Each religious sect has its own physiognomy. The Methodists have acquired a face; the Quakers, a face; the nuns, a face. An Englis...hman will pick out a dissenter by his manners.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Is a Bill of Rights a security for [religious liberty]? If there were but one sect in America, a Bill of Rights would be a small p...rotection for liberty.... Freedom derives from a multiplicity of sects, which pervade America, and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Casting an eye on the education of children, from whence I can make a judgment of my own, I observe they are instructed in religio...us matters before they can reason about them, and consequently that all such instruction is nothing else but filling the tender mind of a child with prejudices.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, an...d end in loving himself better than all.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sceptics assert, though absurdly, that the origin of all religious worship was derived from the utility of inanimate objects, ...as the sun and moon, to the support and well-being of mankind.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is evident, from their method of propagation, that a couple of cats, in fifty years, would stock a whole kingdom; and if that r...eligious veneration were still paid them, it would, in twenty more, not only be easier in Egypt to find a god than a man, which Petronius says was the case in some parts of Italy; but the gods must at last entirely starve the men, and leave themselves neither priests nor votaries remaining.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
What a noble privilege is it of human reason to attain the knowledge of the supreme Being; and, from the visible works of nature, ...be enabled to infer so sublime a principle as its supreme Creator? But turn the reverse of the medal. Survey most nations and most ages. Examine the religious principles, which have, in fact, prevailed in the world. You will scarcely be persuaded, that they are any thing but sick men's dreams: Or perhaps will regard them more as the playsome whimsies of monkies in human shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a being, who dignifies himself with the name of rational.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There must be something solemn, serious, and tender about any attitude which we denominate religious. If glad, it must not grin or... snicker; if sad, it must not scream or curse.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing... that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.... Who does not see that the same authority which can establi...sh Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other sects?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »