"fuffer." If by faying it is better, be meant that it is more for the public advantage, the propofition, I think, cannot be maintained. The fecurity of civil life, which is effential to the value and the enjoyment of every bleffing it contains, and the interruption of which is followed by univerfal mifery and confufion, is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment. The misfortune of individual,

for fuch may the fufferings, or even the death of an innocent perfon be called, when they are occafioned by no evil intention, cannot be placed in competition with this object. I do not contend that the life or fafety of the meaneft fubject ought, in any cafe, to be knowingly facrificed. No principle of judicature, no end of punishment can ever require that. But when certain rules of adjudica tion must be pursued, when certain degrees of credibility must be accepted, in order to reach the crimes with which the public are infefted: courts of justice should not be deterred from the application of thefe rules by every fufpicion of danger, or by the mere poffibility of confounding the innocent with the guilty. They ought rather to reflect, that he who falls by a mistaken fentence, may be confidered as falling for his country; whilft he fuffers under the operation of these rules, by the general effect and tendency of which the welfare of the communi, is maintained and upheld.

ty

CHAP.

CHA P. X.

OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS AND OF TOLE

RATION.

A

Religious establishment is no part of Chrif tianity, it is only the means of inculcating it." Amongst the Jews, the rites and offices, the order, family, and fucceffion of the priesthood were marked out by the authority which declared the law itself. Thefe, therefore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as well as the means of tranfmitting it. Not fo with the new inftitution. It cannot be proved that any form of church government was laid down in the Chriftian, as it had been in the Jewish fcriptures, with a view of fixing a conftitution for fucceeding ages; and which conftitution, confequently, the difciples of Chriftianity 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 himfelf; and if it be fhewn that the apoftles ordained bishops and prefbyters amongst their first converts, it must be remembered that deacons alfo and deaconeffes were appointed by them, with functions very diffimilar to any which obtain in the church at prefent. The truth feems to have been, that such offices were at firft erected in the Chriftian church, as the good order, the inftruction, and the exigencies of the fociety at that time required, without any intention, at leaft, without any declared defign, of regulating the appointment, authority, or the diftinction of Chriftian minifters under future circumftances. This reserve, if we may fo call it, in the Christian Legislator, is fufficiently accounted for by

two

457

two confiderations: Firft, that no precife conftitution could be framed, which would fuit with the condition of Christianity in its primitive ftate, and with that which it was to affume, when it fhould be advanced into a national religion. Secondly, that a particular defignation of office or authority amongst the minifters of the new religion might have fo interfered with the arrangements of civil policy, as to have formed, in fome countries, a confiderable obftacle to the progrefs and reception of the religion itself.

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 different eftablifhments, the fingle view, under which we ought to confider any of them, is that of "a fcheme of inItruction," the fingle 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 ftrengthening or of diffufing influence; or regarding it as a support of regal in oppofition to popular forms of government, have ferved only to debafe the inftitution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses.

The notion of a religious establishment comprehends three things; a clergy, or an order of men fecluded from other profeflions to attend upon the offices of religion; a legal provifion for the maintenance of the clergy; and the confining of that provifion to the teachers of a particular fect of Chriftianity. If any one of these three things be wanting; ir there be no clergy, as amongst the quakers; or, if the clergy have no other provifion than what they derive from the voluntary contribution of their hearers; or, if the provifion which the laws affign to the fupport of religion be extended to various

fects

fects and denominations of Chriftians, there exists no national religion or established church, according to the fenfe which thefe terms are ufually made to convey. He, therefore, who would defend ecclefiaftical establishments, muft show the separate utility of these three effential parts of the conftitu

tion.

1. The question firft in order upon the fubject, as well as the moft fundamental in its importance, is, whether the knowledge and profeffion of Chriftianity can be maintained in a country, without a clafs of men fet apart by public authority to the study and teaching of religion, and to the conducting of public worship; and for thefe purposes fecluded from other employments. I add this last circumstance, because in it confifts, as I take it, the substance of the controversy. Now it must be remembered that Christianity is an hiftorical religion, founded in facts which are related to have paffed, upon difcourfes which were held, and letters which were written, in a remote age, and diftant country of the world, as well as under a ftate of life and manners, and during the prevalency of opinions, cuftoms and inflitutions, very unlike any which are found amongst mankind at prefent. Moreover, this religion, having been firft published in the country of Judea, and being built upon the more ancient religion of the Jews, is neceffarily and intimately connected with the facred writings, with the hiftory and polity of that fingular people; to which must be added, that the records of both revelations are preserved in lạnguages which have long ceafed to be spoken in any part of the world. Books which come down to us from times fo remote, and under fo many caufes of unavoidable obfcurity, cannot, it is evident, be underftood without ftudy and preparation. The languages must be learnt. The various writings which thefe volumes contain must be carefully compared with one another, and with themselves. What remains of cotemporary authors, or of authors con

nected

1

nected with the age, the country, or the subject of our fcriptures, muft be perufed and confulted, in order to interpret doubtful forms of fpeech, and to explain allufions which refer to objects or ufages that no longer exift. Above all the modes of expreflion, the habits or reafoning and argumentation, which were then in ufe, and to which the difcourfes even of inspired teachers were neceffarily adapted, must be fufficiently known, and can only be known at all, by a due acquaintance with ancient literature. And, laftly, to establish the genuineness and integrity of the canonical fcriptures themselves, a series of teftimony, recognizing the notoriety and reception of these books, must be deduced from times near to those of their first publication, down the fucceffion of ages through which they have been tranfmitted to us. The qualifications neceffary for fuch refearches demand, it is confeffed, a degree of leifure, and a kind of education, inconfiftent with the exercife of any other profeflion; but how few are there amongst the clergy, from whom any thing of this fort can be expected! How fall a proportion of their number, who feem likely either to augment the fund of facred literature, or even to collect what is already known!-To this cbjection it may be replied, that we may fow many feeds to raise one flower. In order to produce a few capable of improving and continuing the ftock of Chriftian erudition, leifure and opportunity must be afforded to great numbers. Original knowledge of this kind can never be univerfal; but it is of the utmost importance, and it is enough, that there be, at all times, found fome qualified for fuch inquiries, and in whofe concurring and independent conclufions upon each fubject, the rest of the Chriftian community may fafely confide: whereas, without an order of clergy educated for the purpose, and led to the profecution of thefe ftudies by the habits, the leifure, and the object of their vocation, it may well be questioned whether the learning itself would not