Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/312

 along with it, so as to command the attention and acceptance which it deserved.

Indeed, it is not so much from the mistaken friends of truth that we apprehend these measures of rigid uniformity; but rather from those who would sacrifice truth, and every other consideration to public tranquility; from those who, looking upon all systems of religion to be equally false, and not able to bear examination, will not suffer that examination to take place; for fear of destroying a system, which, however false, they imagine to be necessary to the peace and well being of the state. The most unrelenting persecution is to be apprehended, not from bigots, but from infidels. A bigot, who is so from a principle of conscience, may possibly be moved by a regard to the consciences of others; but the man who thinks that conscience ought always to be sacrificed to political views, has no principle on which an argument in favour of moderation can lay hold. Was not Bolingbroke the greatest promoter of