Religious liberty

“ But always and everywhere does the church assert, and, as far as she can, maintain the full and perfect liberty of religion, the entire freedom and independence of the spiritual order, to be itself and to act according to its own laws—that is, religious liberty in her sense, and, if the words mean any thing, religious liberty in its only true and legitimate sense. ”

“ Yet it was only for this right of private judgment, for this independence of another man’s control in religious concernments, that the godlike champions of religious liberty perilled themselves and perished. ”

“ But you say, of the direct or indirect amalgamation of Church and State, proved to be dangerous to nations in Christian and for Christian times, because it affected the individual rights of men, and among them, the dearest of all, the liberty of conscience and the freedom of thought. Well, of this danger, at least, the future of your country is free; because here, at least, in this, your happy land, religious liberty exists. Your institutions left no power to your government to interfere with the religion of your citizens. Here every man is free to worship God as he chooses to do. ”

“ Religious Liberty, likewise, is a power of acting as we like in religion; or of professing and practising that mode of religious worship which we think most acceptable to the Deity.—But here the limitation to which I have referred must be attended to. All have the same unalienable right to this Liberty; and consequently, no one has a right to such a use of it as shall take it from others. ”

“ Civil liberty is impossible without religious liberty. But here the founders of our constitution were confronted with a great difficulty. To follow out the old Catholic tradition, and grant freedom to the “church of God,” was impossible. There were so many “churches of God,” antagonistic to one another, that to pronounce for one was to pronounce against all others, and so establish a state religion. ”

“ Freedom of religious confession, of meeting in religious societies (Art. 30 and 31) , and of the common exercise of religion in private and public, is guaranteed. The enjoyment of civil and political rights is independent of religious belief, yet the duties of a citizen or a subject may not be impaired by the exercise of religious liberty. ”

“ At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. ”

“ There must be absolute religious liberty, for tyranny and intolerance are as abhorrent in matters intellectual and spiritual as in matters political and material; and more and more we must all realize that conduct is of infinitely greater importance than dogma. ”

“ The idea that religious liberty is the generating principle of civil, and that civil liberty is the necessary condition of religious, was a discovery reserved for the seventeenth century. ”

“ Man's Right to Freedom in Worship.—The Latter-day Saints proclaim their unqualified allegiance to the principles of religious liberty and religious toleration. Freedom to worship Almighty God as the conscience may dictate, they claim as one of the inherent and inalienable rights of humanity. The inspired framers of our charter of national independence proclaimed to the world, as a self-evident truth, that the common birthright of humanity gives to every man a claim to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

“ The love of religious liberty is a stronger sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil or political freedom. That freedom which the conscience demands, and which men feel bound by their hope of salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to be attained. ”

“ III. Another great and precious principle enthroned in the founding of our commonwealth was that of religious liberty.
One of the saddest chapters in human history is that of persecution on account of religious convictions—the imposition of penalties, torture, and death by the sword of government on worthy people because of their honest opinions of duty to Almighty God. ”

“ The great condition of religious liberty is that it be maintained free from sustenance, as also from other interferences, by the state. For when it comes to rest upon that secular foundation, it vanishes with the resting. ”

“ THE Bible denounces religious liberty. After covering the world with blood, after having made it almost hollow with graves, Christians are beginning to say that men have a right to differ upon religious questions provided the questions about which they differ are not considered of great importance. ”

“ It is a fact which entitles to the hope that your nation will revive the law of Christ, even on earth. However, the guarantee which your Constitution affords to religious liberty is but a negative part of a Christian government. There are, besides that, positive duties to be fulfilled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Liberty of thought, liberty of faith, liberty of worship, under the safeguard and within the limits of common right: complete equality of religious creeds, and even above that equality itself, charity, fraternal love, which feels for the erring while reprobating their error—these are our maxims. They have constantly guided us in our labours, and God grant that our conviction may pass in its entirety into the spirit and conscience of the reader! The generation of our day is still in too much need of teaching of this kind. ”

“ Our Founders believed the best way to protect religious liberty was to first guarantee the right of everyone to believe and practice religion according to his or her conscience and, second, to prohibit our Government from imposing or sanctioning any particular religious belief. ”

“ Although we live in what is called a free government,—and politically we are free,—there is but little religious liberty in America. Society demands, either that you belong to some church, or that you suppress your opinions. ”

“ Religious freedom has been attained.—The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed many struggles for religious liberty, which resulted in no decided victory. It was not until the last two centuries that complete religious freedom was gained. Men are no longer bound to accept ecclesiastical decrees without question, but every one may weigh and consider, and freely decide for himself. Civil law protects, civil society sustains, and public opinion justifies men in the exercise of personal liberty in religious matters. ”

