2. CHAPTER II
OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS
One of the most striking instances of the injurious effects of the political
patronage of opinion, as it at present exists in the world, is to be found
in the system of religious conformity. Let us take our example from the church
of England, by the constitution of which subscription is required from its
clergy to thirty-nine articles of precise and dogmatical assertion, upon
almost every subject of moral and metaphysical enquiry. Here then we have
to consider the whole honours and revenues of the church, from the archbishop,
who takes precedence next after the princes of the blood royal, to the meanest
curate in the nation, as employed in support of a system of blind submission
and abject hypocrisy. Is there one man, through this numerous hierarchy,
that is at liberty to think for himself? Is there one man among them that
can lay his hand upon his heart, and declare, upon his honour and conscience,
that the emoluments of his profession have no effect in influencing his judgement?
The supposition is absurd. The most that an honest and discerning man, under
such circumstances, can say, is, 'I hope not; I endeavour to be impartial.'
First, the system of religious conformity is a system of blind submission.
In every country possessing a religious establishment, the state, from a
benevolent care, it may be, for the manners and opinions of its subjects,
publicly excites a numerous class of men to the study of morality and virtue.
What institution, we might obviously be led to enquire, can be more favourable
to public happiness? Morality and virtue are the most interesting topics
of human speculation; and the best effects might be expected to result from
the circumstance, of many persons perpetually receiving the most liberal
education, and setting themselves apart from the express cultivation of these
topics. But, unfortunately, these very men are fettered in the outset by
having a code of propositions put into their hands, in a conformity to which
all their enquiries must terminate. The direct tendency of science is to
increase from age to age, and to proceed, from the slenderest beginnings,
to the most admirable conclusions. But care is taken, in the present case,
to anticipate these conclusions, and to bind men, by promises and penalties,
not to improve upon the science of their ancestors. The plan is designed
indeed to guard against degeneracy and decline; but it makes no provision
for advance. It is founded in the most sovereign ignorance of the nature
of mind, which never fails to do either the one or the other.
Secondly, the tendency of a code of religious conformity is to make men
hypocrites. To understand this, it may be sufficient to recollect the various
subterfuges that have been invented by ingenious men to apologize for the
subscription of the English clergy. It is observable, by the way, that the
articles of our church are founded upon the creed of the Calvinists, though,
for one hundred and fifty years past, it has been accounted disreputable
among the clergy to be of any other than the opposite, or Arminian tenets.
Volumes have been written to prove that, while these articles express Calvinistic
sentiments, they are capable of a different construction, and that the subscriber
has a right to take advantage of that construction. Divines of another class
have rested their arguments upon the known good character and benevolent
intentions of the first reformers, and have concluded that they could never
intend to tyrannize over the consciences of men, or to preclude the advantage
of further information. Lastly, there are many who have treated the articles
as articles of peace; and inferred that, though you did not believe, you
might allow yourself the disingenuity of subscribing them, provided you added
the further guilt of constantly refraining to oppose what you considered
as an adulteration of divine truth.
It would perhaps be regarded as incredible, if it rested upon the evidence
of history alone, that a whole body of men, set apart as the instructors
of mankind, weaned, as they are expected to be, from temporal ambition, and
maintained upon the supposition that the existence of human virtue and divine
truth depends on their exertions, should, with one consent, employ themselves
in a casuistry the object of which is to prove the propriety of a man's declaring
his assent to what he does not believe. These men either credit their own
subterfuges, or they do not. If they do not, what can be expected from men
so unprincipled and profligate? With what front can they exhort other men
to virtue, with the brand of infamy upon their own foreheads? If they do
yield this credit, what must be their portion of moral sensibility and discernment?
Can we believe that men shall enter upon their profession with so notorious
a perversion of reason and truth, and that no consequences will flow from
it, to infect their general character? Rather, can we fail to compare their
unnatural and unfortunate state with the wisdom and virtue which the same
industry and exertion might unquestionably have produced, if they had been
left to their genuine operation? They are like the victims of Circe, to whom
human understanding was preserved entire, that they might more exquisitely
feel their degraded condition. They are incited, like Tantalus, to contemplate
and desire an object, the fruition of which is constantly withheld from their
unsuccessful attempts. They are held up to their contemporaries as the votaries
of truth, while political institution tyrannically commands them, in all
their varieties of understanding, and through a succession of ages, to model
themselves by one invariable standard.
Such are the effects that a code of religious conformity produces upon
the clergy; let us consider the effects that are produced upon their countrymen.
They are bid to look for instruction and morality to a denomination of men,
formal, embarrassed and hypocritical, in whom the main spring of intellect
is unbent and incapable of action. If the people be not blinded with religious
zeal, they will discover and despise the imperfections of their spiritual
guides. If they be so blinded, they will not the less transplant into their
own characters the imbecile and unworthy spirit they are not able to detect.
Is virtue so deficient in attractions, as to be incapable of gaining adherents
to her standard? Far otherwise. Nothing can bring the wisdom of a just and
pure conduct into question but the circumstance of its being recommended
to us from an equivocal quarter. The most malicious enemy of mankind could
not have invented a scheme more destructive of their true happiness than
that of hiring, at the expense of the state, a body of men whose business
it should seem to be to dupe their contemporaries into the practice of virtue.
One of the lessons that powerful facts are perpetually reading to the
inhabitants of such countries is that of duplicity and prevarication in an
order of men, which, if it exists at all, ought to exist only for reverence.
Can it be thought that this prevarication is not a subject of general notoriety?
Can it be supposed that the first idea that rises to the understanding of
the multitude at sight of a clergyman is not that of a man, inculcates certain
propositions not so properly because he thinks them true, or thinks them
interesting, as because he is hired to the employment? Whatever instruction
a code of religious uniformity may fail to convey, there is one that it always
communicates, the wisdom of sacrificing our understandings, and maintaining
a perpetual discord between our professions and our sentiments. Such are
the effects that are produced by political institution, in a case in which
it most zealously intends, with parental care, to guard its subjects from
seduction and depravity.
These arguments do not apply to any particular articles and creeds, but
to the notion of ecclesiastical establishments in general. Wherever the state
sets apart a certain revenue for the support of religion, it will infallibly
be given to the adherents of some particular opinions, and will operate,
in the manner of prizes, to induce men to embrace and profess those opinions.
Undoubtedly, if I think it right to have a spiritual instructor, to guide
me in my researches, and, at stated intervals, publicly to remind me of my
duty, I ought to be at liberty to take the proper steps to supply myself
in this respect. A priest, who thus derives his mission from the unbiassed
judgement of his parishioners, will stand a chance to possess, beforehand,
and independently of corrupt influence, the requisites they demand. But why
should I be compelled to contribute to the support of an institution, whether
I approve of it or no? If public worship be conformable to reason, reason
without doubt will prove adequate to its vindication and support. If it be
from God, it is profanation to imagine that it stands in need of the alliance
of the state. It must be, in an eminent degree, artificial and exotic, if
it be incapable of preserving itself in existence otherwise than by the inauspicious
interference of political institution.