to our old fettled maxim, never entirely nor at once to depart from antiquity. We found these old institutions, on the whole, favourable to morality and difcipline; and we thought they were susceptible of amendment, without altering the ground. We thought that they were capable of receiving and meliorating, and above all, of preferving the acceffions of science and literature, as the order of providence fhould fucceffively produce them. And, after all, with this gothic and monkish education (for fuch it is in the ground-work) we may put in our claim to as ample and as early a share in all the improvements in fcience, in arts, and in literature, which have illuminated and adorned the modern world, as any other nation in Europe; we think 'one main cause of this improvement was our not defpifing the patrimony of knowledge, which was left us by our forefathers.

"It is from our attachment to a church establishment, that the English nation did not think it wife to entrust that great fundamental intereft of the whole, to what they truft no part of their civil or military public fervice; that is, to the unfteady and precarious contribution of individuals. They go further; they certainly never have fuffered, and never will fuffer, the fixed eftate of the church to be converted

may

converted into a pension, to depend on the treasury, and to be delayed, with-held, or perhaps to be extinguished by fiscal difficulties; which difficulties fometimes be pretended for political purposes, and are, in fact, often brought on by the extravagance, negligence, and rapacity of politicians. The people of England think, that they have constitutional motives, as well as religious, against any project of turning their independent clergy into ecclefiaftical penfioners of state. They tremble for their liberty, from the influence of a clergy dependent on the crown; they tremble for the public tranquillity, from the disorders of a factious clergy, if it were made to depend upon any other than the crown. They therefore made their church, like their king and their nobility, independent.

"From the united confiderations of religion and conftitutional policy, from their opinion of a duty to make a fure provifion for the confolation of the feeble, and the inftruction of the ignorant, they have incorporated and identified the estate of the church with the mafs of private property, of which the state is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only, and the regulator. They have ordained, that the pro

i

Divifion of the people into

clergy and laity.

vision of this establishment might be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and fhould not fluctuate with the Euripus of funds and actions."

I have now, I hope, adduced fufficient reafons and arguments to convince my readers, that every community is fully competent to make a civil establishment of that religion, which the majority of the community shall find it their duty to adopt and follow; and confequently, that our present church establifhment forms an effential part of the Englifh conftitution: and from hence arifes the first constitutional division of the community, or people, into clergy and laity, whose several and respective rights and duties in the state, I fhall hereafter explicitly fet forth.

"Had I inferred the truth of our religion from its civil establishment, the deifts might have treated the argument with that levity which Mr. Chandler advises; but a deist of common sense might perceive, that I appealed to the laws of our establishment, not for the conviction of his understanding, but the correction of his infolence. Where the truth of the Chriftian religion was the quef

* Rogers's Vindication of the Civil Establishment of Religion, fect. i. p. 191.

tion before me, I used other arguments; but
when a private fubject took upon him pub-
licly to oppofe the right of the legislator to
enact any
fuch law, to represent this power as
unjust and tyrannical, and under these charac-
ters to diffuade all fubmiffion to it, these I
think actions inconfiftent with the obligations
of a subject, and that the execution of our
laws may justly be called for in restraint of
them. The truth of a religion depends on
its proper grounds. If it was falfe before
it was established, the establishment will
not make it true; and he, who from the
evidence of the thing is convinced it is
false, cannot upon any authority believe it
true."

From what has been faid in this and the foregoing chapter, I hope it will fufficiently appear, that the fanction, which the laws give to the establishment of the church of England throughout England, and to prefbytery throughout Scotland, is in its tendency and effects merely of a civil nature; confequently, that the obligation of fubmitting to it, is the very fame as the obligation of fubmitting to any other civil law whatever. Now, every external and public difavowal of, or oppofition to the civil exactions of the legiflature,

5

Civil establishgion of the fame other civil law.

ment of reli

force as any

lature, must be criminal in an individual fubject to the power of that legislature: But I fhall hereafter have occafion to speak more fully upon the nature of crimes against the state.

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