which renders them improper objects of legislation; but because legislation cannot reach them or its interference would be productive of more mischief than advantage. Such are those charities and duties, which belong to the intimate relations of life. These are not made the subjects of law, because they are either affections which laws cannot command, or offices so indeterminate that laws cannot define them before hand; and more especially from the vexatious character of all attempts at such particular regulation. Could laws make good husbands and wives, good parents and children, good neighbours and friends, would it not be the duty of legislatures to enact them? Could they, in short, inspire the breast of every citizen with the very spirit of true religion, with those principles of obedience to the commands of God, of submission to his will and trust in his promises, which are the only sure foundations of present peace and immortal hopes, how pitiful, as well as unnecessary, would a great portion of that mass of provisions, which now crowds our statute books, become? But what legislatures, for the reasons mentioned, cannot do directly, they can and ought indirectly to attempt; and in no way can they so effectually accomplish this, as by securing the diffusion of religious instruction. But it is not merely from this enlarged view of the objects of government, that its right to support religion results; religion is also absolutely necessary to the attainment of those ends, which are universally acknowledged to fall within its legitimate province; the preservation of social order and its own permanency. It is not upon the sanctions of civil law, that the rights of person and property, that faith in promises, that the mutual reliance and sense of security, which enter into all the transactions and intercourse of social life, and bind the members of a community together, principally depend. Take away the silent and private influences of religion and conscience, which come in upon a man in his retirement, and break off his schemes of fraud, of injustice, and treachery, and the arm of law could place but a feeble check upon human selfishness. Or rather, crimes are guarded against, not so much by those fears, which hold back the villain from perpetrating what he has conceived, as by the production of those moral habits and feelings, which prevent the very formation of guilty designs. Nor can it be too deeply realized, of what vital importance is the operation of religious principle to the very existence of political freedom; because, where the people are generally corrupt, nothing but a system of minute inspection, of universal regulation and re straint, utterly irreconcilable with the spirit of freedom, can save the state from the most thorough licentiousness and anarchy.* Has not government a right to provide for its own permanency and the integrity of its agents? And without religion where would be the security of oaths, where the incorruptibleness and fidelity of officers, which are the foundation of all civil institutions and rights? It is not merely the religious principles of rulers themselves, by which they are guided and restrained. A magistrate without religion is kept in awe; those sentiments of honour and reputation, which are sometimes a sort of substitute for conscience, are preserved in vigour and activity by the atmosphere of moral purity, created by a religious community. This is true of all governments, and it is especially true of a government like ours, which has its basis in the popular *For a clear and forcible developement of this topic, the social character of religion, I beg leave to refer to the sermon of the Rev. Dr. Channing on this subject, recently published; where the reader will find some views of government not commonly to be met with. A sermon, of which it is praise enough to say, it is what would be expected from its author. No apology is necessary for subjoining the following extract: "Few men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, the extent of the support given by religion to every virtue. No man perhaps is aware, how much our moral and social sentiments are fed from this fountain; how powerless conscience would become without the belief of a God; how palsied would be human benevolence, were there not the sense of a higher benevolence to quicken and sustain it; how suddenly the whole social fabrick would quake, and with what a fearful crash it would sink into hopeless ruins, were the ideas of a Supreme Being, of accountableness, and of a future life, to be utterly erased from every mind. Once let men thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of chance; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with human affairs; that all their improvements perish forever at death; that the weak have no guardian, and the injured no avenger; that there is no recompense for sacrifices to uprightness and the public good; that an oath is unheard in Heaven; that secret crimes have no witness but the perpetrator; that human existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this brief life is every thing to us, and death is total, everlasting extinction; once let men thoroughly abandon religion, and who can conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow? We hope perhaps that human laws and natural sympathy would hold society together As reasonably might we believe, that were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches could illuminate, and our fires quicken and fertilize the creation. What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day? and what is he more, if atheism be true? Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering having no solace or hope would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self interest would supplant every other feeling, and man would become in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be, a companion for brutes." will. If there be any force in what has been said, those who deny to government the right to support religion by law, cannot do it on the general and abstract ground. It must then be, because it is supposed to imply in it the right of enforcing error, or involve the violation of the private rights of conscience. The second objection, then, to the existence of this right in government is, that it implies the right of enforcing error. To every christian it might be a sufficient answer to this objection to say, that our constitution does not require instruction in any particular form of christianity, but only in christianity itself. I am aware, however, it may be said, that although it does not do this directly, yet it authorizes particular societies to do it by giving them the power to raise taxes for that purpose. But the principle of this objection, if admitted any farther than as a circumstance of expediency to be considered, would put an end to all instruction whatever. Shall no professor of a college or master of a school require the attention of his pupils to one word of moral or religious doctrine, because he may be found teaching error instead of truth? May no parent gather his offspring around him, and instil into their tender minds some notions of God, of duty, and of responsibility; must he leave them to grow up without any bias in favour of religion, or one thought of a judgment to come, because it is possible, nay in many cases certain, that pernicious errors may be imbibed in the lessons they receive? The adoption of this principle would shut up every book, that did not claim to be infallible, would close the mouth of every teacher, who did know that he was right. Does then, in the third place, the supposition of this right in government involve the violation of the private rights of conscience? The rights of conscience may be supposed to have relation either to opinions, to the expression of opinions, or to actions. 