An Utterance of 1776

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 18, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 24.

An Utterance of 1776

In Civil Things "Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's." —Jesus to the Pharisees.

In Religious Things "We ought to obey God rather than men." —Peter to the Sanhedrin.

An Utterance of 1776

(From the address of the Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia, and the Baptists and Quakers, to the General Assembly of Virginia, 1776)

In this enlightened age, and in a land where all of every denomination are united in the most strenuous efforts to be free, we hope and expect that our representatives will cheerfully concur in removing every species of religious as well as civil bondage. Certain it is that every argument for civil liberty gains additional strength when applied to liberty in the concerns of religion; and there is no argument in favor of establishing the Christian religion but may be pleaded with equal propriety for establishing the tenets of Mohammed by those who believe the Alcoran; or, if this be not true, it is at least impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of preference among the various sects that profess the Christian faith without erecting a claim to infallibility which would lead us back to the Church of Rome. Religious Liberty Series, No. 5