Wesley Corpus

“What kind of liberty do they enjoy?” Here you puzzle the cause, by talking of physical and moral liberty. What you speak of both is exactly true, and beautifully expressed: But both physical and moral liberty are beside the present question; and the introducing them can answer no other end than to bewilder and confuse the reader. Therefore, to beg the reader “to keep these in his view,” is only begging him to look off the point in hand. You desire him, in order to understand this, to attend to something else! “Nay, I beg him to look straight forward; to mind this one thing; to fix his eye on that liberty, and that only, which is concerned in the present question: And all the liberty to which this question relates, is either religious or civil liberty.” 4. “Religious liberty is, a liberty to choose our own religion; to worship God according to our own conscience. Every man living, as a man, has a right to this, as he is a rational creature. The Creator gave him this right when he endowed him with understanding; and every man must judge for himself, because every man must give an account of himself to God. Consequently, this is an unalienable right; it is inseparable from humanity; and God did never give authority to any man, or number of men, to deprive any child of man thereof, under any colour or pretence whatever.”* Now, who can deny that the colonies enjoy this liberty to the fulness of their wishes 2 5. Civil liberty is a liberty to dispose of our lives, persons, and fortunes, according to our own choice, and the laws of our country. I add, according to the laws of our country: For, although, if we violate these, we are liable to fines, imprisonment, or death; yet if, in other cases, we enjoy our life, liberty, and goods, undisturbed, we are free, to all reasonable intents and purposes. Now, all this liberty the confederate colonies did enjoy, till part of them enslaved the rest of their countrymen; and all the loyal colonies do enjoy it at the present hour. None takes away their lives, or freedom, or goods; they enjoy them all quiet and undisturbed. “But the King and Parliament can take them all away.” But they do not; and, till it is done, they are freemen.