If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the form of government,
religion would have given it a complete effect. Religion, always a principle of
energy, in this new people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of
professing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people are
Protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit
submission of mind and opinion. This is a persuasion not only favorable to
liberty, but built upon it. I do not think, Sir, that the reason of this
averseness in the dissenting churches from all that looks like absolute
government is so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as in their
history. Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least co-eval
with most of the governments where it prevails; that it has generally gone hand
in hand with them, and received great favor and every kind of support from
authority. The Church of England too was formed from her cradle under the
nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting interests have sprung up
in direct opposition to all the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify
that opposition only on a strong claim to natural liberty.
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