If you will have religion publicly practised and publicly taught, you
must have a power to say what that religion will be, which you
will protect and encourage; and to distinguish it by such marks and
characteristics, as you in your wisdom shall think fit. As I said
before, your determination may be unwise in this as in other matters;
but it cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty
of any man, or in the least degree exceeding your province.
It is therefore as a grievance fairly none at all, nothing but what
is essential not only to the order, but to the liberty of the whole
community. The petitioners are so sensible of the force of these
arguments, that they do admit of one subscription, that is, to the
Scripture. I shall not consider how forcibly this argument militates
with their whole principle against subscription as an usurpation on
the rights of Providence: I content myself with submitting to the
consideration of the house, that, if that rule were once established,
it must have some authority to enforce the obedience; because you well
know, a law without a sanction will be ridiculous. Somebody must sit in
judgment on his conformity; he must judge on the charge; if he judges,
he must ordain execution. These things are necessary consequences one of
the other; and then this judgment is an equal and a superior violation
of private judgment; the right of private judgment is violated in a much
greater degree than it can be by any previous subscription. You come
round again to subscription, as the best and easiest method; men must
judge of his doctrine, and judge definitively; so that either his
test is nugatory, or men must first or last prescribe his public
interpretation of it.