The most abandoned characters partake of the sacrament, in order to qualify themselves for public employments. The clergy are obliged by law to administer the ordinance unto them, and thus prostitute the most sacred office of religion, for it is a civil right in the party to receive the sacrament. In that country, subscribing to the thirty-nine articles is a test for administration into holy orders. And it is a fact, that many of the clergy do this, when at the same time they totally disbelieve several of the doctrines contained in them. If they exclude any persons, it will be honest men, men of principle, who will rather suffer an injury, than act contrary to the dictates of their consciences.
Civil government has no business to meddle with the private opinions of the people.
If I demean myself as a good citizen, I am accountable, not to man, but to God, for the religious opinions which I embrace, and the manner in which I worship the supreme being. If such had been the universal sentiments of mankind, and they had acted accordingly, persecution, the bane of truth and nurse of error, with her bloody axe and flaming hand, would never have turned so great a part of the world into a field of blood. But while I assert the rights of religious liberty, I would not deny that the civil power has a right, in some cases, to interfere in matters of religion. For this reason, I heartily approve of our laws against drunkenness, profane swearing, blasphemy, and professed atheism. A test-law is the parent of hypocrisy, and the offspring of error and the spirit of persecution.