Religion, to have any force on men's understandings, indeed to exist at all, must be supposed paramount to laws, and independent for its substance upon any human institution,--else it would be the absurdest thing in the world, an acknowledged cheat.
Burke asserts that true religion must exist independently of human laws to maintain its validity.
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More from Edmund Burke
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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