the side of the more gentle construction.

There is a great difference between enjoying quietly the advantages of
an act irregularly done by others, and the going about to support it
against the laws in being. The law is so sacred that no trespass
against it is to be defended; yet frailties may in some measure be
excused when they cannot be justified. The desire of enjoying liberty,
from which men have been so long restrained, may be a temptation that
their reason is not at all times able to resist. If in such a case
some objections are leapt over, indifferent men will be more inclined
to lament the occasion than to fall too hard upon the fault, whilst it
is covered with the apology of a good intention. But where, to rescue
yourselves from the severity of one law, you give a blow to all the
laws, by which your religion and liberty are to be protected; and
instead of silently receiving the benefit of this indulgence, you set
up for advocates to support it, you become voluntary aggressors, and
look like counsel retained by the prerogative against your old friend
Magna Charta, who hath done nothing to deserve her falling thus under
your displeasure.

If the case then should be, that the price expected from you for this
liberty is giving up your right in the laws, sure you will think twice
before you go any further in such a losing bargain. After giving
thanks for the breach of one law, you lose the right of complaining of
the breach of all the rest; you will not very well know how to defend
yourselves when you are pressed; and having given up the question when
it was for your advantage, you cannot recall it when it shall be to
your prejudice. If you will set up at one time a power to help you,
which at another time, by parity of reason, shall be made use of to
destroy you, you will neither be pitied nor relieved against a