:--"O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt
because thou desiredst me: shouldest not thou also have compassion on
thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee?"

In my opinion, Sir, a magistrate, whenever he goes to put any restraint
upon religious freedom, can only do it upon this ground,--that the
person dissenting does not dissent from the scruples of ill-informed
conscience, but from a party ground of dissension, in order to raise a
faction in the state. We give, with regard to rites and ceremonies, an
indulgence to tender consciences. But if dissent is at all punished in
any country, if at all it can be punished upon any pretence, it is upon
a presumption, not that a man is supposed to differ conscientiously from
the establishment, but that he resists truth for the sake of
faction,--that he abets diversity of opinions in religion to distract
the state, and to destroy the peace of his country. This is the only
plausible,--for there is no true ground of persecution. As the laws
stand, therefore, let us see how we have thought fit to act.

If there is any one thing within the competency of a magistrate with
regard to religion, it is this: that he has a right to direct the
exterior ceremonies of religion; that, whilst interior religion is
within the jurisdiction of God alone, the external part, bodily action,
is within the province of the chief governor. Hooker, and all the great
lights of the Church, have constantly argued this to be a part within
the province of the civil magistrate. But look at the Act of Toleration
of William and Mary: there you will see the civil magistrate has not
only dispensed with those things which are more particularly within his
province, with those things which faction might be supposed to take up
for the sake of making visible and external divisions and raising a
standard of revolt, but has also from sound politic considerations
relaxed on those points which are confessedly without his province.

The honorable gentleman, speaking of the heathens, certainly could not
mean to recommend anything that is derived from that impure source. But
he has praised the tolerating spirit of the heathens. Well! but the
honorable gentleman will recollect that heathens, that polytheists, must
permit a number of divinities. It is the very essence of its
constitution. But was it ever heard that polytheism tolerated a dissent
from a polytheistic establishment,--the belief of one God only? Never