Kings and magistrates are invested with no more power than the people entrust to them.

An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

In my plea for freedom to all consciences in matters merely of worship, I have impartially pleaded for freedom of the consciences of the Papists themselves, the greatest enemies and persecutors in Europe of the saints and truths of Jesus; yet I have pleaded for no more than is their due and right. Whatever else shall be the consequence of this plea, it shall stand for a monument and testimony against them and be an aggravation of their former, present, and future cruelties against Christ Jesus the Head, and all that uprightly love Him, His true disciples and followers.

Consider England. Within a few score years how many unsettling changes in religion has the whole kingdom made, according to the change of its rulers, in the various religions which they embraced.

There is a moral virtue, a moral fidelity, ability and honesty, which other men, besides church members, are, by good nature and education, by good laws and good examples nourished and trained up in; so that civil places and trust and credit need not be monopolized into the hands of church members (who sometimes are not fitted for public office), while all others are deprived and despoiled of their natural and civil rights and liberties.

I do not condone hostility toward any church simply to vent personal malice or umbrage.

All men of conscience or prudence ply to windward, to maintain their wars to be defensive.