Secondly, I assert that Christianity is charged with many consequences
for which it is not responsible. I believe that religious motives have
had no more to do in the formation of nine tenths of the intolerant and
persecuting laws which in different countries have been established upon
the subject of religion, than they have had to do in England with the
making of the game-laws. These measures, although they have the
Christian religion for their subject, are resolvable into a principle
which Christianity certainly did not plant (and which Christianity could
not universally condemn, because it is not universally wrong), which
principle is no other than this, that they who are in possession of
power do what they can to keep it. Christianity is answerable for no
part of the mischief which has been brought upon the world by
persecution, except that which has arisen from conscientious
persecutors. Now these perhaps have never been either numerous or
powerful. Nor is it to Christianity that even their mistake can fairly
be imputed. They have been misled by an error not properly Christian or
religious, but by an error in their moral philosophy.
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