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 universal mifery and confufion, is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment. The misfortune of an 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 meanest 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 adjudication must be purfued, when certain degrees of credibility must be accepted, in order to reach the crimes with which the public are infefted; courts of juftice fhould 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 those rules, by the general effect and tendency of which the welfare of the community is maintained and upheld.

Chapter X.

OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OF TOLERATION.

A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of Christianity, it is only the means of inculcating it." Amongst the Jews, the rights 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 Eee

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 Christian, as it had been in the Jewish fcriptures, with a view of fixing a conftitution for fucceeding ages; and which conftitution, confequently, the dif ciples 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 Chrift himself; and if it be shown that the apoftles ordained bishops and prefbyters amongst their firft 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 fuch offices were at first erected in the Chriftian church, as the good order, the inftruction, and the exigencies of the fociety at that time requir. ed, without any intention, at least without any declared defign, of regulating the appointment, author. ity, or the diftinction of Chriftian minifters under future circumftances. This referve, if we may fo call it, in the Chriftian Legiflator, is fufficiently accounted for by two confiderations: First, that no precise conftitution could be framed, which would fuit with the condition of Chriftianity in its primitive state, and with that which it was to affume when it should 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 eftablishments, the fingle view, under which we ought to confider any of them, is that of "a fcheme of inftruction;" the fingle end we ought to propofe by them is, "the prefervation and communication of religious knowledge." Every other idea, and every

other end that hath been mixed with this, as the making of the church an engine, or even an ally, of the ftate; converting it into the means of ftrength. ening or diffufing influence; or regarding it as a fupport of regal in oppofition to popular forms of gov ernment, have ferved only to debafe the inftitution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abufes.

The notion of a religious establishment compre hends three things; a clergy, or an order of men fecluded from other profeffions, 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; if there be no clergy, as amongft 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 and denominations of Chriftians, there exifts no national religion, or established church, according to the fense which thefe terms are ufually made to convey. He, therefore, who would defend ecclefiaftical eftablifh ments, must show the feparate utility of these three effential parts of their conftitution.

J.

The queftion 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 ftudy and teaching of religion, and to the conducting of public worship; and for these purposes fecluded from other employments. I add this laft circumftance, because in it confifts, as I take it, the fubftance of the controverfy. 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 state of life and manners, and during the prevalency of opinions, customs and inftitutions,

very unlike any which are found amongst mankind at prefent. Moreover, this religion, having been first 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 biftory and polity of that fingular people to which must be added, that the records of both revelations are preferved in languages, which have long ceafed to be fpoken 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 understood without ftudy and preparation. The languages must be learnt. The various writings which thefe volumes contain muft be carefully compared with one another, and with themfelves. What remains of contemporary authors, or of authors connected with the age, the country, or the fubject of our fcriptures, muft be perufed and confulted, in order to interpret doubtful forms of fpeech, and to explain allusions which refer to objects or ufages that no longer exift. Above all, the modes of expreffion, the habits of reafoning and argumentation, which were then in use, and to which the difcourfes even of infpired 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 thefe books, muft 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 researches demand, it is confeffed, a degree of leifure, and a kind of education, inconfiftent with the exercise of any other profeffion; but how few are there amongst the clergy, from whom any thing of this fort can be expected! How small 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 objection it may be replied, that we fow many feeds to raife one

flower. In order to produce a few capable of improving and continuing the ftock of Chriftian erudition, leisure 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 whose 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 these studies by the habits, the leisure, and the object of their vocation, it may well be queftioned whether the learning itself would not have been loft, by which the records of our faith are interpreted and defended. We contend, therefore, that an order of clergy is neceffary to perpetuate the evidences of revelation, and to interpret the obscurities of these ancient writings, in which the religion is contained. But befide this, which forms, no doubt, one defign of their institution, the more ordinary offices of public teaching, and of conducting public worship, call for qualifications not ufually to be met with amidst the employments of civil life. It has been acknowledged by fome, who cannot be fufpected of making unneceffary conceffions in favour of establishments, "to be barely poffible that a perfon who was never educated for the office fhould acquit himself with decency as a public teacher of religion." And that furely must be a very defective policy, which trufts to poffibilities for fuccefs, when provifion is to be made for regular and general inftruction. Little objection to this argument can be drawn from the example of the Quakers, who, it may be faid, furnish an experimental proof that the worship and profeffion of Chriftianity may be upheld, without a separate clergy. Thefe fectaries every where fubfift in conjunction with a regular establishment. They have access to the writings, they profit by the labours of the clergy in common with other Chriftians. They participate in that general diffufion of religious knowledge, which the constant teaching of a more