We hold the pure doctrines of universal
liberty of conscience, and conceive it our duty to endeavor to
secure that sacred right to others, as well as to defend it for
ourselves; for we undertake not to judge of the religious rectitude of
tenets, but leave the whole matter to Him who made us.
"We persecute no man, neither will we abet in the persecution of any
man for religion's sake; our common relation to others being that of
fellow-citizens and fellow-subjects of one single community; and in
this line of connection we hold out the right hand of fellowship to
all men. But we should conceive ourselves to be unworthy members of
the free and independent States of America, were we unconcernedly to
see or to suffer any treasonable wound, public or private, directly or
indirectly, to be given against the peace and safety of the same. We
inquire not into the rank of the offenders, nor into their religious
persuasion; we have no business with either, our part being only to
find them out and exhibit them to justice.
"A printed paper, dated the 20th of November, and signed 'John
Pemberton,' whom we suppose to be an inhabitant of this city, has
lately been dispersed abroad, a copy of which accompanies this. Had
the framers and publishers of that paper conceived it their duty to
exhort the youth and others of their society, to a patient
submission under the present trying visitations, and humbly to wait
the event of heaven towards them, they had therein shown a Christian
temper, and we had been silent; but the anger and political
virulence with which their instructions are given, and the abuse
with which they stigmatize all ranks of men not thinking like
themselves, leave no doubt on our minds from what spirit their
publication proceeded: and it is disgraceful to the pure cause of
truth, that men can dally with words of the most sacred import, and
play them off as mechanically as if religion consisted only in
contrivance.
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