1. Of opinions. We readily admit government has no right to command or forbid the exercise of certain opinions, nor is this peculiar to religious opinions, but is common to all and for this plain reason, that the enactments of law cannot reach opinions; and while they hold out inducements to prevarication and insincerity, belief can neither be enforced nor changed by the sanctions of civil authority. Yet there are cases of expediency, in which particular religious opinions may very justly be considered as a disqualification for office. Thus, it would have been no violation of the rights of conscience in the first princes of the house of Hanover, during the contests with the Pretender, to have required of every candidate for an important office, either in the state or the army, an abjuration of the supremacy of the Pope. 2dly. What are the rights of government in regard to the public expression and dissemination of doctrines in religion. Here, too, we admit that it is rarely expedient, and of consequence rarely right, for government to interfere. Not that such interference, although by producing a powerful reaction, it may sometimes serve to extend, instead of checking the obnoxious opinions, would generally be ineffectual; but because the truth is most successfully discovered and propagated by an honest and free avowal of sentiments, and an independent and unrestrained discussion of opposite arguments; while such discussions are conducted with moderation and decency. This principle, however, is not without its limitations. Doctrines have been taught and may again be taught, as the precepts of religion, which strike at the very foundations of social order. Thus, when the Catholics inculcated upon their hearers, that no allegiance was due to a protestant ruler, and that even to assassinate such a one was doing God service, it cannot be doubted that such preaching might not only be forbidden but punished by the civil power, however sincerely the plea of conscience might be urged in justification. 3dly. In regard to actions, the sphere of government is more extensive. If any one should maintain, that government has no right to prohibit and punish actions, which are prompted by a sincere conscience, or even in some cases to require those which the conscience of the individual may forbid let him well consider to what consequences, such a principle might sometimes lead. When the fanatical guides of the mob at Munster led their followers to such enormities of indecency and extravagance, had the civil arm no right to interfere? And when Ravaillac raised his hand against the life of Henry IV. of France ;-when the Catholics of the Netherlands were taught, that the assassination of the Prince of Orange, the gallant defender of the cause of protestantism and liberty, would be a deed most acceptable in the sight of God, and the solemn duty of every Papist; had the civil arm no right to interfere? When many, of the deluded followers of George Fox went naked through the streets, and into the assembled religious congregations of several of the principal cities of England, for a sign to the people; some of them at least were undoubtedly actuated by motives the most conscientious-and had the civil arm no right to interfere ?-Nay, more; this very plea of conscience would destroy itself. The bloodiest persecutors, and many of them no doubt with sincerity, have professed the commands of conscience, no less than their victims. If conscience called the martyr to the stake, it was conscience also that bound him to it and lighted the faggots, which were to consume him. It was the conscience no less than the cruelty of Philip II. which filled the prisons of the inquisition and kindled the fires of the auto da fe. Even the Apostle of the Gentiles thought that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. But it may be objected, Has not a man a right to act in obedience to the dictates of his conscience? Undoubtedly, he has not only a right, but it is his duty so to do. Conscience may be erroneous, but it is our only guide, and we are bound to follow it. Can then opposite rights exist; can I have a right to act in a certain way, and at the same time government a right to punish me for it? Not in the abstract nature of things; but in relation to human agents, with limited intelligence, it cannot be otherwise. If you think it your duty to take the life of your neighbour, without the forms of law, you are bound to do it; and it is the no less solemn duty of the law, to hang you for it; or should you be acquitted, it would not be on the ground of conscience, but of insanity. The guilt is in a vincible error-nay, this same conscience itself, sincere as it may be, is often founded on the habitual indulgence of the very vilest passions of our nature. What then is the conclusion? That even in matters of conscience, government must possess the abstract right to interpose its authority; and that the practical right of actual interposition depends not on the scrupulosity, or sincerity of the conscience of the subject; but on the nature and circumstances of the case, or in other words, on expediency. I am aware, that in these remarks upon the general rights of conscience, I shall seem to many to have been labouring to prove some of the plainest and most acknowledged principles of civil polity; and I have been thus particular, not because they appear to me to be necessarily connected with the question in debate, for I am unable to perceive that any provision of the third article of the bill of rights can be considered a violation of a conscience the most scrupulous; but because they have been so often introduced in the dis cussion. Do you believe in any religion? If you do not, conscience has nothing to do with the subject; if you do, do you conceive your religion to be of any importance to society? If so, you must think it, in the same proportion, important that a knowledge of it should be diffused; and of consequence that is your duty, in proportion to your means, to aid in this diffusion. Or, will you say that this is a duty of religion, and therefore government has no right to interpose additional sanctions to those of the Divine law. But are you not aware, that the principle of this argument would bear equally against all human means; that it denies the right of gov |