the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

‘ [233] shy of owning on proper occasions. I have reason to think you have examined religion and formed your creed with some care and exactness. In the mean time, what have the voters for Berwick to do in this matter? I cannot discern the obligation we are under, even in religious societies and churches, to pry into our brethren's sentiments, especially in the abstruser questions of religion, in which most of them, I am confident, must, on examination, if they answer uprightly, return a non liquet. And I must confess, when I see any busy this way, making a scrutiny into other christians' breasts, and going about in quest of heretics, I presently have the idea of an old Rabbi starting up before me, or of a Phariseus truncatus, or some such composition of pride, self-sufficiency, and censoriousness; and when this is done in any of the δυσνόητα of religion, as is often the case in things which it has pleased God in his wisdom to place out of our reach—the ασ᾿σ῾ητα σ῾ηματα of the divine nature and government—'tis more assuming and dangerous. But when we carry the minister into politics, and are for making our own opinions and dictates not only the test of other people's orthodoxy, but their qualification for a civil trust, the usurpation is still worse.’¹

In the following year (1723), a very unpleasant affair took place relating to a joint stock company and lottery, professedly for the formation of a seaport and trading company at Harburgh,