jury of a single witness. Such mistakes, and | presbyters amongst their first converts, it must be such perjuries, are not without many examples. remembered that deacons also and deaconesses Whereas, to impose upon a court of justice a were appointed by them, with functions very chain of circumstantial evidence in support of a dissimilar to any which obtain in the church at fabricated accusation, requires such a number of present. The truth seems to have been, that false witnesses as seldom meet together; an union such offices were at first erected in the Chrisalso of skill and wickedness which is still more tian church, as the good order, the instruction, rare; and, after all, this species of proof lies much and the exigencies of the society at that time remore open to discussion, and is more likely, if quired, without any intention, at least without false, to be contradicted, or to betray itself by some any declared design, of regulating the appointunforeseen inconsistency, than that direct proof, ment, authority, or the distinction, of Christian which, being confined within the knowledge of a ministers under future circumstances. This resingle person, which, appealing to, or standing serve, if we may so call it, in the Christian Legisconnected with, no external or collateral circum-lator, is sufficiently accounted for by two considerstances, is incapable, by its very simplicity, of being confronted with opposite probabilities. The other maxim, which deserves a similar examination, is this:-"That it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent man should suffer." If by saying it is better, be meant that it is more for the public advantage, the proposition, I think, cannot be maintained. The security of civil life, which is essential to the value and the enjoyment of every blessing it contains, and the interruption of which is followed by uni-gion itself. versal misery and confusion, is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment. The misfortune of an individual (for such may the sufferings, or even the death, of an innocent person be called when they are occasioned by no evil intention,) cannot be placed in competition with this object. I do not contend that the life or safety of the meanest subject ought, in any case, to be knowingly sacrificed: no principle of judicature, no end of punishment, can ever require that.

ations:-First, that no precise constitution could be framed, which would suit with the condition of Christianity in its primitive state, and with that which it was to assume when it should be advanced into a national religion: Secondly, that a particular designation of office or authority amongst the ministers of the new religion, might have so interfered with the arrangements of civil policy, as to have formed, in some countries, a considerable obstacle to the progress and reception of the reli

The authority therefore of a church-establishment is founded in its utility: and whenever, upon this principle, we deliberate concerning the form, propriety, or comparative excellency of diferent establishments, the single view under which we ought to consider any of them is, that of "a scheme of instruction;" the single end we ought to propose by them is, "the preservation and communication of religious knowledge." Every other idea, and every other end, that have been mixed with this, as the making of the church an engine, or even an ally, of the state; converting it into the means of strengthening or diffusing influence; or regarding it as a support of regal, in opposition to popular forms of government; have served only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses.

But when certain rules of adjudication must be pursued, when certain degrees of credibility must be accepted, in order to reach the crimes with which the public are infested; courts of justice should not be deterred from the application of these rules by every suspicion of danger, or by the mere possibility of confounding the innocent with the guilty.-They ought rather to reflect, The notion of a religious establishment comthat he who falls by a mistaken sentence, may be prehends three things:-a clergy, or an order of considered as falling for his country; whilst hemen secluded from other professions to attend suffers under the operation of those rules, by the general effect and tendency of which the welfare of the community is maintained and upholden.

CHAPTER X.

Of Religious Establishments and of Toleration. "A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of Christianity it is only the means of inculcating at." Amongst the Jews, the rights and offices, the order, family, and succession of the priesthood, were marked out by the authority which declared the law itself. These, therefore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as well as the means of transmitting it. Not so with the new institution. It cannot be proved that any form of church-government was laid down in the Christian, as it had been in the Jewish Scriptures, with a view of fixing a constitution for succeeding ages; and which constitution, consequently, the disciples of Christianity would every where, and at all times, by the very law of their religion, be obliged to adopt. Certainly, no command for this purpose was delivered by Christ himself; and if it be shown that the apostles ordained bishops and

upon the offices of religion; a legal provision for the maintenance of the clergy; and the confining of that provision to the teachers of a particular sect of Christianity. If any one of these three things be wanting, if there be no clergy as amongst the Quakers; or if the clergy have no other provision than what they derive from the voluntary which the laws assign to the support of religion contribution of their hearers; or if the provision be extended to various sects and denominations of Christians; there exists no national religion or established church, according to the sense which these terms are usually made to convey. He, therefore, who would defend ecclesiastical establishments, must show the separate utility of these three essential parts of their constitution:

