mischievous expedient could be planned or attempted.  (P:19) Wholly
repugnant to the general freedom are such devices as enthralling
men's minds with prejudices, forcing their judgment, or employing
any of the weapons of quasi-religious sedition; indeed, such
seditions only spring up, when law enters the domain of speculative
thought, and opinions are put on trial and condemned on the same
footing as crimes, while those who defend and follow them are
sacrificed, not to public safety, but to their opponents' hatred
and cruelty.  (P:19a) If deeds only could be made the grounds of
criminal charges, and words were always allowed to pass free, such
seditions would be divested of every semblance of justification,
and would be separated from mere controversies by a hard and fast line.

(P:20) Now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a
republic, where everyone's judgment is free and unshackled, where
each may worship God as his conscience dictates, and where freedom
is esteemed before all things dear and precious, I have believed
that I should be undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task,
in demonstrating that not only can such freedom be granted without
prejudice to the public peace, but also, that without such freedom,
piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be secure.

[P:2] (21) Such is the chief conclusion I seek to establish
in this treatise; but, in order to reach it, I must first
point out the misconceptions which, like scars of our former
bondage, still disfigure our notion of religion, and must
expose the false views about the civil authority which many
have most impudently advocated, endeavouring to turn the
mind of the people, still prone to heathen superstition,
away from its legitimate rulers, and so bring us again into
slavery.  (P:22) As to the order of my treatise I will speak
presently, but first I will recount the causes which led me
to write. 

(P:23) I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of
professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace,
temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such
rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another
such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they
claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith.  (24) Matters
have long since come to such a pass, that one can only pronounce
a man Christian, Turk, Jew, or Heathen, by his general appearance
and attire, by his frequenting this or that place of worship,
or employing the phraseology of a particular sect - as for manner
of life, it is in all cases the same.  (25) Inquiry into the
cause of this anomaly leads me unhesitatingly to ascribe it to
the fact, that the ministries of the Church are regarded by the
masses merely as dignities, her offices as posts of emolument -
in short, popular religion may be summed up as respect for
ecclesiastics.  (P:26) The spread of this misconception inflamed
every worthless fellow with an intense desire to enter holy
orders, and thus the love of diffusing God's religion degenerated
into sordid avarice and ambition.  (27) Every church became a
theatre, where orators, instead of church teachers, harangued,
caring not to instruct the people, but striving to attract
admiration, to bring opponents to public scorn, and to preach
only novelties and paradoxes, such as would tickle the ears
of their congregation.  (P:28) This state of things necessarily
stirred up an amount of controversy, envy, and hatred, which no
lapse of time could appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that
of the old religion nothing survives but its outward forms (even
these, in the mouth of the multitude, seem rather adulation than
adoration of the Deity), and that faith has become a mere compound
of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade
man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the
power of judgment between true and false, which seem,  in fact,
carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark
of reason!  (P:29) Piety, great God! and religion are become a
tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason,
who reject and turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt,
these, I say, these of all men, are thought, 0 lie most horrible!
to possess light from on High.  (30) Verily, if they had but one
spark of light from on High, they would not insolently rave, but
would learn to worship God more wisely, and would be as marked
among their fellows for mercy as they now are for malice; if they
were concerned for their opponents' souls, instead of for their own
reputations, they would no longer fiercely persecute, but rather be
filled with pity and compassion.

(P:31) Furthermore, if any Divine light were in them, it would
appear from their doctrine.  (32) I grant that they are never
tired of professing their wonder at the profound mysteries of
Holy Writ; still I cannot discover that they teach anything
but speculations of Platonists and Aristotelians, to which (in
order to save their credit for Christianity) they have made Holy
Writ conform; not content to rave with the Greeks themselves,
they want to make the prophets rave also; showing conclusively,
that never even in sleep have they caught a glimpse of Scripture's
Divine nature.  (P:33) The very vehemence of their admiration for
the mysteries plainly attests, that their belief in the Bible is a
formal assent rather than a living faith: and the fact is made
still more apparent by their laying down beforehand, as a
foundation for the study and true interpretation of Scripture,
the principle that it is in every passage true and divine.
(34) Such a doctrine should be reached only after strict scrutiny
and thorough comprehension of the Sacred Books (which would teach
it much better, for they stand in need no human factions), and
not be set up on the threshold, as it were, of inquiry.

[P:3] (35) As I pondered over the facts that the light of reason