ture of things: by act
you may revive it. I will not enter into the question, how much truth is
preferable to peace. Perhaps truth may be far better. But as we have
scarcely ever the same certainty in the one that we have in the other, I
would, unless the truth were evident indeed, hold fast to peace, which
has in her company charity, the highest of the virtues.

This business appears in two points of view: 1st, Whether it is a matter
of grievance; 2nd, Whether it is within our province to redress it with
propriety and prudence. Whether it comes properly before us on a
petition upon matter of grievance I would not inquire too curiously. I
know, technically speaking, that nothing agreeable to law can be
considered as a grievance. But an over-attention to the rules of any act
does sometimes defeat the ends of it; and I think it does so in this
Parliamentary act, as much at least as in any other. I know many
gentlemen think that the very essence of liberty consists in being
governed according to law, as if grievances had nothing real and
intrinsic; but I cannot be of that opinion. Grievances may subsist by
law. Nay, I do not know whether any grievance can be considered as
intolerable, until it is established and sanctified by law. If the Act
of Toleration were not perfect, if there were a complaint of it, I would
gladly consent to amend it. But when I heard a complaint of a pressure
on religious liberty, to my astonishment I find that there was no
complaint whatsoever of the insufficiency of the act of King William,
nor any attempt to make it more sufficient. The matter, therefore, does
not concern toleration, but establishment; and it is not the rights of
private conscience that are in question, but the propriety of the terms
which are proposed by law as a title to public emoluments: so that the
complaint is not, that there is not toleration of diversity in opinion,
but that diversity in opinion is not rewarded by bishoprics, rectories,
and collegiate stalls. When gentlemen complain of the subscription as
matter of grievance, the complaint arises from confounding private
judgment, whose rights are anterior to law, and the qualifications which
the law creates for its own magistracies, whether civil or religious. To
take away from men their lives, their liberty, or their property, those
things for the protection of which society was introduced, is great
hardship and intolerable tyranny; but to annex any condition you please