MEMORIAL, &c.
To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia:
We the subscribers, citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration a bill printed by order of the last session of General Assembly, entitled "A bill establishing a provision for teachers of the Christian religion," and conceiving that the same, if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound, as faithful members of a free State, to remonstrate against the said bill—
Because we hold it for a "fundamental and undeniable truth," that religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence. The religion, then, of every man, must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is, in its nature, an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated in their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men: it is unalienable, also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him: this
