We have examined the claim of ---- who says he is a Dissenter from the Established Society of ---- and hath joined himself to a church or Congregation of the name of ----; and that he ordinarily attends upon the public worship of such Church or Congregation; and that he contributes his share and proportion toward supporting the public worship and ministry thereof, do upon examination find that the above facts are true.
A veritable doubt, spite, malice, prejudice, or mistaken zeal, might determine the granting of the certificate to the dissenter.
The authorities defended this measure upon the ground that it was the _civil_ effect of preaching that gives the _civil_ magistrate jurisdiction. "The law," they said, "has nothing to do with _conscience_ and _principles_." [183] They further declared that there were persons who were taking undue advantage of the certificate exemptions, and that there were good reasons, to doubt the validity of many of the certificates.
This Certificate Act roused the dissenters throughout the state. "In public society meetings and in speaking universal abroad, sensible that their numbers though scattered were large," they strove to create a sentiment that should send to the next legislature a "body of representatives who would remember their petition and see that equal religious liberty should be established."
In regard to the certificates, a writer in the "Courant" exclaims:--
It is sometimes said that the giving of a certificate once a year or once in a man's life is but a trifle, and none but the obstinate will refuse it as none but the covetous desire it. True it is but a trifle--ten times as much would be but a trifle if it was right. If it must be done, let them who plead for it do the little trifle; they have no scruples of conscience about it.... The certificate law is as much worse than the tax on tea as religious fetters are worse than civil. [184]
The Rev. John Leland's "The Rights of Conscience inalienable; therefore Religious Opinions not cognizable by Law; Or The High flying Churchman, stript of his legal Robe appears a yaho" was a powerful arraignment of the government and defense of the right of all to worship as conscience bade them. Leland had recently come from Virginia and settled in New London. In the southern state he had been one of the most influential among the Baptist ministers and a great power in politics. In Virginia he had seen the separation of Church and State in 1785, and had witnessed the benefits following that policy. After the publication of his "Rights of Conscience" the question before the Connecticut people became one of establishment or disestablishment, because Leland, not content with showing the falsity of the position that civil necessities required an established church, or with a logical demonstration of the inalienable rights of conscience, proceeded to boldly attack the Charter of Charles II as being in no rightful sense the constitution of the state of Connecticut. He maintained that, "Constitution" though it was called, it was not such, because it had been enforced upon the people by a mere vote of the legislature [a] and was a "constitution" never "assented to further than passive obedience and non resistance" by the people at large; a constitution--