And this leads us, from the consideration of the supposed advantages of tests, religious and political, to their disadvantages. The first of these disadvantages consists in the impossibility of constructing a test in such a manner as to suit the various opinions of those upon whom it is imposed, and not to be liable to reasonable objections When the law was repealed imposing upon the dissenting clergy of England a subscription, with certain reservations, to the articles of the established church, an attempt was made to invent an unexceptionable test that might be substituted in its room. This test simply affirmed 'that the books of the Old and New Testament, in the opinion of the person who took it, contained a revelation from God'; and it was supposed that no Christian could scruple such a declaration.
But is it impossible that I should be a Christian, and yet doubt of the canonical authority of the amatory eclogues of Solomon, or of certain other books, contained in a selection that was originally made in a very arbitrary manner? 'Still however I may take the test, with a persuasion that the books of the Old and New Testament contain a revelation from God, and something more.' In the same sense I might take it, and if the Koran, the Talmud, and the sacred books of he Hindoos, were added to the list. What sort of influence will be produced upon the mind that is accustomed to this looseness of construction in its most solemn engagements?
Let us examine, with the same view, the federal oath of the French, proclaiming the determination of the swearer, 'to be faithful to the nation, the law and the king'. Fidelity to three several interests, which may, in various cases, be placed in opposition to each other, will appear at first sight to be no very reasonable engagement. The propriety of vowing fidelity to the king has already been brought to the trial, and received its condemnation. Fidelity to the law is an engagement of so complicated a nature as to strike terror into every mind of serious reflection. It is impossible that a system of law, the composition of men, should ever be presented to such a mind, that shall appear faultless. But, with respect to laws that appear to me to be unjust, I am bound to every kind of hostility short of open violence; I am bound to exert myself incessantly, in proportion to the magnitude of the injustice, for their abolition. Fidelity to the nation is an engagement scarcely less equivocal. I have a paramount engagement to the cause of justice, and the benefit of the human race. If the nation undertake what is unjust, fidelity in that undertaking is a crime. If it undertake what is just, it is my duty to promote its success, not because I was born one of its citizens, but because such is the command of justice.