Liberty of conscience

“ Liberty of conscience is now-a-days not only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavouring to propagate the belief as much as they can, and to overthrow the faith which the laws have already established, to be rewarded by the public for those wicked endeavours: And this is the liberty of conscience which the fanatics are now openly in the face of the world endeavouring at with their utmost application. ”

“ We have established complete liberty of conscience, and, in consequence, a complete liberty for mental activity. All free and daring souls have before them a well-nigh limitless opening for endeavor of any kind. ”

“ When I speak against liberty of conscience, it is far from my meaning to advise any rigorous or violent course against such as, being sound in the faith, and holy in life, and not of a turbulent or factious carriage, do differ in smaller matters from the common rule. ”

“ This, then, is the appropriate region of human liberty. It comprises, first, the inward domain of consciousness; demanding liberty of conscience, in the most comprehensive sense; liberty of thought and feeling; absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment on all subjects, practical or speculative, scientific, moral, or theological. The liberty of expressing and publishing opinions may seem to fall under a different principle, since it belongs to that part of the conduct of an individual which concerns other people; ”

“ If the golden-chain of duty will not hold you, the iron chain of darkness shall bind you if you abuse your liberty in one world, you will lose your liberty in another: If you have made as much conscience in your liberty, and you have had liberty for your conscience, it had been well. ”

“ But we humbly conceive, that if any considerable party of men, which differs from an establishment either old or new, can deserve liberty of conscience, it ought to consist of those, who, for want of conviction, or of right understanding the merits of each cause, conceive themselves bound in conscience to adhere to the religion of their ancestors ”

“ We are speaking of a social condition such that man, in the exercise of his faculties, in the manifestation of his thoughts, in his efforts for the causes which he loves, so long as he does not violate the rights of others, does not meet with an arbitrary power to arrest him. Still farther to limit our subject, we shall speak of the most important manifestation of that liberty—liberty of conscience, of which religious liberty is the most ordinary and most complete manifestation. ”

“ Whosoever thou art that readest this, and feelest in thy heart a real desire to serve God, I warn thee, expect no liberty for thy conscience, from him that hath no conscience at all. All ungodly, unthankful, unholy men; all villains of whatever denomination, will have liberty indeed all the world over, as long as their master is God of this world. ”

“ The liberty to worship God in the way that seems to him right is a liberty without which a man cannot fulfill what he believes to be Divine commands, and therefore conscience requires him to maintain it." True enough; but how if the same can be assorted of all other liberty? How if maintenance of this also turns out to be a matter of conscience? Have we not seen that human happiness is the Divine will—that only by exercising our faculties is this happiness obtainable—and that it is impossible to exercise them without freedom? ”

“ If conscience was to be the supreme test in the relations between man and God, why should not conscience decide between man and man? Roger Williams addressed a letter full of calm wisdom to the Town of Providence, explaining, under the figure of a ship, the distinction between civil obedience and soul liberty. ”

“ And amongst all the blessings which modern times shower upon us, perhaps the most precious—more precious than wealth, power, and knowledge—is liberty. If we have no reason to regret the past, it is chiefly because our forefathers lived,208 imprisoned, and in suffering, within limits which we have overstepped. Is there any greater joy for a man than that of being able in thought, feeling, and action to follow the inner impulse of his own conscience, instead of making it bend to an external will, whether it be that of the law, or that of the public, or that of a tradition? ”

“ And in order that each may enjoy that liberty of conscience, which is a natural right belonging to all men, and which is so comformable to the genius and character of peaceable people and friends of repose, it is established firmly, not only that no one be forced to assist in any public exercise of religion, but also full power is given to each to make freely the public exercise of his own without meeting with any trouble or interference of any kind ”

“ Your principles are that liberty of thought and opinion is an inalienable and indefeasible right. This liberty, gentlemen, is the most sacred of all; it is above the control of men; its refuge is in the depth of the conscience, whither it retreats as to an inviolable sanctuary, where no mortal has the light to penetrate; it is the only liberty that mankind has never submitted to the laws of universal society. ”

“ These are effectual and sufficient proofs that the conscience of man is sacred and to be respected; and that liberty thereof produces widening of ideas, amendment of morals, improvement of conduct, disclosure of the secrets of creation, and manifestation of the hidden verities of the contingent world. Moreover, if interrogation of conscience, which is one of the private possessions of the heart and the soul, take place in this world, what further recompense remains for man in the court of divine justice at the day of general resurrection? ”

“ It is essential that we should attempt to work out the problem of the relation of conscience to the achievement of liberty in view of the extreme danger which lurks in the recent contemptuous criticism of the conscientious objector. ”

“ It is unquestionably one of the strangest of mental phenomena, that persons who make liberty of conscience their boast and their watchword, should be the first to violate their own principles, and should be utterly unable to see the conclusion of their own favourite premises. If liberty of conscience mean anything, it must surely mean perfect freedom of religious belief for all ”

“ It is true, that without prejudice to the commonwealth, liberty of conscience may be suffered to such as fear God indeed, as knowing they will not persist in heresy or turbulent schism, when they are convinced in conscience of the sinfulness thereof. ”

“ It is true that the name of Conscience hath an awful sound unto a conscientious ear. But, I pray, judge but in a few instances whether all pretence of Conscience ought to be a sufficient plea for Toleration and Liberty:—1. There be those that say their conscience is against all taking of an oath before a magistrate. Will you allow an universal liberty of this? What then will become of all our legal and judicial proceedings? which are confined to this way of proof: and so it was by God appointed, and hath been by all nations practised. ”

