University of Virginia Library

1622. CONSCIENCE, Inquisition over.

—I am averse to the communication of my religious
tenets to the public; because it would
countenance the presumption of those who
have endeavored to draw them before that
tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect
itself into that inquisition over the rights of
conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed.—
To Dr. Benjamin Rush. Washington ed. iv, 480. Ford ed., viii, 224.
(W. April. 1803)