University of Virginia Library

1627. CONSCIENCE, Rights of.—

The
error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the
operations of the mind, as well as the acts of
the body, are subject to the coercion of the
laws. But our rulers can have no authority
over such natural rights, only as we have submitted
to them. The rights of conscience we
never submitted, we could not submit. We
are answerable for them to our God.—
Notes on Virginia. Washington ed. viii, 400. Ford ed., iii, 263.
(1782)