3. Where the duty cannot, from its nature, be fo well performed by a deputy; as the deputy governor of a province may not poffefs the legal authority, or the actual influence, of his principal.

4. When fome inconveniency would refult to the fervice in general from the permiffion of deputies in such cases: for example, it is probable that military merit would be much difcouraged, if the duties belonging to commiffions in the army were generaly allowed to be executed by fubftitutes.

The non-refidence of the parochial clergy, who fupply the duty of their benefices by curates, is worthy of a more diftinct confideration. And in order to draw the queftion upon this cafe to a point, we will fuppofe the officiating curate to discharge every duty which his principal, were he prefent, would be bound to discharge, and in a manner equally beneficial to the parish: under which circumstances, the only objection to the absence of the principal, at least the only one of the foregoing objections, is the laft.

And, in my judgment, the force of this ob jection will be much diminished, if the absent rector or vicar be, in the mean time, engaged in any function or employment of equal, or of

N 3

greater

greater importance to the general intereft of religion. For the whole revenue of the national church may properly enough be confidered as a common fund for the fupport of the national religion; and if a clergyman be serving the cause of Christianity and Proteftantifm, it can make little difference, out of what particular portion of this fund, that is, by the tithes and glebe of what particular parish, his fervice be requited; any more than it can prejudice the king's fervice, that an officer who has fignalized his merit in America, should be rewarded with the government of a fort or caftle in Ireland, which he never faw; but for the custody of which proper provision is made, and care taken.

Upon the principle thus explained, this indulgence is due to none more than to those who are occupied in cultivating or communicating religious knowledge, or the fciences fubfidiary to religion.

This way of confidering the revenues of the church, as a common fund for the same purpose, is the more equitable, as the value of particular preferments bears no proportion to the particular charge or labour.

But when a man draws upon this fund, whose ftudies and employments bear no relation to the

object

object of it; and who is no farther a minifter of the Christian religion, than as a cockade makes a foldier, it seems a misapplication little better than a robbery.

And to thofe who have the management of fuch matters I fubmit this question, whether the impoverishment of the fund, by converting the best share of it into annuities for the gay and illiterate youth of great families, threatens not to ftarve and ftifle the little clerical merit that is left amongst us?

All legal difpenfations from refidence proceed upon the fuppofition, that the absentee is detained from his living by fome engagement of equal or of greater public importance. Therefore, if in a cafe where no fuch reason can with truth be pleaded, it be faid that this question regards a right of property, and that all right of property awaits the difpofition of law; that, therefore, if the law, which gives a man the emoluments of a living, excufe him from refiding upon it, he is excufed in confcience; we anfwer, that the law does not excufe him by intention, and that all other excufes are fraudulent.

CHAP. XV.

LIES.

LIE is a breach of promife: for whoever › seriously addresses his difcourfe to another, tacitly promises to speak the truth," because, he knows that the truth is expected.

Or the obligation of varacity may be made out from the direct ill confequences of lying to focial happiness. Which confequences confist, either in fome specific injury to particular individuals, or in the deftruction of that confidence, which is effential to the intercourfe of human life: for which latter reafon, a lie may be pernicious in its general tendency, and therefore criminal, though it produce no particular or vifible mifchief to any one.

There are falfehoods which are not lies; that is, which are not criminal: as,

1. Where no one is deceived; which is the cafe in parables, fables, novels, jests, tales to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments of a story,

where

where the declared defign of the speaker is not to inform, but to divert; compliments in the fubscription of a letter, a fervant's denying his master, a prisoner's pleading not guilty, an advocate asferting the juftice, or his belief of the juftice, of his client's cause. In fuch inftances no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no promife to speak the truth is violated, because none was given, or understood to be given.

pur

2. Where the perfon to whom you speak has no right to know the truth, or more properly, where little or no inconveniency results from the want of confidence in fuch cafes; as where you tell a falfehood to a madman, for his own advantage; to a robber, to conceal your property; to an affaffin, to defeat, or to divert him from, his pose. The particular confequence is by the fuppofition beneficial; and, as to the general confequence, the worft that can happen is that the madman, the robber, the affaffin, will not truft you again; which (befide that the first is incapable of deducing regular conclufions from having been once deceived, and the two laft not likely to come a fecond time in your way) is fufficiently compenfated by the immediate benefit which you propose by the falsehood.

It is upon this principle, that, by the laws of

war,

1