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 fuch cafes: for example, it is probable that military merit would be much discouraged, if the duties belonging to commiffions in the army were generally 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 case to a point, we will suppose the officiating curate to discharge every duty, which his principal, were he present, would be bound to discharge, and in a manner equally beneficial to the parish; under which circumftances, the only objection to the absence of the principal, at least the only one of the foregoing objections, is the last.

And, in my judgment, the force of this objection will be much diminished, if the abfent rector or vicar be, in the mean-time, engaged in any function or employment, of equal import

ance to the general interest of religion, or of greater. For the whole revenue of the national church may properly enough be confidered as a common fund for the support of the national religion; and, if a clergyman be ferving 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 signalized his merit in America, fhould 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 fame 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, whofe ftudies and employments bear no relation to the

object

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

And to those 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 abfentee is detained from his living, by fome engagement of equal or of greater public importance. Therefore, if in a cafe, where no fuch reafon can with truth be pleaded, it be said that this queftion 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.

ALIE is a breach of promife: for whoever feriously addreffes his difcourfe to another, tacitly promises to speak the truth, because he knows that the truth is expected.

Or the obligation of veracity may be made out from the direct ill confequences of lying to focial happiness. Which confequences confift, either in some specific injury to particular individuals, or in the destruction of that confidence, which is effential to the intercourse of human life: for which latter reason, a lie may be pernicious in its general tendency, and therefore criminal, though it produce no particular or visible 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, jefts, tales to create mirth, ludicrous embellishments of a story,

where

where the declared design 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 afferting the justice, or his belief of the justice of his client's caufe. In fuch inftances no confidence is destroyed, because none was reposed; no promise to speak the truth is violated, because none was given, or understood to be given.

2. Where the person 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 such cases; 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 purpose. The particular confequence is by the fuppofition beneficial; and, as to the general confequence, the worst that can happen is, that the madman, the robber, the affaffin, will not trust you again; which (beside 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,