1. The question first in order upon the subject, as well as the most fundamental in its importance, is, whether the knowledge and profession of Christianity can be maintained in a country without a class of men set apart by public authority to the study and teaching of religion, and to the conducting of public worship; and for these purposes secluded from other employments. I add this last circumstance, because in it consists, as I take it, the substance of the controversy. Now it must be remembered, that Christianity is an historical

religion, founded in facts which are related to have their institution, the more ordinary offices of pub passed, upon discourses which were holden, and lic teaching, and of conducting public worship, letters which were written, in a remote age, and call for qualifications not usually to be met with distant country of the world, as well as under a amidst the employments of civil life. It has been state of life and manners, and during the preva- acknowledged by some, who cannot be suspected lency of opinions, customs, and institutions, very of making unnecessary concessions in favour of unlike any which are found amongst mankind at establishments, "to be barely possible, that a present. Moreover, this religion, having been person who was never educated for the office first published in the country of Judea, and being should acquit himself with decency as a public built upon the more ancient religion of the Jews, teacher of religion." And that surely must be is necessarily and intimately connected with the a very defective policy which trusts to possibilities sacred writings, with the history and polity of for success, when provision is to be made for regu that singular people: to which must be added, lar and general instruction. Little objection to that the records of both revelations are preserved this argument can be drawn from the example of in languages which have long ceased to be spo- the Quakers, who, it may be said, furnish an exken in any part of the world. Books which come perimental proof that the worship and profession down to us from times so remote, and under so of Christianity may be upholden without a sepa many causes of unavoidable obscurity, cannot, it is rate clergy. These sectaries every where subsist evident, be understood without study and prepa- in conjunction with a regular establishment. They ration. The languages must be learned. The have access to the writings, they profit by the various writings which these volumes contain, labours, of the clergy, in common with other Chrismust be carefully compared with one another, and tians. They participate in that general diffusion with themselves. What remains of contemporary of religious knowledge, which the constant teach authors, or of authors connected with the age, the ing of a more regular ministry keeps up in the country, or the subject of our scriptures, must be country: with such aids, and under such circum perused and consulted, in order to interpret doubt-stances, the defects of a plan may not be much ful forms of speech, and to explain allusions which felt, although the plan itself be altogether unfit for refer to objects or usages that no longer exist. general imitation. Above all, the modes of expression, the habits of 2. If then an order of clergy be necessary, if it reasoning and argumentation, which were then be necessary also to seclude them from the emin use, and to which the discourses even of in-ployments and profits of other professions, it is spired teachers were necessarily adapted, must be evident they ought to be enabled to derive a main sufficiently known, and can only be known at tenance from their own. Now this maintenance all by a due acquaintance with ancient litera- must either depend upon the voluntary contributure. And lastly, to establish the genuineness and tions of their hearers, or arise from revenues asintegrity of the canonical scriptures themselves, a signed by authority of law. To the scheme of series of testimony, recognising the notoriety and voluntary contribution there exists this insur reception of these books, must be deduced from mountable objection, that few would ultimately times near to those of their first publication, down contribute any thing at all. However the zeal of the succession of ages through which they have a sect, or the novelty of a change, might support been transmitted to us. The qualifications ne- such an experiment for a while, no reliance could cessary for such researches demand, it is confessed, be placed upon it as a general and permanent proa degree of leisure, and a kind of education, in- vision. It is at all times a bad constitution, which consistent with the exercise of any other profes- presents temptations of interest in opposition to sion.—But how few are there amongst the clergy, the duties of religion; or which makes the offices from whom any thing of this sort can be expected! of religion expensive to those who attend upon how small a proportion of their number, who them; or which allows pretences of conscience to seem likely either to augment the fund of sacred be an excuse for not sharing in a public burthen. literature, or even to collect what is already known! If, by declining to frequent religious assemblies, -To this objection it may be replied, that we men could save their money, at the same time that sow many seeds to raise one flower. In order to they indulged their indolence, and their disinclinaproduce a few capable of improving and continu- tion to exercises of seriousness and reflection; or, ing the stock of Christian erudition, leisure and if by dissenting from the national religion, they opportunity must be afforded to great numbers. could be excused from contributing to the support Original knowledge of this kind can never be of the ministers of religion; it is to be feared that universal; but it is of the utmost importance, and many would take advantage of the option which it is enough that there be, at all times, found was thus imprudently left open to them, and that some qualified for such inquiries, and in whose this liberty might finally operate to the decay of concurring and independent conclusions upon virtue, and an irrecoverable forgetfulness of all reeach subject, the rest of the Christian community ligion in the country. Is there not too much may safely confide: whereas, without an order of reason to fear, that, if it were referred to the disclergy educated for the purpose, and led to the cretion of each neighbourhood, whether they would prosecution of these studies by the habits, the maintain amongst them a teacher of religion or leisure, and the object, of their vocation, it may not, many districts would remain unprovided with well be questioned whether the learning itself any; that, with the difficulties which encumber would not have been lost, by which the records every measure requiring the co-operation of numof our faith are interpreted and defended. We bers, and where each individual of the number has contend, therefore, that an order of clergy is ne- an interest secretly pleading against the success of cessary to perpetuate the evidences of Revelation, the measure itself, associations for the support of and to interpret the obscurity of those ancient Christian worship and instruction would neither writings, in which the religion is contained. But be numerous nor long continued? The devout besides this, which forms, no doubt, one design of and pious might lament in vain the want or the

