In a word, the religion, which boasts of having brought peace on earth, and good will towards men, has for eighteen centuries caused more ravages, and greater effusions of blood, than all the superstitions of heathenism. It has raised walls of separation between the citizens of the same state. It has abandoned concord and affection from families. It has made a duty of injustice and inhumanity. The followers of a God, who was unjustly offended at mankind, became as unjust as he. The servants of a jealous and vindictive God, conceived it their duty to enter into his quarrels and avenge his injuries. Under a God of cruelty, it was judged meritorious to cause the earth to echo with groans, and float in blood. Such are the important services which the Christian religion has rendered to morality. Let it not be said, that it is through a shameful abuse of this religion, that these horrors have happened. A spirit of persecution and intolerance is the spirit of a religion ordained by a God, jealous of his power, a God who has formally commanded the commission of murder; a God, who, in the excess of his anger, has not spared even his own Son! The servant of such a God is much surer to please him by exterminating his enemies, than by permitting them to offend him in peace. Such a God must necessarily serve as a pretext to the most destructive excesses. A zeal for his glory is used as a veil to conceal the passions of all impostors and fanatics who pretend to be interpreters of the will of heaven; and the enthusiastic hopes to wash away the greatest crimes by bathing his hands in the blood of the enemies of his God. By a natural consequence of the same principles, an intolerant religion can be only conditionally submissive to the authority of temporal sovereigns. Jews and Christians cannot be obedient to a temporal government, unless its laws be conformed to the arbitrary and often ridiculous commands of their God. But who shall decide whether the laws, most advantageous to society, are conformed to the will of this God? Without doubt, his ministers, the confidants of his secrets and interpreters of his oracles. Thus, in a Christian state, the citizens must be subject rather to spiritual than temporal government, to the priest rather than the magistrate. Hence must arise civil war, bloodshed, proscription, and all that inspires the human breast with horror.