the supreme good, the ultimate end and object of man himself. The
magistrate, who is a man, and charged with the concerns of men, and to
whom very specially nothing human is remote and indifferent, has a right
and a duty to watch over it with an unceasing vigilance, to protect, to
promote, to forward it by every rational, just, and prudent means. It is
principally his duty to prevent the abuses which grow out of every
strong and efficient principle that actuates the human mind. As
religion is one of the bonds of society, he ought not to suffer it to be
made the pretext of destroying its peace, order, liberty, and its
security. Above all, he ought strictly to look to it, when men begin to
form new combinations, to be distinguished by new names, and especially
when they mingle a political system with their religious opinions, true
or false, plausible or implausible.

It is the interest, and it is the duty, and because it is the interest
and the duty, it is the right of government to attend much to opinions;
because, as opinions soon combine with passions, even when they do not
produce them, they have much influence on actions. Factions are formed
upon opinions, which factions become in effect bodies corporate in the
state; nay, factions generate opinions, in order to become a centre of
union, and to furnish watchwords to parties; and this may make it
expedient for government to forbid things in themselves innocent and
neutral. I am not fond of defining with precision what the ultimate
rights of the sovereign supreme power, in providing for the safety of
the commonwealth, may be, or may not extend to. It will signify very
little what my notions or what their own notions on the subject may be;
because, according to the exigence, they will take, in fact, the steps
which seem to them necessary for the preservation of the whole: for as
self-preservation in individuals is the first law of Nature, the same
will prevail in societies, who will, right or wrong, make that an object