The true re-
ligion is built upon the rock; the rest are tossed,
upon the waves of time. To speak, therefore, of the
causes of new sects; and to give some counsel con-
cerning them, as far as the weakness of human
judgment can give stay, to so great revolutions.
When the religion formerly received, is rent by
discords; and when the holiness of the professors
of religion, is decayed and full of scandal; and
withal the times be stupid, ignorant, and bar-
barous; you may doubt the springing up of a new
sect; if then also, there should arise any extrava-
gant and strange spirit, to make himself author
thereof. All which points held, when Mahomet
published his law. If a new sect have not two prop-
erties, fear it not; for it will not spread. The one is
the supplanting, or the opposing, of authority es-
tablished; for nothing is more popular than that.
The other is the giving license to pleasures, and a
voluptuous life. For as for speculative heresies
(such as were in ancient times the Arians, and now
the Armenians), though they work mightily upon
men's wits, yet they do not produce any great al-
terations in states; except it be by the help of civil
occasions.
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