distance of a religious assembly; they could not form or maintain one, without the concurrence of neighbours who felt neither their zeal nor their liberality.

sary discussion and of great importance. And whatever we may determine concerning speculative rights and abstract proprieties, when we set about the framing of an ecclesiastical constitution adapted to real life, and to the actual state of religion in the country, we shall find this question very nearly related to and principally indeed deby whom, ought the ministers of religion to be appointed?" If the species of patronage be retained to which we are accustomed in this country, and which allows private individuals to nominate teachers of religion for districts and congregations to which they are absolute strangers; without some test proposed to the persons nominated, the utmost discordancy of religious opinions might arise between the several teachers and their re

From the difficulty with which congregations would be established and upheld upon the voluntary plan, let us carry our thoughts to the condition of those who are to officiate in them. Preach-pendent upon another; namely, "In what way, or ing, in time, would become a mode of begging. With what sincerity, or with what dignity, can a preacher dispense the truths of Christianity, whose thoughts are perpetually solicited to the reflection how he may increase his subscription? His eloquence, if he possesses any, resembles rather the exhibition of a player who is computing the profits of his theatre, than the simplicity of a man who, feeling himself the awful expectations of religion, is seeking to bring others to such a sense and un-spective congregations. A popish patron might derstanding of their duty as may save their souls. Moreover, a little experience of the disposition of the common people will in every country inform us, that it is one thing to edify them in Christian knowledge, and another to gratify their taste for vehement, impassioned oratory; that he, not only whose success, but whose subsistence, depends upon collecting and pleasing a crowd, must resort to other arts than the acquirement and communication of sober and profitable instruction. For a preacher to be thus at the mercy of his audience; to be obliged to adapt his doctrines to the pleasure of a capricious multitude; to be continually affecting a style and manner neither natural to him, nor agreeable to his judgment; to live in constant bondage to tyrannical and insolent directors; are circumstances so mortifying, not only to the pride of the human heart, but to the virtuous love of independency, that they are rarely submitted to without a sacrifice of principle, and a deprivation of character;—at least it may be pronounced, that a ministry so degraded would fall into the lowest hands: for it would be found impossible to engage men of worth and ability in so precarious and humiliating a profession.

