Untitled article

Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · September 15, 1892

FromThe American Sentinel, Vol. 7, No. 36

MANY regard liberty of conscience as one thing and liberty to practice according to the dictates of conscience as quite another thing. But there is and can be no liberty of conscience without liberty of action. The Constitutions of most of the States of the Union contain some guarantee of liberty of conscience. The Constitution of Tennessee, for instance, provides “that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience.” This would seem to be ample provision, and yet the courts of Tennessee have so far ignored it as to practically nullify it by making it guarantee only the right to believe and practice the tenets of one’s sect, without the right to disregard laws made in aid of other sects. But this is a vital point; the conscientious Christian can not practice that which he does not believe.