“ With regard to religious liberty, they hold that the rights of conscience are sacred and unalienable, subject only to the control of the Deity, who has not given authority to any man, or body of men, to compel another to his religion. ”

“ Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that Religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific. Our ancient charter, together with the laws made coincident therewith, were adapted as the basis of our government at the time of our revolution.
And such has been our laws and usages, and such still are, that Religion is considered as the first object of Legislation, and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy ”

“ By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
The right to worship according to one's own conscience is essential to our dignity as human beings. Whatever our religious beliefs, they represent the essence of our personal values and cannot be dictated to us. Recognizing this truth, our founders made religious liberty the first freedom guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. They wisely understood as well that in protecting the free exercise of religion, we must also prohibit the establishment of religion by the state. ”

“ We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the analogy of His providence, and abandon His work. ”

“ Macmillan 238 17-3743
In his first chapter the author asks the question: Is a creed a restraint on religious liberty? His consideration of the nature of freedom leads him to the conclusion that “Freedom exists in proportion as the community has come to a true realisation of itself, and has expressed itself in true laws. Freedom consists in fight relation to law.” He finds the Apostles’ creed a true expression of man’s relation to God and therefore a guarantee to religious freedom. ”

“ The right to liberty and happiness gives freedom, to those who choose to do so, to devote themselves to the sacred duties of the altar and the cloister. It gives freedom to practise all the rites and ceremonies of religious worship, to dedicate our wealth to the service of God and our fellow-men, to constitute and regulate our churches according to our own canonical law, to establish and hold possession of colleges, seminaries, convents, and charitable institutions, to educate our children, to profess and practise the Catholic religion wholly and entirely. ”

“ Religious and clerical societies, which have no corporate rights, can only acquire those rights by special laws. Article 14. The Christian religion is taken as the basis of those State institutions which are connected with the exercise of religion--all religious liberty guaranteed by Art. ”

“ The compelling interest test reflects the First Amendment's mandate of preserving religious liberty to the fullest extent possible in a pluralistic society. ”

“ XVII. Religious Liberty God alone is Lord of the conscience, and He has left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men which are contrary to His Word or not contained in it. Church and state should be separate. The state owes to every church protection and full freedom in the pursuit of its spiritual ends. ”

“ Religious rights.—Religious duties imply religious rights: for if it is a duty to honor the Creator, it is also a right. Even those who do not admit obligations toward God, ought to respect in those who do admit them, their liberty to do so. The right of having a religion, and practicing it, is what is called liberty of conscience. ”

“ But I state, so far as I am individually concerned, that I hope never to get into the position where any man or class on the face of this earth shall prescribe to me what shall or shall not be my religion, for the moment that such a condition is admitted, then farewell to religious liberty. ”

“ So powerful, indeed, were the example and teachings of those wise men who laid broad and deep the foundations of our happy country that, during the first half-century of our national existence, scarcely a voice was raised in opposition or protest against the principle of religious liberty as emphatically expressed in the first amendment to the Constitution. ”

“ Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy. ”

“ Since the Christian Religion lives in these times confronting civil liberty, those alone can be efficient champions of religion who at the same time profess fully the Christian Faith and accept with sincerity the tests of Liberty. ”

“ By the side of these religious men I discern others whose looks are turned to the earth more than to Heaven; they are the partisans of liberty, not only as the source of the noblest virtues, but more especially as the root of all solid advantages; and they sincerely desire to extend its sway, and to impart its blessings to mankind. It is natural that they should hasten to invoke the assistance of religion, for they must know that liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith; ”

“ The Gospel is a perfect law of liberty, and no people upon the earth have broader freedom and a stronger voice in government, religious or otherwise, than do the Latter-day Saints in the governmental and all other affairs of the Church. ”

“ This land is the birthright of Protestants, wherein those of every religious faith, Catholics, and all others, have equal rights and privileges; but to maintain our liberties, we must educate into the minds of all, personal liberty, and accountability, and leave the conscience untrammeled so far as regards popes, priests, bishops, or ministers, controlling man's future destiny. ”

“ Considerable advantage cannot but accrue to the cause of religious, as well as civil liberty, from keeping the important subject continually in view. We are under great obligation, therefore, to all the advocates for church-authority, whenever they are pleased to write in its defence. ”

“ That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men have an equal, natural, and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established, by law, in preference to others. ”