blessings which it has received. And therefore as it is not lawful for
anybody to neglect his duties towards God, and as it is the first duty
to embrace in mind and in conduct religion--not such as each may choose,
but such as God commands--in the same manner States cannot, without a
crime, act as though God did not exist, or cast off the care of religion
as alien to them or useless or out of several kinds of religion adopt
indifferently which they please; but they are absolutely bound, in the
worship of the Deity to adopt that use and manner in which God Himself
has shown that He wills to be adored. Therefore among rulers the name of
God must be holy, and it must be reckoned among the first of their
duties to favor religion, protect it, and cover it with the authority of
the laws, and not to institute or decree anything which is incompatible
with its security. They owe this also to the citizens over whom they
rule. For all of us men are born and brought up for a certain supreme
and final good in heaven, beyond this frail and short life, and to this
end all efforts are to be referred. And because upon it depends the full
and perfect happiness of men, therefore, to attain this end which has
been mentioned, is of as much interest as is conceivable to every
individual man. It is necessary then that a civil society, born for the
common advantage, in the guardianship of the prosperity of the
commonwealth, should so advance the interests of the citizens that in
holding up and acquiring that highest and inconvertible good which they
spontaneously seek, it should not only never import anything
disadvantageous, but should give all the opportunities in its power. The
chief of these is that attention should be paid to a holy and inviolate
preservation of religion, by the duties of which man is united to God.

Now which the true religion is may be easily discovered by any one who
will view the matter with a careful and unbiassed judgment; for there
are proofs of great number and splendor, as for example, the truth of
prophecy, the abundance of miracles, the extremely rapid spread of the
faith, even in the midst of its enemies and in spite of the greatest
hindrances, the testimony of the martyrs, and the like, from which it is
evident that that is the only true religion which Jesus Christ
instituted Himself and then entrusted to His Church to defend and to
spread.

For the only begotten Son of God set up a society on earth which is