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Jerusalem; a treatise on ecclesiastical authority and Judaism (1838)
Jerusalem a treatise on ecclesiastical authority and Judaism - 1838 Author:Moses Mendelssohn Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of. He, indeed, with wise moderation, spared the privileges of external religion, such as he found the opinions of the citizens; as well as about the agreemen... more »ts which individuals may enter into amongst themselves, concerning such opinions. And this way of thinking, he (the author) has not borrowed only of Messrs. Dohm and Lessing, but he has been a convert to it already, these thirty years. In the same manner, he also admitted long ago, that what is called religious toleration is not a boon on the part of governments, but a bounden duty." It is impossible to express one's self plainer than in what follows: (Traume eines Menschenfreundes, Visions of a Philanthropist, Vol. ii. p. 12.) "Thus if one or more religions are admitted in his dominions, a wise and just sovereign will not think himself entitled to encroach upon their rights, for the benefit of those of his own religion. Every church, every union, whose object is divine worship, is a society to whom protection and justice is due from the sovereign. To deny it, were it even for the sake of favouring the best possible of religions, would be contrary to the spirit of true piety." " In respect to civil rights, the members of all religious persuasions are perfectly alike ; those only excepted, of which the tenets go against the principles of human and civic duties. Such a religion can lay no claim to rights in a state. They who are so unfortunate as to profess it, may expect to be tolerated only as long as they do not disturb the order of society by acts of depravity and injustice. Whenever they do so, let them be punished, not for their opinions, but for their actions." As to the animadversions on the middle-hands in business, which I am said wrongly to impute to Mr. Iselin, the circumstances have been quite misrepresented....« less