It rejects, by its very nature, a regard to the first and greatest object of punishment.

It does not attain either of the other objects so well as they may be attained by other means.

It is attended with numerous evils peculiarly its own.

CHAPTER VIII.

RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS.

The primitive church-The established church of IrelandAmerica—Advantages and disadvantages of established churches-Alliance of a church with the state-Persecution generally the growth of religious establishments-State religions injurious to the civil welfare of a people-Voluntary payment.

A LARGE number of persons embark from Europe, and colonize an uninhabited territory in the South Sea. They erect a government-suppose a republic-and make all persons, of whatever creed, eligible to the legislature. The community prospers and increases. In process of time a member of the legislature, who is a disciple of John Wesley, persuades himself that it will tend to the promotion of religion that the preachers of Methodism should be supported by a national tax; that their stipends should be sufficiently ample to prevent them from necessary attention to any business but that of religion; and that accordingly they shall be precluded from the usual pursuits of commerce and from the professions. He proposes the measure. It is contended against by the Episcopalian members, and the Independents, and the Catholics, and the Unitarians -by all but the adherents to his own creed. They insist upon the equality of civil and religious rights,

but in vain. The majority prove to be Methodists; they support the measure: the law is enacted; and Methodism becomes, thenceforth, the religion of the state. This is a religious establishment.

But it is a religious establishment in its best form ; and, perhaps, none ever existed of which the constitution was so simple and so pure. During one portion of the papal history, the Romish church was indeed not so much an "establishment" of the state as a separate and independent constitution. For though some species of alliance subsisted, yet the Romanists did not acknowledge, as Protestants now do, that the power of establishing a religion resides in the state.

In the present day other immunities are possessed by ecclesiastical establishments than those which are necessary to constitute the institution—such, for example, as that of exclusive eligibility to the legislature : and other alliances with the civil power exist than that which necessarily results from any preference of a particular faith-such as that of placing ecclesiastical patronage in the hands of a government, or of those who are under its influence. From these circumstances it happens, that in enquiring into the propriety of religious establishments, we cannot confine ourselves to the enquiry whether they are proper as they usually exist. And this is so much the more needful, because there is little reason to expect that when once an ecclesiastical establishment has been erected-when once a particular church has been selected for the preference and patronage of the civil power—that preference and patronage will be confined to those circumstances which are necessary to the subsistence of an establishment at all.

It is sufficiently obvious that it matters nothing to the existence of an established church, what the faith of that church is, or what is the form of its government.

It is not the creed which constitutes the establishment, but the preference of the civil power. Our business is not with churches but with church establishments.

The actual history of religious establishments in Christian countries, does not differ in essence from that which we have supposed in the South Sea. They have been erected by the influence or the assistance of the civil power. In one country a religion may have owed its political supremacy to the superstitions of a prince; and in another to his policy or ambition: but the effect has been similar. Whether superstition or policy, the contrivances of a priesthood, or the fortuitous predominance of a party, have given rise to the established church, is of comparatively little consequence to the fundamental principles of the institution.

The only ground upon which it appears that religious establishments can be advocated are, first, that of example or approbation in the primitive churches; and, secondly, that of public utility.

I. The primitive church was not a religious establishment in any sense or in any degree. No establishment existed until the church had lost much of its purity. Nor is there any expression in the New Testament, direct or indirect, which would lead a reader to suppose that Christ or his apostles regarded an establishment as an eligible institution. We find, in his religion no scheme of building up a hierarchy, or of ministering to the views of human governments.”—“ Our religion, as it came out of the hands of its Founder and his apostles, exhibited a complete abstraction from all views either of ecclesiastical or civil policy."* The evidence which these facts supply respecting the moral character of religious establishments, whatever be its weight, tends manifestly to show that that character is

* Paley Evidences of Christianity, p. 2, c. 2.

not good. I do not say because Christianity exhibited this complete abstraction," that it therefore necessarily condemned establishments; but I say that the bearing and the tendency of this negative testimony is against them.

In the discourses and writings of the first teachers of our religion, we find such absolute disinterestedness, so little disposition to assume political superiority, that to have become the members of an established church would certainly have been inconsistent in them. It is indeed almost inconceivable that they could ever have desired the patronage of the state for themselves or for their converts. No man conceives that Paul or John could have participated in the exclusion of any portion of the Christian church from advantages which they themselves enjoyed. Every man perceives that to have done this, would have been to assume a new character, a character which they had never exhibited before, and which was incongruous with their former principles and motives of action. But why is this incongruous with the apostolic character unless it is incongruous with Christianity? Upon this single ground, therefore, there is reason for the sentiment of many well-informed persons, that it seems extremely questionable whether the religion of Jesus Christ admits of any civil establishment at all.''*

I lay stress upon these considerations. We all know that much may be learnt respecting human duty by a contemplation of the spirit and temper of Christianity as it was exhibited by its first teachers. When the spirit and temper is compared with the essential character of religious establishments, they are found to be incongruous-foreign to one another-having no natural relationship or similarity. I should regard such facts, in reference to any question of rectitude, as of Simpson's Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings.

*

great importance; but upon a subject so intimately. connected with religion itself, the importance is peculiarly great.

II. The question of the utility of religious establishments is to be decided by a comparison of their advantages and their evils.

Of their advantages, the first and greatest appears to be that they provide, or are assumed to provide, religious instruction for the whole community. If this instruction be left by the state to be cared for by each Christian church as it possesses the zeal or the means, it may be supposed that many districts will be destitute of any public religious instruction. At least the state cannot be assured before hand that every district will be supplied. And when it is considered how great is the importance of regular public worship to the virtue of a people, it is not to be denied, that a scheme which, by destroying an establishment, would make that instruction inadequate or uncertain, is so far to be regarded as of questionable expediency. But the effect which would be produced by dispensing with establishments is to be estimated, so far as is in our power, by facts. Now dissenters are in the situation of separate unestablished churches. If they do not provide for the public officers of religion voluntarily, they will not be provided for. Yet where is any considerable body of dissenters to be found who do not provide themselves with a chapel and a preacher? And if those churches which are not established, do in fact provide public instruction, how is it shown that it would not be provided although there were no established religion in a state? Besides, the dissenters from an established church provide this under peculiar disadvantages; for after paying, in common with others, their quota to the state religion, they have to pay in addition to their own. But perhaps it will be said that dissenters from a state