Excerpts from G. Fifield's Sermon: "The Ultimate Reason for Religious Liberty"

I have completed the transcription for this short sermon by Fifield titled “The Ultimate Reason for Religious Liberty”. It is stellar. Here are a few quotes that hit the nail on the head:

And under this thin disguise this new idea of a union of religion with the state is, for the teachings of the Pilgrim Fathers and of the Roman Church in all its history, it will be remembered that both of these ever professed to believe in religious liberty, but their idea of religious liberty, to state it personally was that it is wrong for you to enforce your religion upon me because your religion is false; but it is right for me to enforce my religion upon you because my religion is true. All such thinking utterly fails to grasp the true and ultimate reason for religious liberty.

True religion works from within, by the power of love. The power of the State is that of arbitrary, external authority, the power of the sword. Jesus forbade, utterly, the exercise of such power and authority. Not only to the State over the Church, and not only to the state over religion, but also to the Church itself, over its own members. Indeed, it was to His disciples, - His Church, that He uttered the memorable words "ye know that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them, but it shall not be so among you."

He concludes with thoughts that show the inevitability of creed-based churches supporting the union of church and state:

It is by the new birth that this divine life, this "endless life," this principle of spiritual beauty, is implanted within. It must have the spiritual food of the living Word; it must breathe the spiritual air of communion with God; it must take the Spiritual exercise of good works; but it must be absolutely uninterfered with from without. Any attempt to make the growth fit any creed or conform to any external religious authority is but to stunt it and deform it and prevent the fulfillment of the splendid promise that "His glory shall be seen upon thee."

This is the ultimate reason for religious liberty. All other reasons come because of this. And this reason not only outlaws and prohibits all union of religion and the State, as well as of Church and State, but it shows the arbitrary authority exercised within the church itself is evil. The Church that is true to the teachings of its divine Master, never exercising arbitrary authority within itself, will never ask for a union of religion and the state or of Church and State.

Read the full article at www.georgefifield.com