Page 14
be considered as entering into society on equal condi-
tions, are relinquishing no more, and therefore retain-
ing no less, one than another of their natural rights;
above all they are to be considered as retaining an
equal title to the free exercise of religion according to
the dictates of conscience. While we assert for our-
selves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe
the religion which we believe to be of divine origin; we
cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds
have not yet yielded to the evidence that has con-
vinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offence
against God, not against man. To God therefore, and
not to man, must an account be rendered. As the bill
advocates equality, by subjecting some to peculiar bur-
dens, so it violates the same principle by granting to
others peculiar exemptions. Are the Quakers and
Menonists the only sects who think a compulsive sup-
port of their religion unnecessary and unwarrantable?
Can their piety alone be. entrusted with the care of pub-
lie worship? Ought their religions to be endowed,
above all others, with extraordinary privileges by
which the proselytes may be enticed from all others?
We think too favorably of the justice and good sense
of these denominations to believe that they either covet
pre-eminences over their fellow-citizens, or that they
will be seduced by them from the common opposition
to the measure.
"BECAUSE the bill implies--either that the civil mag-
istrate is a competent judge of religious truths, or that
he may employ religion as an engine of civil polity, the
first is an arrogant pretension, falsified by the extra-
Page 15
ordinary opinion of rulers in all ages, and throughout
the world; the second an unhallowed perversion of the
means of salvation. Because the establishment pro-
posed by the bill is not requisite for the support of the
christian religion. To say that it is a contradiction
to the christian religion itself, for every page of it dis-
avows a dependence on the power of this world, it is a
contradiction in fact, for it is known that this religion
both existed and flourished, not only without the sup-
port of human laws but in spite of every opposition
from them; and not only during the period of miracu-
lous aid but long after it had been left to its own evi-
dence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is
a contradiction in terms; for religion not invented by
human policy must have pre-existed and been sup-
ported. It is, moreover, to weaken in those who pro-
fess this religion a pious confidence in its innate excel-
lence, and the patronage of its Author; and to foster
in those who still reject it, a suspicion that its friends
are too conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own
merits.
"BECAUSE that experience witnesses that ecclesiasti-
cal establishments, instead of maintaining the purity
and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation.
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establish-
ment of christianity been on trial. What have been
the fruits? More or less in all places pride and indo-
lence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity;
in both superstition, bigotry and persecution. Inquire
Of the teachers of christianity for the ages in which
it appeared in its greatest luster; those of every sect
