"Let us reject this decree," said the princes. "In matters of conscience the majority has no power." To protect liberty of conscience is the duty of the state, and this is the limit of its authority in matters of religion. Every secular government that attempts to regulate or enforce religious observances by civil authority is sacrificing the very principle for which many people so nobly struggled. The principles contained in this celebrated Protest … constitute the very essence of true liberty. Now the Protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith: the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second the arbitrary authority of [religion]. Instead of these abuses, the Protest sets the power of conscience above the magistrate, and the authority of the word of God above the visible church. In the first place, it rejects the civil power in divine things ... The protesters had moreover affirmed their right to utter freely their convictions of truth. They … denied the right of priest or magistrate to interfere and it was an assertion of the right of all men to worship according to the dictates of their own consciences.
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