128 THE DECLINE AND FALL wishes, by curiosity and enthusiasm. Since the days of Luther and Calvin, a secret reformation has been silently working in the bosom of the reformed churches; many weeds of prejudice were eradicated ; and the disciples of Erasmus ^■ diffused a spirit of freedom and moderation. The liberty of conscience has been claimed as a common benefit, an inalienable right ; ^*' the free governments of Holland ^" and England ^* introduced the practice of toleration ; and the narrow allowance of the laws has been enlarged by the prudence and humanity of the times. In the exercise, the mind has understood the limits of its powers, and the words and shadows that might amuse the child can no loiiger satisfy his manly reason. The volumes of controversy are over- spread with cobwebs ; the doctrine of a Protestant church is far removed from the knowledge or belief of its private members ; and the forms of orthodoxy, the articles of faith, are subscribed with a sigh or a smile by the modern clergy. Yet the friends of Christianity are alarmed at the boundless impulse of inquiry and scepticism. The predictions of the Catholics are accom- plished ; the web of mystery is unravelled by the Arminians, Arians, and Socinians, whose numbers must not be computed from their separate congregations ; and the pillars of revelation are shaken by those men who preserve the name without the substance of religion, who indulge the licence without the temper of philosophy. ^^ •*"' Erasmus may be considered as the father of rational theology. After a slumber of an hundred 'ears, it was revived by the Arminians of Holland, Grotius, I.imborch, and Le Clerc ; in England by Chillingworth, the latitudinarians of Cambridge (Burnet, Hist, of own Times, vol. i. p. 261-268, octavo edition), Tillotson, Clarke, Hoadley, &c.
- 6 1 am sorry to observe that the three writers of the last age, by whom the rights
of toleration have been so nobly defended, Bayle, Leibnitz, and Locke, are all laymen and philosophers. -•^ See the excellent chapter of Sir William Temple on the Religion of the United Provinces. I am not satisfied with Grotius (de Rebus Belgicis, Annal. 1. i. p. 13, 14, edit, in i2mo), who improves the Imperial laws of persecution , and only condemns the bloody tribunal of the inquisition. ■^^ Sir Walter Blackstone (Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 33, 54) explains the law of England as it was fixed at the Revolution. The exceptions of Papists, and of those who deny the Trinity, would still leave a tolerable scope for persecution, if the national spirit were not more effectual than an hundred statutes. ■•9 I shall recommend to public animadversion two passages in Dr. Priestly, which betray the ultimate tendency of his opinions. .At the first of these (Hist, of the Corruptions of Christianity, vol. i. p. 275, 276) the priest, at the second (vol. ii. p. 484) the magistrate, may tremble !
