cute

Impossibility of suppressing intolerance.

cute the vengeance of Heaven on the infernal regions, anticipates that horrid function on earth; who, regarding an infidel as a damned soul, is desirous by a violent death to hasten his perdition, and by an unheard-of progression of cruelty, to cause his brother to be at the same instant arrested, imprisoned, judged, condemned, burned and damned.

CHAP. XXI.

THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SUPPRESSING IN MAN THE SENTIMENT OF INTOLERANCE. MEANS OF COUNTERACTING ITS EFFECTS.

THE leaven of intolerance is indestructible. It is only practicable to suppress its increase and action. Severe laws ought therefore to be employed in restraining it, as they do robbery.

Does it regard personal interest? The magistrate, by preventing its action, will bind the hands of intolerance; and why should they be unbound, when, under the mask of religion, intolerance will exercise the greatest cruelties?

Man is by nature intolerant. If the sun of reason enlighten him for a moment, he should seize the opportunity to bind himself down by wise laws, and put himself in a happy state of impotency, that he may

Means of counteracting intolerance.

not injure others if he should be again seized with the rage of intolerance.

Good laws can equally restrain the furious devotee, and the perfidious priest. England, Holland, and a part of Germany are proofs of this truth. Multiplied crimes and miseries have opened the eyes of the people on this subject: they have perceived that liberty of thought is a natural right; that thinking produces a desire of communicating our thoughts, and that in a people, as an individual, indifference in this matter is a sign of stupidity,

He who does not feel the want of thought never thinks. It is with the body as with the mind; if the faculties of the one or the other are not exerted they become impotent. When intolerance has weighed down the minds of men, and has broken their spring, they then become stupid, and darkness is spread over a nation.

The touch of Midas, the poets say, turned every thing into gold; the head of Medusa transformed every thing into stone intolerance, in like manner, transforms into hypocrites, fools, and ideots (81), all that it finds within the sphere of its attraction. It was intolerance that scattered in the East the first seeds of stupidity, which since the institution of despotism have there sprung up. It is intolerance that has condemned to the contempt of the present and future ages all those superstitious countries whose inhabitants in

fact

Dangers to be apprehended from Catholic intolerance.

fact appear to belong rather to the class of brutes than of men.

There is only one case in which toleration can be detrimental to a people, and that is when it tolerates a religion that is intolerant, such as the Catholic (82). This religion, becoming the most powerful in a state, will always shed the blood of its stupid protectors; it is the serpent that stings the bosom which has warmed it. Let Germany beware! its princes have an interest in embracing popery; it affords them respectable establishments for their brothers, children, &c. These princes becoming Catholics would force the belief of their subjects, and if they found it necessary, would again make human blood to stream; the torch of superstition and intolerance would again blaze. A light breath would kindle it, and set all Europe in flames. Where would the conflagration stop? I know not. Would Holland escape? Would the Briton himself, from the height of his rocks, for any long time brave the Catholic fury? The straits of the sea would prove an impotent barrier against the rage of fanaticism. What could hinder the preaching up of a new croisade, and the arming of all Europe against England, the invasion of that country, by the Catholics and their treating the Britons as they formerly treated the Albigenses!

Let not the insinuating manner of the Catholics impose on the Protestants. The same priest who in