and Property. If Men through Fear, Fraud
or Mistake, should in Terms renounce or give
up any essential natural Right, the enternal Law
of Reason and the grand End of Society, would
absolutely vacate such Renunciation; the Right
to Freedom being the Gift of GOD ALMIGH-
TY, it is not the Power of Man to alienate
this Gift, and voluntarily become a Slave.
II. The Rights of the Colonists as Christians.
These may be bester understood by reading and
carefully studying the Institutes of the great
Lawgiver and Head of the Christian Church:
which are to be found clearly written and pro-
mulgated in the New-Testament.
By the Act of the British Parliament com-
monly called the Toleration Act, every Sub-
ject in
England, except Papists, &c. was restored
to, and re-established in, his natural Right to
worship GOD according to the the Dictates of his
own Conscience. And by the Charter of this
Province, it is granted, ordain'd and
establish'd
(that is declared as an original Right) that there
shall be Liberty of Conscience allow'd in the
Worship of GOD, to all Christians except Pa-
pists, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be
resident within said Province or Territory.* [asterisk reference mark
indicates that there is a note below]
Magna Charta itself is in Substance but a con-
[asterisk reference mark:]*See I Wm. and Mary, St. 2. C.
18. and Massachusetts
Charter.