Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Biographical synopses
- A note on sources
- Bibliographical note
- I A Private Man in Public Life
- II Natural Law, Natural Right, and Revolution
- III Self-government
- IV Moral Sense, Civic Education, and Freedom of the Press
- V The Constitutions of Virginia and France
- VI The U.S. Constitution
- VII Religious Liberty and Toleration
- VIII Political Parties
- IX Race and Slavery
- X Native Americans
- XI Women (not) in Politics
- XII Law of Nations
- XIII Innovation and Progress
- XIV Relations between Generations
- Appendices
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
VII - Religious Liberty and Toleration
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Biographical synopses
- A note on sources
- Bibliographical note
- I A Private Man in Public Life
- II Natural Law, Natural Right, and Revolution
- III Self-government
- IV Moral Sense, Civic Education, and Freedom of the Press
- V The Constitutions of Virginia and France
- VI The U.S. Constitution
- VII Religious Liberty and Toleration
- VIII Political Parties
- IX Race and Slavery
- X Native Americans
- XI Women (not) in Politics
- XII Law of Nations
- XIII Innovation and Progress
- XIV Relations between Generations
- Appendices
- Index
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom (1777)
Section 1. Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet choose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to exalt it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislature and ruler, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time: That to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical; […]
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- Information
- Jefferson: Political Writings , pp. 389 - 407Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999