fion, and is more likely, if false, to be contradicted, or to betray itself by fome unforeseen inconfiftency, than that direct proof, which being confined within the knowledge of a fingle perfon, which appealing to, or ftanding connected with, no external or collateral circumftances, is incapable, by its very fimplicity, of being confronted with oppofite probabilities.

The other maxim which deferves a fimilar examination is this-"That it is better that ten guilty

perfons escape, than that one innocent man "fhould fuffer." If by faying it is better, be meant that it is more for the public advantage, the propofition, I think, cannot be maintained. The fecurity of civil life, which is effential to the value and the enjoyment of every bleffing it contains, and the interruption of which is followed by univerfal mifery and confufion, is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment. The miffortune of an individual (for fuch may the fufferings, or even the death, of an innocent perfon be called, when they are occafioned by no evil intention) cannot be placed in competition with this object. I do not contend that the life or safety of the meaneft fubject ought, in any cafe, to be knowingly facrificed: no principal of judicature, no end of punishment can ever require

that.

that. But when certain rules of adjudication must be pursued, when certain degrees of credibility must be accepted, in order to reach the crimes with which the public are infefted; courts of justice should not be deterred from the application of these rules by every fufpicion of danger, or by the mere poffibility of confounding the innocent with the guilty. They ought rather to reflect, that he who falls by a mistaken fentence, may be confidered as falling for his country; whilft he fuffers under the operation of those rules, by the general effect and tendency of which the welfare of the community is maintained and upheld.

CHAP.

OF

CHAP. X.

RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OF

TOLERATION.

་

ແ

Religious establishment is no part of Christianity, it is only the means of "inculcating it." Amongst the Jews, the rights and offices, the order, family, and fucceffion of the priesthood were marked out by the autho rity which declared the law itself. These, therefore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as well as the means of tranfmitting it. Not fo with the new institution. It cannot be proved that any form of church government was laid down in the Christian, as it had been in the Jewish fcriptures, with a view of fixing a conftitution for fucceeding ages; and which conftitution, consequently, the difciples of Christianity would every where, and at all times, by the very law of their religion, be obliged to adopt. Certainly no command for this purpose was delivered by Christ himself; and if it be shewn

that

1

that the apoftles ordained bishops and prefbyters amongst their first converts, it must be remembered that deacons alfo and deaconeffes were appointed by them, with functions very diffimilar to any which obtain in the church at prefent. The truth feems to have been, that fuch offices were at firft erected in the Christian church, as the good order, the inftruction, and the exigencies of the fociety at that time required, without any intention, at least without any declared defign, of regulating the appointment, authority, or the diftinction of Chriftian minifters under future circumftances. This referve, if we may fo call it, in the Chriftian Legiflator, is fufficiently accounted for by two confiderations: First, that no precise constitution could be framed, which would fuit with the condition of Chriftianity in its primitive state, and with that which it was to affume when it fhould be advanced into a national religion. Secondly, that a particular defignation of office or authority amongst the minifters of the new religion, might have fo interfered with the arrangements of civil policy, as to have formed,' in fome countries, a confiderable obftacle to the progrefs and reception of the religion itself.

The

The authority therefore of a church establishment is founded in its utility: and whenever, upon this principle, we deliberate concerning the form, propriety, or comparative excellency of different establishments, the fingle view, under which we ought to confider any of them, is that of "a fcheme of inftruction;" the fingle end we ought to propofe by them is, "the "preservation and communication of religious knowledge." Every other idea, and every other end that have been mixed with this, as the making of the church an engine, or even an ally of the state; converting it into the means of strengthening ör diffufing influence; or regarding it as a fupport of regal in opposition tò popular forms of government, have served only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abufes..

ἐσ

The notion of a religious establishment comprehends three things: a clergy, or an order of men fecluded from other profeffions to attend upon the offices of religion; a legal provifion for the maintenance of the clergy; and the confining of that provifion to the teachers of a particular fect of Chriftianity. If any one of these three things be wanting; if there be no clergy, as amongst the quakers; or, if the X clergy

VOL. II.