appoint a priest to say mass to a congregation of protestants; an episcopal clergyman be sent to officiate in a parish of presbyterians; or a presbyterian divine to inveigh against the errors of popery before an audience of papists. The requisition then of subscription, or any other test by which the national religion is guarded, may be considered merely as a restriction upon the exercise of private patronage. The laws speak to the private patron thus:-"Of those whom we have previously pronounced to be fitly qualified to teach religion, we allow you to select one; but we do not allow you to decide what religion shall be established in a particular district of the country; for which decision you are no wise fitted by any qualifications which, as a private patron, you may happen to possess. If it be necessary that the point be determined for the inhabitants by any other will than their own, it is surely better that it should be determined by a deliberate resolution of the legislature, than by the casual inclination of an individual, by whom the right is purchased, or to whom it devolves as a mere secular inheritance." Wheresoever, therefore, this constitution of patronage is adopted, a national religion, If, in deference then to these reasons, it be or the legal preference of one particular religion admitted, that a legal provision for the clergy, com- to all others, must almost necessarily accompany it. pulsory upon those who contribute to it, is expe- But, secondly, let it be supposed that the appointdient; the next question will be, whether this pro- ment of the minister of religion was in every parish vision should be confined to one sect of Christianity, left to the choice of the parishioners; might not or extended indifferently to all? Now it should be this choice, we ask, be safely exercised without observed, that this question never can offer itself its being limited to the teachers of any particular where the people are agreed in their religious sect? The effect of such a liberty must be, that a opinions; and that it never ought to arise, where papist, or a presbyterian, a methodist, a Moravian, a system may be framed of doctrines and worship or an anabaptist, would successively gain posseswide enough to comprehend their disagreement; sion of the pulpit, according as a majority of the and which might satisfy all, by uniting all in the party happened at each election to prevail.-Now, articles of their common faith, and in a mode of with what violence the conflict would upon every divine worship that omits every subject of contro- vacancy be renewed; what bitter animosities would versy or offence. Where such a comprehension be revived, or rather be constantly fed and kept is practicable, the comprehending religion ought alive, in the neighbourhood; with what unconto be made that of the state. But if this be de-querable aversion the teacher and his religion spaired of; if religious opinions exist, not only so would be received by the defeated party, may be various, but so contradictory, as to render it im- foreseen by those who reflect with how much paspossible to reconcile them to each other, or to any sion every dispute is carried on, in which the one confession of faith, rule of discipline, or form name of religion can be made to mix itself; much of worship; if, consequently, separate congrega- more where the cause itself is concerned so immetions and different sects must unavoidably con-diately as it would be in this. Or, thirdly, if the tinue in the country: under such circumstances, whether the laws ought to establish one sect in preference to the rest, that is, whether they ought to confer the provision assigned to the maintenance of religion upon the teachers of one system of doctrines alone, becomes a question of neces

state appoint the ministers of religion, this constitution will differ little from the establishment of a national religion; for the state will, undoubtedly, appoint those, and those alone, whose religious opinions, or rather whose religious denominations, agree with its own; unless it be thought that any

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to the fashion of human affairs, furnished to almost every church a pretence for extending, multiplying, and continuing, such tests beyond what the occasion justified. For though some purposes of order and tranquillity may be answered by the establishment of creeds and confessions, yet they are at all times attended with serious inconveniencies: they check inquiry; they violate liberty; they ensnare the consciences of the clergy, by holding out temptations to prevarication; however they may express the persuasion, or be accommodated to the controversies or to the fears of the age in which they are composed, in process of time, and by reason of the changes which are wont to take place in the judg ment of mankind upon religious subjects, they come at length to contradict the actual opinions of the church, whose doctrines they profess to contain; and they often perpetuate the proscription of sects, and tenets, from which any danger has long ceased to be apprehended.

It may not follow from these objections, that tests and subscriptions ought to be abolished: but it follows, that they ought to be made as simple and easy as possible; that they should be adapted, from time to time, to the varying sentiments and circumstances of the church in which they are re

