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Constantine the Great, and then, and not till then, power and privileges incompatible with the practice and precepts-of our adorable Saviour, were usurped by his followers : Then the gospel was reduced to a step-ladder for ambitious politicians, and became the implement of destruction, and the innocent cause of war,* superstition and

. It is painful even to think upon the enormities committed under the cloak of religion; and “could we form an estimate of the lives lost in the wars and persecutions of the Christian church alone, we should find it nearly equal to the number of souls now existing in Europe. But it is perhaps in mercy to mankind, that we are not able to calculate, with any accuracy, even this portion of human calamities. When Constantine ordered that the hierarchy should assume the name of Christ, we are not to consider him as forming a new weapon of destruction; he only changed a name, which had grown into disrepute, and would serve the purpose no longer, for one that was galning an extensive reputation; it being built on a faith that was likely to meet the assent of a considerable portion of mankind. The cold-hearted cruelty of that

bigotry; and I am sorry to say, it remains the same in many countries to the present;

monarch's character, and his embracing the new doctrine with a temper hardened in the slaughter of his relations, were omens unfavourable to the future complexion of the hierarchy; though he had thus coupled it with a name that had hitherto been remarkable for its meekness and humility. This transaction has therefore given colour to a scene of enormities, which may be regarded as nothing more than the genuine offspring of the alliance of Church and State.

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This fatal deviation from the principles of the first founder of the faith, who declared that his kingdom was not of this world, has deluged Europe in blood for a long succession of ages, and carried occasional ravages into all the other quarters of the globe. The pretence of extirpating the idolatries of ancient establishments, and the innumerable heresies of the new, has been the never-failing argument of princes as well as pontiffs, from the wars of Constantine, down to the pitiful, stillborn rebellion of Calonne, and the count d'Artois,

"From the time of the conversion of Clovis, through all the Merovingian race, France and Germany groaned under the fury of ecclesiastical monsters, hunting

moment. It is matter of amazement as well as lamentation, that mankind should

down the Druids, overturning the temples of the Ro. man Polytheists, and drenching the plains with the blood of Arians. The wars of Charlemagne against the Saxons, the Huns, the Lombards and the Moors, which desolated Europe for forty years, had for their principal object the extending and purifying of the Christian faith. The crusades, which drained Europe of its young men at eight successive periods, must have sacrificed, including Asiatics and Africans, at least four millions of lives. The wars of the Guelfs and Gibelines, or pope and anti-pope, ravaged Italy and involved half Europe in factions for two centuries together. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, depopulated that kingdom by a war of seven hundred years, and established the inquisition to interdict the resurrection of society; while millions of the natives of South America have been destroyed by attempting to convert them.

“In this enumeration, we have taken no notice of that train of calamities which attended the re-conversion of the eastern empire, and attaching it to the faith of Mahomet; nor of the various havoc which followed the dismemberment of the Catholic church

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suffer themselves thus to be hood-winked, dragooned, and imposed upon for so many

by that fortunate schism, which by some is denomi. nated the Lutheran heresy, and by others the Protestant reformation.

„But these, it will be said, are only general traits of uncivilized character, which we all contemplate with equal horror, and which, among enlightened nations, there can be no danger of seeing renewed. It is true, that, in several countries, the glooms of intolerance seem to be pierced by the rays of philosophy; and we may soon expect to see Europe uni. versally disclaiming the right of one man to interfere in the religion of another. We may remark, however, first, that this is far from being the case at this moment; and secondly, that it is a blessing which never can originate from any state establishment of religion. For proofs of the former, we need not penetrate into Spain or Italy, nor recall the history of the late fanatical management of the war in Brabant-but look to the two most enlightened countries in Europe; see the riots at Birmingham, and the conduct of the refractory priests in France.

“ With regard to the second remark, , we may as well own the trath at first as at last, and have senise

centuries, and that so many lazy and intolerant parsons should be able, with an arm of flesh, thus to degrade human nature, and metamorphose a religion so pure and peaceable, to the dæmon of war and carnage ; and that they could contrive so long to live upon the labours, and trample upon the rights of their fellow creatures. All this has been done, not by forces physical or moral, but by religious fraud. The cunning priests introduced ignorance for knowledge, superstition for religion, and a belief of their own infallibility for the light of reason; and with these fatal auxiliaries, they did with the greatest facility, infringe the rights of God. And this engine in all

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this year as the next: The existence of any kind of liber. ty is incompatible with the existence of any kind of church. By liberty, I mean the enjoy ent of

ual rights, and by church I mean any mode of worship declared to be national, or declared to have any preference in the eye of the law.”

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