ople, told
by the head, may prefer it. No conscientious man would willingly
establish what he knew to be false and mischievous in religion, or in
anything else. No wise man, on the contrary, would tyrannically set up
his own sense so as to reprobate that of the great prevailing body of
the community, and pay no regard to the established opinions and
prejudices of mankind, or refuse to them the means of securing a
religious instruction suitable to these prejudices. A great deal depends
on the state in which you find men....

An alliance between Church and State in a Christian commonwealth is, in
my opinion, an idle and a fanciful speculation. An alliance is between
two things that are in their nature distinct and independent, such as
between two sovereign states. But in a Christian commonwealth the Church
and the State are one and the, same thing, being different integral
parts of the same whole. For the Church has been always divided into two
parts, the clergy and the laity,--of which the laity is as much an
essential integral part, and has as much its duties and privileges, as
the clerical member, and in the rule, order, and government of the
Church has its share. Religion is so far, in my opinion, from being out
of the province or the duty of a Christian magistrate, that it is, and
it ought to be, not only his care, but the principal thing in his care;
because it is one of the great bonds of human society, and its object
the supreme good, the ultimate end and object of man himself. The
magistrate, who is a man, and charged with the concerns of men, and to
whom very specially nothing human is remote and indifferent, has a right
and a duty to watch over it with an unceasing vigilance, to protect, to
promote, to forward it by every rational, just, and prudent means. It is
principally his duty to prevent the abuses which grow out of every
strong and efficient principle that actuates the human mind. As
religion is one of the bonds of society, he ought not to suffer it to be
made the pretext of destroying its peace, order, liberty, and its
security. Above all, he ought strictly to look to it, when men begin to
form new combinations, to be distinguished by new names, and especially
when they mingle a political system with their religious opinions, true
or false, plausible or implausible.

It is the interest, and it is the duty, and because it is the interest
and the duty, it is the right of government to attend much to opin