Page:Thoughts on civil liberty, on licentiousness and faction.djvu/23

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Civil Liberty, &c.
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Kindness:—To quarrel with any Man for his Opinions, Humours, or the Fashion of his Cloaths, is an Offence taken without being given."—"True and impartial Liberty is therefore the Right of every Man, to pursue the natural, reasonable, and religious Dictates of his own Mind: To think what he will, and act as he thinks, provided he acts not to the Prejudice of another.[1]

These Expressions are crude, inaccurate, and ambiguous; leaving the thoughtful Reader at a Loss for the Author's precise and determined Meaning. For, first, they may possibly imply, "that the Magistrate hath no Right to violate the Laws of what is commonly called religious Toleration or christian Liberty; but that every Man hath an unalienable Right to worship God in that Manner which accords to the Dictates of his own Conscience."—In this Sense they are rational and true:

  1. Cato's Letters, No. 62.