“ In setting forth the manner in which God has made known his laws for the direction and government of individual consciences, and how he requires them to be obeyed, he insists that they are only such as the Roman Church has announced, and that the natural right of the human reason to its freedom must be restrained into obedience to them, so that the only liberty of thought or conscience to be allowed must be that which centers in this obedience. ”

“ Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. ”

“ Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government, shall in any wise be molested or prejudiced on account of his conscientious persuasion or practice; nor shall he be compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship, place, or ministry contrary to his mind, but shall freely enjoy his liberty in that respect, without interruption or reflection. ”

“ Not only does a social conscience safeguard and discipline liberty; but its own mating with liberty works for its liberation. We have seen how the influence of legalistic preconceptions tends to arrest the growth of the social conscience; how the school of law may become the prison of legalism. The social conscience is something more than a moral critic or invigilator ”

“ Had we not been duly impressed with the importance and correctness of our views upon the subject of the freedom and liberty of mind and conscience, and of the personal accountability of all to God alone, we should not have thus pursued the theme. ”

“ The Christian notion of conscience imperatively demands a corresponding measure of personal liberty. The feeling of duty and responsibility to God is the only arbiter of a Christian's actions. With this no human authority can be permitted to interfere. ”

“ The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. ”

“ And this may be added as a corollary, that so long as a free people is substantially Christian, their conscience coinciding with absolute right, their liberty, so far as affected by popular causes, will preserve itself from fatal disorders. Such a people, possessed of liberty, will know it and be content. But where the popular conscience is morbid, they may have liberty without knowing it. ”

“ Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. ”

“ They presuppose a certain number of notions existing among all men, at least to some degree. Good and evil, duty and obligation, conscience, [Pg 2] liberty and responsibility, virtue and vice, merit and demerit, sanction, punishment and reward, are notions which the philosopher has not invented, but which he has borrowed from common sense, to return them again cleared and deepened. ”

“ Where there is conscious freedom, not only to act as he wills, but to will obedience to the dictates of conscience, character is possible. The freedom spoken of, and without which there can be no obligation or responsibility, is, of course, human freedom. ”

“ And, in morals, wild liberty breeds iron conscience; natures with great impulses have great resources, and return from far. ”

“ Freedom of conscience, which forms the basis of every religious organization at its birth, means the freedom to act according to our convictions of duty, however they may conflict with our own will, or the judgment of others, yet so imperative that only in yielding obedience to them can we obtain the peace of mind essential to happiness. ”

“ But this fearless assertion of the rights of conscience necessarily involved the right to sit in judgment upon all human laws and the powers that ordained them, and to determine for themselves whether the law was lawful. ”

“ But the sense of duty, the feeling of moral and religious obligation, is universally discriminative of the human family; the sentiment of right and wrong is engraven indelibly on all human hearts. And, amidst all the ignorance or misconceptions that may prevail as to the merit or demerit of particular actions, the moral principle points but to one foundation of truth—the One Supreme—the Lord of conscience as of creation. ”

“ II. Replacing the cult of God by respect and love of humanity, we proclaim human reason as the only criterion of truth; human conscience as the basis of justice; individual and collective freedom as the only source of order in society. ”

“ It is possible that it arises also in the attempt to prevent me from exercising the rights of conscience, that is, the right to think and to express my views. The rights of conscience are not, in my opinion, pooled and placed at the command of the majority, as are the actions and behaviour of the units that make up the State. ”

“ For instance, when we speak of the rights of man in a moral sense, we mean to mark the limits of interference with individual freedom which we think are prescribed by conscience, or by our ideal, however reached. ”

“ He sees instincts are better and stronger than so-called ‘principles.’ He sees in the hour of need what are called ‘rights’ laughed at, ‘freedom,’ the liberty to do what one pleases, trampled on, the claims of the individual trodden under foot, and theories burst like cobwebs. ”

“ With this we may claim an increase in individual freedom, and a perceptible tendency to a logical and ever broadening conception, not only of the rights, but of the duties of citizenship; to a more honest recognition of the place assigned by expediency to evil in the social and business intercourse of a practical life; to a growing scorn of casuistry, and to a stronger faith in the reality of right and of abstract truth as they are revealed in every thinking man’s heart, and the uniformity of which is reflected in the public conscience. ”

“ And for the third witness of thy Truth, thou hast put a voice in each man's heart, an impulse in each man's conscience, which says: I am free; free because I am responsible, free because I am a man, made in God's image, inherently possessing in myself the powers and aspirations and destinies of all Humanity. And they have denied that this is the voice of all men. ”

“ What application, then, has it to the subjects we are engaged in discussing; and, in particular, what assistance does it afford us in clearing up the great fact of Human Liberty, that key-stone in the arch of humanity, without which all our peculiar attributes, morality, responsibility, law, and justice, loosened from their mighty span would fall from their places, and disappear for ever in the blind abysses of Necessity? ”

“ In all instances in which conscience is the ground of resistance, the wrong done to conscience ought to be clear, deep, and momentous, and the necessity which obliges the claims of private conscience to be put above the laws ought to be made so evident that the sentiment of freedom shall not deteriorate that of legitimate and honourable allegiance. ”