English Royal Commission of Henry VIII Quotes

Banish afar the foul worship of idols. On their alters let the blood of animals smoke no more, nor the soothsayer look for omens in warm entrails, nor the meaningless augur attend to the song of birds. Let all the images of the gods be smashed to the ground.

Those who turn away from Islam, and obey non-Muslims in some things, have been seduced by Satan….Don't obey disbelievers.

Lord, open the eyes of the Queen's majesty, that she may see Jesus Christ, whom she has pierced with her infidelity, superstition, and idolatry.

The churches are ruined and fallen down to the ground in all parts of the kingdom. There is no divine service, no christening of children, no receiving of the sacrament, no Christian meeting or assembly, not once a year; in a word, no more demonstration of religion than among the Tartars or cannibals.

Ireland has remained a Catholic nation, and as such sets the eternal destiny of man high above the isms and idols of the day. Her people would accept no system that decried of imperiled that destiny. So long as that was their attitude none of the forms of state-worship now prevalent [elsewhere in the world] could flourish in their land.

Our realm and subjects have been long wanderers, walking astray, whilst they were under the tuition of Romish pastors, who advised them to own a wolf [the Pope] for their head (in lieu of a careful shepherd) whose inventions, heresies and schisms be so numerous, that the flock of Christ have fed on poisonous shrubs for want of wholesome pastures.

Never, I beseech of you, encourage a certain “Christian party in politics,” which under moral and religious pretenses is officiously and continually interfering with the religious opinions of others, and endeavoring to effect by law and other means, equally exceptionable, a systematic course of measures evidently calculated to lead to a union of church and state. If a union of church and state should be effected, which may God avert, then will the doctrines of the prevailing sect become the creed of the country, to be enforced by fines, imprisonment, and doubtless death! Then will superstition and bigotry frown into silence everything which bears the appearance of liberality; the hand of genius will be palsied, and a check to all further improvements in our country will be the inevitable consequence. If we now permit the glorious light of liberty to be extinguished, it may never more shine to cheer a benighted world with the splendor of its rays.

Our Executive never interferes in the discipline, doctrine, or regulations of any religious society. They were not consulted nor took part in the appointment of our Bishops, or the Church of England, or Methodists.

A runaway monk never praises his monastery.

No creed of religion can sustain unsullied purity, or support its high destination, which is mingled with the corruptions of human government. Christianity is in its essence, its doctrine, and its forms, republican. It teaches our descent from a common parent; in inculcates the natural equality in mankind; and it points to our origin and our end, to our nativity and our graves, to our immortal destinies, as illustrations of this impressive truth. But at an early period it was pressed into the service of the potentates of the earth; the unnatural union of church and state was consummated; and the scepter of Constantine was supported by the cross of Jesus. The light of knowledge was shut out from the general mass, and confined to the select organs of tyranny; and man was for ages enveloped in the thickest gloom of intellectual and moral darkness

All such of the said statutes and acts aforesaid, or parts thereof, as may be construed to establish or maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their ministers, or concern the allegiance heretofore yielded to, and the supremacy, sovereignty, government, or prerogatives claimed or exercised by, the King of Great Britain and his predecessors, over the colony of New York and its inhabitants, or are repugnant to this constitution, be, and they hereby are, abrogated and rejected.

Is it not proven beyond all dispute that there is no limit to the enormities which men will commit when they are once persuaded that they are keepers of other men's consciences? To spread religion by any means, and to crush heresy by all means is the practical inference from the doctrine that one man may control another's religion. Given the duty of a state to foster some one form of faith, and by the sure inductions of our nature slowly but certainly persecution will occur. To prevent for ever the possibility of Papists roasting Protestants, Anglicans hanging Romish priests, and Puritans flogging Quakers, let every form of state-churchism be utterly abolished, and the remembrance of the long curse which it has cast upon the world be blotted out for ever.

Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new people is in no way worn out or impaired… The people are Protestants, and of that kind which is more adverse to all implicit of mind or opinion. Worship in our Northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance.

I would never give liberty of conscience … to my subjects in that kingdom [Ireland]… or confirm the hopes of any creature that they should ever have from me any tolerance to exercise any other religion that that which is agreeable to God’s Word.

All societies of men, whether we call them states or churches, should make their bond to consist in a common object and a common practice, rather than in a common belief; in other words, their end should be good rather than truth. We may consent to act together, but - we cannot consent to believe together

I cannot, then, my brother believe that I err in acknowledging this one God, the author and parent of all things: whom many of my predecessors in power, led astray by the madness of error, have ventured to deny... For I myself have witnessed the end of those who lately harassed the worshipers of God by their impious edict.

Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building.

No power of government ought to be employed in the endeavor to establish any system or article of belief on the subject of religion.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

I never saw, heard, nor read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution.

Almost every sect of Christianity is a perversion of its essence, to accommodate it to the prejudices of the world.

I don't believe there is a separation of church and state. I think the Constitution is very clear. The only separation is that there will not be a government church.

Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem — for purely religious purposes, of course — to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate.

I don’t see a bit of danger from us having an established religion.

The dominant national religion is and shall be the sacred Roman Catholic faith with all ii laws. Passage from the dominant religion to any other confession is forbidden under penalties of apostasy. Inasmuch as the same holy faith bids us love our neighbors, we owe to all persons, of whatever persuasion, peace in their faith and the protection of the government, and therefore we guarantee freedom to all rites and religions in the Polish lands, in accordance with the laws of the land.