Note 84 — Chapter XIV · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

This last is interesting as a probable echo of opinions he had heard from some of his older contemporaries: “Opinion kept within its proper bounds is an [ = the Scottish “ane”] pure act of the mind; and so it would appear that to punish the body for that which is a guilt of the soul is as unjust as to punish one relation for another” (pref. pp. 10–11). He adds that “the Almighty hath left no warrand upon holy record for persecuting such as dissent from us.” ↑