Note 578 — Chapter VII

In Whately's Dangers to Christian Faith, pp. 188–198, there is a perspicuous statement of the arguments now commonly received against coercing men for their religious opinions. But the most powerful of these arguments are based entirely upon expediency, which would have insured their rejection in an age of strong religious convictions. Some, and only some, of the theological difficulties respecting toleration, are noticed in Coleridge's Lit. Remains, vol. i. pp. 312–315; and in another work (The Friend, vol. i. p. 73), he mentions, what is the real fact ‘that same indifference which makes toleration so easy a virtue with us.’ See also Archdeacon Hare's Guesses at Truth, 2nd series, 1848, p. 278; and Nichols's Illustrations of Lit. Hist. vol. v. p. 817: ‘a spirit of mutual toleration and forbearance has appeared (at least one good consequence of religious indifference).’