University of Virginia Library

1260. CHURCH AND STATE, False Religions.—

The impious presumption of legislators
and rulers, 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.—
Statute of Religious Freedom. Washington ed. viii, 454. Ford ed., ii, 38.
(1779)