HKB
people, than formidable to the crown; and the emperor, unable to resist such a combination, must have complied with any terms, which the members of it thought fit to prescribe."
That it is owing to those committees that so many persons have been found to recant and resign, and so many others to fly to the army, is a mistake; for the same things would have taken place, if such a committee had never been in being, and such persons would probably have met with much rougher usage. This writer asks, "have not these persons as good a right to think and act for themselves as the whigs?" I answer yes. But if any man, whig or tory, shall take it into his head to think for himself, that he has a right to take my property, without my consent; however tender I may be of the right of private judgment and the freedom of thought, this is a point in which I shall be very likely to differ from him, and to think for myself, that I have a right to resist him. If any man should think, ever so conscientiously that the Roman Catholic religion is better than the Protestant, or that the French government is preferable to the British constitution in its purity; Protestants and Britons, will not be so tender of that man's conscience as to suffer him to introduce his favourite religion and government. So the well bred gentlemen, who are so polite as to think, that the charter constitution of this province ought to be abolished, and another introduced, wholly at the will of a minister or the crown; or that our ecclesiastical constitution is bad, and high church ought to come in, few people will be so tender of these consciences or complaisant to such polite taste, as to suffer the one or the other to be established. There are certain prejudices among the people, so strong, as to be irresistible. Reasoning is vain, and opposition idle. For example, there are certain popular maxims and precepts called the ten commandments. Suppose a number of fine gentlemen, superior to the prejudices of education, should discover that these were made for the common people, and are too illiberal for gentlemen of refined taste to observe; and accordingly should engage in secret confidential correspondences to procure an act of parliament, to abolish the whole decalogue, or to exempt them from all obligation to observe it. If they should succeed, and their letters be detected, such is the force of prejudice, and deep habits among the lower sort of people, that it is much to be questioned, whether those refined geniuses would be allowed to enjoy themselves in the latitude of their sentiments. I once knew a man, who had studied Jacob Beckman and other mystics until he conscientiously thought the millenium commenced, and all human authority at an end; that the saints only had a right to property, and to take from sinners any thing they wanted. In this persuasion, he very honestly stole a horse. Mankind pitied the poor man's infirmity, but thought it however their duty to confine him that he might steal no more.
The freedom of thinking was never yet extended in any country so far, as the utter subversion of all religion and morality; nor as the abolition of the laws and constitution of the country.