No. III.
An ACT for eſtabliſhing Religious Freedom, paſſed in the Aſſembly of Virginia, in the beginning of the year 1786.
WELL aware that Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal puniſhments or burdens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocriſy and meanneſs, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet choſe not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do; that the impious preſumption of legiſlators and rulers, civil as well as eccleſiaſtical, who, being themſelves but fallible and uninſpired men have aſſumed dominion over the faith of others, ſetting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as ſuch indeavoring to impoſe them on others, hath eſtabliſhed and maintained falſe religions over the greateſt part of the world, and through all time; that to compel a man to furniſh contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he diſbelieves, is ſinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to ſupport this or that teacher of his own religious perſuaſion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular paſtor whoſe morals he would make his pattern, and whoſe powers he feels moſt perſuaſive to
