CHAPTER XVIII.
ON THE PECULIAR MORALITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, AS IT AFFECTS NATIONS AND POLITICAL SOCIETIES.
After having seen the uselessness, and even the danger, to individuals, of the perfections, the virtues, and the duties, which Christianity peculiarly commands; let us now see whether it has a more happy influence upon politics; or whether it produces real happiness among the nations with whom this religion is established, and the spirit of it faithfully observed.

Let us do so, and we shall find, that wherever Christianity is established and obeyed, it establishes a set of laws directly opposed to those of a well ordered national society; and it soon makes this disagreement and incompatibility distinctly to be felt.
Politics are intended to maintain union and concord among the citizens.

Christianity, though it preaches universal love, and commands its followers to live in peace; yet, by a strange inconsistency, consequentially annihilates the effect of these excellent precepts, by the inevitable divisions it causes among its followers, who necessarily understand differently the Old and New Testaments, because the latter is not only irreconcilably contradictory to the former, but it is even inconsistent with itself.
From the very commencement of Christianity, we perceive very violent disputes among its founders and teachers; and through every succeeding century, we find, in the history of the Church, nothing but schism and heresy.

These are followed by persecutions and quarrels, exceedingly well adapted to destroy this vaunted spirit of concord, said by its defenders to be peculiar to Christianity; and the existence of which is, in fact, impossible in a religion which is one entire chaos of obscure doctrines and impracticable precepts.

In every religious dispute, both parties thought that God was on their side, and, consequently, they were obstinate and irreconcilable.