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Thirdly, it ought also to be considered, that this danger proceeded not
merely from solemn acts and public resolutions of the state, but from
sudden bursts of violence at particular places, from the licence of the
populace, the rashness of some magistrates and negligence of others;
from the influence and instigation of interested adversaries, and, in
general, from the variety and warmth of opinion which an errand so novel
and extraordinary could not fail of exciting. I can conceive that the
teachers of Christianity might both fear and suffer much from these
causes, without any general persecution being denounced against them by
imperial authority. Some length of time, I should suppose, might pass,
before the vast machine of the Roman empire would be put in motion, or
its attention be obtained to religious controversy: but, during that
time, a great deal of ill usage might be endured, by a set of
friendless, unprotected travellers, telling men, wherever they came,
that the religion of their ancestors, the religion in which they had
been brought up, the religion of the state, and of the magistrate, the
rites which they frequented, the pomp which they admired, was throughout
a system of folly and delusion.

Nor do I think that the teachers of Christianity would find protection
in that general disbelief of the popular theology, which is supposed to
have prevailed amongst the intelligent part of the heathen public. It is
by no means true that unbelievers are usually tolerant. They are not
disposed (and why should they?) to endanger the present state of
things, by suffering a religion of which they believe nothing to be
disturbed by another of which they believe as little. They are ready
themselves to conform to anything; and are, oftentimes, amongst the