thing would be gained to religious liberty by transferring the choice of the national religion from the legislature of the country, to the magistrate who administers the executive government.-The only plan which seems to render the legal maintenance of a clergy practicable, without the legal preference of one sect of Christians to others, is that of an experiment which is said to be attempted or designed in some of the new states of North America. The nature of the plan is thus described:-A tax is levied upon the inhabitants for the general support of religion; the collector of the taxes goes round with a register in his hand, in which are inserted, at the head of so many distinct columns, the names of the several religious sects that are professed in the country. The person who is called upon for the assessinent, as soon as he has paid his quota, subscribes his name and the sum in which of the columns he pleases; and the amount of what is collected in cach column is paid over to the minister of that denomination. In this scheme it is not left to the option of the subject, whether he will contribute, or how much he shall contribute, to the maintenance of a christian ministry; it is only referred to his choice to determine by what sect his contribution shall be received. The above arrangement is undoubt-ceived; and that they should at no time advance edly the best that has been proposed upon this principle; it bears the appearance of liberality and justice; it may contain some solid advantages; nevertheless, it labours under inconveniences which will be found, I think, upon trial, to overbalance all its recommendations. It is scarcely compatible with that which is the first requisite in an ecclesiastical establishment,-the division of the country into parishes of a commodious extent. If the parishes be small, and ministers of every denomination be stationed in each, (which the plan seems to suppose,) the expense of their maintenance will become too burthensome a charge for the country to support. If, to reduce the expense, the districts be enlarged, the place of assembling will oftentimes be too far removed from the residence of the persons who ought to resort to it. Again: the making the pecuniary success of the different teachers of religion to depend on the number and wealth of their respective followers, would naturally generate strifes and indecent jealousies amongst them; as well as produce a polemical and proselyting spirit, founded in or mixed with views of private gain, which would both deprave the principles of the clergy, and distract the country with endless contentions.

The argument, then, by which ecclesiastical establishments are defended, proceeds by these steps:-The knowledge and profession of Christianity, cannot be upholden without a clergy: a clergy cannot be supported without a legal provision; a legal provision for the clergy, cannot be constituted without the preference of one sect of Christians to the rest: and the conclusion will be conveniently satisfactory in the degree in which the truth of these several propositions can be made out. If it be deemed expedient to establish a national religion, that is to say, one sect in preference to all others; some test, by which the teachers of that sect may be distinguished from the teachers of different sects, appears to be an indispensable consequence. The existence of such an establishment supposes it: the very notion of a national religion includes that of a test.

But this necessity, which is real, hath, according

one step farther than some subsisting necessity requires. If, for instance, promises of conformity to the rites, liturgy, and offices of the church, be sufficient to prevent confusion and disorder in the celebration of divine worship, then such promises ought to be accepted in the place of stricter subscriptions. If articles of peace, as they are called, that is, engagements not to preach certain doctrines, nor to revive certain controversies, would exclude indecent altercations amongst the national clergy, as well as secure to the public teaching of religion, as much of uniformity and quiet as is necessary to edification; then confessions of faith ought to be converted into articles of peace. In a word, it ought to be holden a sufficient reason for relaxing the terms of subscription, or for dropping any or all of the articles to be subscribed, that no present necessity requires the strictness which is complained of, or that it should be extended to so many points of doctrine.

The division of the country into districts, and the stationing in each district a teacher of religion, forms the substantial part of every church estab lishment. The varieties that have been introduced into the government and discipline of different churches, are of inferior importance when compared with this, in which they all agree. Of these economical questions, none seems more material than that which has been long agitated in the reformed churches of Christendom, whether a parity amongst the clergy, or a distinction of orders in the ministry, be more conducive to the general ends of the institution. In favour of that system which the laws of this country have preferred, we may allege the following reasons:-that it secures tranquillity and subordination amongst the clergy themselves; that it corresponds with the gradations of rank in civil life, and provides for the edification of each rank, by stationing in each an order of clergy of their own class and quality; and, lastly, that the same fund produces more effect, both as an allurement to men of talents to enter into the church, and as a stimulus to the industry of those who are already in it, when distributed into prizes of different value, than when divided into equal shares.

what in a greater degree conduces to the publi welfare.

believe to be already settled by precepts of Revelation; or to contradict what God himself, they think, hath declared to be true. In this case, on whichever side the mistake lies, or whatever plea the state may allege to justify its edict, the subject can have none to excuse his compliance. The same consideration also points out the distinction, as to the authority of the state, between temporals and spirituals. The magistrate is not to be obeyed in temporals more than spirituals, where a repugnancy is perceived between his commands and any credited manifestations of the Divine will; but such repugnancies are much less likely to arise one case than the other.

