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Civil Government and Religious Conscience

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Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 23, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 4.

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Civil Government and Religious Conscience

By Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia

The only proper objects of civil government are the happiness and protection of men in the present state of existence; the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizen; and to restrain and encourage the virtuous by wholesome laws equally extended to every individual; but the duty that we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can only be directed by reason and conviction, and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribunal of the universal Judge. To judge for ourselves, and to engage in the exercise of religion agreeably to THE DICTATES OF OUR OWN CONSCIENCE, is an inalienable right, which, upon the principles on which the Gospel was first propagated, and the Reformation from popery carried on, can never be transferred to another.—Presbytery of Hanover, Virginia, Declaration of 1776.