The people often actually do (and perhaps they cannot in general do better) take their religion, not on the coercive, which is impossible, but on the influencing authority of their governors, as wise and informed men.
Burke observes that people often adopt their religion based on the influence of knowledgeable leaders rather than coercion.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
Other voices in this conversation