After the state has once established a particular system of faith as a national religion, a question will soon occur, concerning the treatment and Still it is right "to obey God rather than man.' toleration of those who dissent from it. This Nothing that we have said encroaches upon the question is properly preceded by another, concern- truth of this sacred and undisputed maxim: the ing the right which the civil magistrate possesses right of the magistrate to ordain, and the obligato interfere in matters of religion at all: for, al- tion of the subject to obey, in matters of religion, though this right be acknowledged whilst he is may be very different; and will be so, as often as employed solely in providing means of public in- they flow from opposite apprehensions of the Distruction, it will probably be disputed, (indeed it vine will. In affairs that are properly of a civil naever has been,) when he proceeds to inflict penal-ture, in "the things that are Caesar's," this differties, to impose restraints or incapacities, on the ac-ence seldom happens. The law authorises the count of religious distinctions. They who admit act which it enjoins; Revelation being either silent no other just original of civil government, than upon the subject, or referring to the laws of the what is founded in some stipulation with its sub-country, or requiring only that men act by some jects, are at liberty to contend that the concerns fixed rule, and that this rule be established by of religion were excepted out of the social com- competent authority. But when human laws inpact; that, in an affair which can only be trans-terpose their direction in matters of religion, by acted between God and a man's own conscience, dictating, for example, the object or the mode of no commission or authority was ever delegated to divine worship; by prohibiting the profession of the civil magistrate, or could indeed be transferred some articles of faith, and by exacting that of others, from the person himself to any other. We, how-they are liable to clash with what private persons ever, who have rejected this theory, because we cannot discover any actual contract between the state and the people, and because we cannot allow any arbitrary fiction to be made the foundation of real rights and of real obligations, find ourselves precluded from this distinction. The reasoning which deduces the authority of civil government from the will of God, and which collects that will from public expediency alone, binds us to the unreserved conclusion, that the jurisdiction of the magistrate is limited by no consideration but that of general utility in plainer terms, that whatever be the subject to be regulated, it is lawful for him to interfere whenever his inteference, in its gene-in ral tendency, appears to be conducive to the com- When we grant that it is lawful for the mamon interest. There is nothing in the nature of gistrate to interfere in religion as often as his inreligion, as such, which exempts it from the au- terference appears to him to conduce, in its general thority of the legislator, when the safety or welfare tendency, to the public happiness; it may be argued, of the community requires his interposition. It from this concession, that since salvation is the has been said, indeed, that religion, pertaining to highest interest of mankind, and since, consequentthe interests of a life to come, lies beyond the pro-ly, to advance that, is to promote the public hapvince of civil government, the office of which is piness in the best way, and in the greatest degree, confined to the affairs of this life. But in reply in which it can be promoted, it follows, that it is to this objection, it may be observed, that when not only the right, but the duty, of every magisthe laws interfere even in religion, they interfere trate invested with supreme power, to enforce upon only with temporals; their effects terminate, their his subjects the reception of that religion which he power operates only upon those rights and in- deems most acceptable to God; and to enforce it terests, which confessedly belong to their disposal. by such methods as may appear most effectual for The acts of the legislature, the edicts of the prince, the end proposed. A popish king, for example, the sentence of the judge, cannot affect my sal-who should believe that salvation is not attainable vation: nor do they, without the most absurd arrogance, pretend to any such power: but they may deprive me of liberty, of property, and even of life itself, on account of my religion; and however I may complain of the injustice of the sentence by which I am condemned, I cannot allege, that the magistrate has transgressed the boundaries of his jurisdiction; because the property, the liberty, and the life of the subject, may be taken away by the authority of the laws, for any reason which, in the judgment of the legislature, renders such a measure necessary to the common welfare. Moreover, as the precepts of religion may regulate all the offices of life, or may be so construed as to extend to all, the exemption of religion from the control of human laws might afford a plea, which would exclude civil government from every authority over the conduct of its subjects. Religious liberty is, like civil liberty, not an immunity from restraint, but the being restrained by no law, but

out of the precincts of the Romish church, would derive a right from our principles (not to say that he would be bound by them) to employ the power with which the constitution intrusted him, and which power, in absolute monarchies, commands the lives and fortunes of every subject of the empire, in reducing his people within that communion. We confess that this consequence is inferred from the principles we have laid down concerning the foundation of civil authority, not without the resemblance of a regular deduction: we confess also that it is a conclusion which it behoves us to dispose of; because, if it really follow from our theory of go vernment, the theory itself ought to be given up. Now it will be remembered, that the terms of our proposition are these:-"That it is lawful for the magistrate to interfere in the affairs of religion, whenever his interference appears to him to conduce, by its general tendency, to the public happiness." The clause of" general tendency," when