"Now, with very sincere respect for your Lordship, I do think it my duty to the people of this country, to show that the character which you have given to the Church of England as by _law_ established, is not correct; to show that she is not, and never has been, _tolerant in matters of religion_; and is not, and never has been, _favourable to civil liberty_. In short, with most sincere respect for your Lordship, with greater respect for you than I have ever had for any public functionary in England, and with the greatest admiration of your conduct in your high and important office, with all these, I think it my duty _flatly to contradict_ your Lordship with regard to the character of this Church, and especially in the two particulars mentioned by you. I do not charge you with insincerity: for why should you not be in error as to this matter, when I know that _twenty or thirty years ago_ I myself should, in a similar case, have said just what you have now said on this subject? Nevertheless, it being error, and gross error too, and I _knowing it to be error_, I am bound, in duty to my readers, to expose the error; and I am the more strictly bound, because this error coming from you, is the more likely to be widely spread. "First, then, my Lord, let us take your proposition, 'that there is no Church so tolerant as this.' I am sure your Lordship has never read her history; I am sure you have not; if you had, you never would have uttered these words. Not being content to deal in general terms, I will _not_ say that she has been, and was from her outset, the most intolerant Church that the world ever saw; that she started at first, armed with halters, ripping-knives, axes, and racks; that her footsteps were marked with the blood, while her back bent under the plunder of her innumerable innocent victims; and that for refinement in cruelty, and extent of rapacity, she never had an equal, whether corporate or sole. I will not thus speak of her in general terms, but will lay before your Lordship some historical _facts_, to make good that _contradiction_ which I have given to your words. I assert that this LAW-CHURCH is the most INTOLERANT Church I ever read or heard of; and this assertion I now proceed to make good.