foremost to procure conformity from others, by any method which they
think likely to be efficacious. When was ever a change of religion
patronized by infidels? How little, not withstanding the reigning
scepticism, and the magnified liberality of that age, the true
principles of toleration were understood by the wisest men amongst them,
may be gathered from two eminent and uncontested examples. The younger
Pliny, polished as he was by all the literature of that soft and elegant
period, could gravely pronounce this monstrous judgment:--"Those who
persisted in declaring themselves Christians, I ordered to be led away
to punishment, (i. e. to execution,) for I DID NOT DOUBT, whatever it
was that they confessed, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought
to be punished." His master Trajan, a mild and accomplished prince,
went, nevertheless, no further in his sentiments of moderation and
equity than what appears in the following rescript:--"The Christians are
not to be sought for; but if any are brought before you, and convicted,
they are to be punished." And this direction he gives, after it had been
reported to him by his own president, that, by the most strict
examination, nothing could be discovered in the principles of these
persons, but "a bad and excessive superstition," accompanied, it seems,
with an oath or mutual federation, "to allow themselves in no crime or
immoral conduct whatever." The truth is, the ancient heathens considered
religion entirely as an affair of state, as much under the tuition of
the magistrate as any other part of the police. The religion of that age
was not merely allied to the state; it was incorporated into it. Many of
its offices were administered by the magistrate. Its titles of pontiffs,
augurs, and flamens, were borne by senators, consuls, and generals.
Without discussing, therefore, the truth of the theology, they resented
every affront put upon the established worship, as a direct opposition
to the authority of government.