This was the well-known character of these two great counsellors; yet such is the prevalence of temper above system, that the benevolent disposition of Pole led him to advise a toleration of the heretical tenets which he highly blamed; while the severe manners of Gardiner inclined him to support by persecution that religion which, at the bottom, he regarded with great indifference.[*] This circumstance of public conduct was of the highest importance; and from being the object of deliberation in the council, it soon became the subject of discourse throughout the nation.

We shall relate, in a few words, the topics by which each side supported, or might have supported, their scheme of policy; and shall display the opposite reasons which have been employed, with regard to an argument that ever has been, and ever will be, so much canvassed.
* Heylin, p.

47.
The practice of persecution, said the defenders of Pole's opinion, is the scandal of all religion; and the theological animosity, so fierce and violent, far from being an argument of men's conviction in their opposite sects, is a certain proof that they have never reached any serious persuasion with regard to these remote and sublime subjects.
Even those who are the most impatient of contradiction in other controversies, are mild and moderate in comparison of polemical divines; and wherever a man's knowledge and experience give him a perfect assurance in his own opinion, he regards with contempt, rather than anger, the opposition and mistakes of others.

But while men zealously maintain what they neither clearly comprehend nor entirely believe, they are shaken in their imagined faith by the opposite persuasion, or even doubts, of other men; and vent on their antagonists that impatience which is the natural result of so disagreeable a state of the understanding.

They then easily embrace any pretense for representing opponents as impious and profane; and if they can also find a color for connecting this violence with the interests of civil government, they can no longer be restrained from giving uncontrolled scope to vengeance and resentment.