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(leavouring to impose them on others, hath estabHshed 

 and maintained false rehgions over the greatest part of 

 the worhl, and through all time ; that to compel a man 

 to furnish contributions of money for the propagation 

 of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyranni- 

 cal ; that even the forcing him to support this or that 

 teacher of his own religious ])ersuasion, is depriving hirn 

 of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to 

 the particular ])astor whose morals he would make his 

 pattern, and whose j)owers he feels most persuasive to 

 righteousness, and is withdrawing from the ministry 

 those temporal rewards which proceeding from an ap- 

 probation of their j)ersonal conduct, are an additional 

 incitement to earnest and unrenjitting labours for the 

 instruction of mankind ; that our civil rights have no 

 dei)en(1ance on our religious opinions, more than our 

 opinions in physics or geometry ; that therefore the 

 proscribing any citizen as unworthy the j)ublic confi- 

 dence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called 

 to the otiices of trust and emolument, unless he profess 

 or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving 

 him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to 

 which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a na- 

 tural right ; that it tends also to corrupt the principles 

 of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by brib- 

 ing, with a njonopoly of worldly honours and emolu- 

 ments, those who will externally profess and conform 

 to it ; that though indeed these are criminal who do not 

 withstand such temptation, yet neither are those inno- 

 cent who lay the bait in their way; that to suffer the 

 civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field of 

 opinion and to restrain the profession or propagation of 

 principles, on the supposition of their ill tendency, is a 

 dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious 

 liberty, because he being of course judge of that ten- 

 dency, will make his opinions the rule of judgment, and 

 approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as 

 they shall square with or differ from his own ; that it is 

 time enough for the rightful purposes of civil govern- 

 ment, for its officers to interfere when principles break 



