_Toleration_. It was but the same triumphal monument under a
new angle of sight, the golden and silver faces of the same heraldic
shield. The very same act which denies the right of interpretation
to a mysterious Papal phoenix, renewed from generation to generation,
having the antiquity and the incomprehensible omniscience of the
Simorg in Southey, transferred this right of mere necessity to the
individuals of the whole human race. For where else could it have
been lodged? Any attempt in any other direction was but to restore
the Papal power in a new impersonation. Every man, therefore,
suddenly obtained the right of interpreting the Bible for himself.
But the word '_right_' obtained a new sense. Every man has the
right, under the Queen's Bench, of publishing an unlimited number
of metaphysical systems; and, under favor of the same indulgent
Bench, we all enjoy the unlimited right of laughing at him. But not
the whole race of man has a right to _coerce_, in the exercise
of his intellectual rights, the humblest of individuals. The rights
of men are thus unspeakably elevated; for, being now freed from all
anxiety, being sacred as merely _legal_ rights, they suddenly
rise into a new mode of responsibility as _intellectual_
rights. As a Protestant, every mature man has the same dignified
right over his own opinions and profession of faith that he has
over his own hearth. But his hearth can rarely be abused; whereas
his religious system, being a vast kingdom, opening by immeasurable
gates upon worlds of light and worlds of darkness, now brings him
within a new amenability--called upon to answer new impeachments,
and to seek for new assistances. Formerly another was answerable
for his belief; if that were wrong, it was no fault of his. Now he
has new rights, but these have burthened him with new obligations.
Now he is crowned with the glory and the palms of an intellectual
creature, but he is alarmed by the certainty of corresponding