so far as I, though I desire to be tolerated, who will
not go as far as you. No, imprison them, if they come within five miles
of a corporate town, because they do not believe what I do in point of
doctrines." Shall I not say to these men, _Arrangez-vous, canaille?_
You, who are not the predominant power, will not give to others the
relaxation under which you are yourself suffered to live. I have as high
an opinion of the doctrines of the Church as you. I receive them
implicitly, or I put my own explanation on them, or take that which
seems to me to come best recommended by authority. There are those of
the Dissenters who think more rigidly of the doctrine of the Articles
relative to Predestination than others do. They sign the Article
relative to it _ex animo_, and literally. Others allow a latitude of
construction. These two parties are in the Church, as well as among the
Dissenters; yet in the Church we live quietly under the same roof. I do
not see why, as long as Providence gives us no further light into this
great mystery, we should not leave things as the Divine Wisdom has left
them. But suppose all these things to me to be clear, (which Providence,
however, seems to have left obscure,) yet, whilst Dissenters claim a
toleration in things which, seeming clear to me, are obscure to them,
without entering into the merit of the Articles, with what face can
these men say, "Tolerate us, but do not tolerate them"? Toleration is
good for all, or it is good for none.

The discussion this day is not between establishment on one hand and
toleration on the other, but between those who, being tolerated
themselves, refuse toleration to others. That power should be puffed up
with pride, that authority should degenerate into rigor, if not
laudable, is but too natural. But this proceeding of theirs is much
beyond the usual allowance to human weakness: it not only is shocking to
our reason, but it provokes our indignation. _Quid domini facient,
audent cum talia fures?_ It is not the proud prelate thundering in his
Commission Court, but a pack of manumitted slaves, with the lash of the
beadle flagrant on their backs, and their legs still galled with their
fetters, that would drive their brethren into that prison-house from
whence they have just been permitted to escape. If, instead of puzzling
themselves in the depths of the Divine counsels, they would turn, to the
mild morality of the Gospel, they would read their own
condemnation