Chapter LV: Part III: Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions (4)

In the church of Rome the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are
kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in
any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive many of
them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary
oblations of the people; a source of revenue, which confession gives them
many opportunities of improving. The mendicant orders derive their whole
subsistence from such oblations. It is with them as with the hussars and
light infantry of some armies; no plunder, no pay. The parochial clergy
are like those teachers whose reward depends partly upon their salary, and
partly upon the fees or honoraries which they get from their pupils; and
these must always depend, more or less, upon their industry and
reputation. The mendicant orders are like those teachers whose subsistence
depends altogether upon their industry. They are obliged, therefore, to
use every art which can animate the devotion of the common people. The
establishment of the two great mendicant orders of St Dominic and St.
Francis, it is observed by Machiavel, revived, in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, the languishing faith and devotion of the catholic
church. In Roman catholic countries, the spirit of devotion is supported
altogether by the monks, and by the poorer parochial clergy. The great
dignitaries of the church, with all the accomplishments of gentlemen and
men of the world, and sometimes with those of men of learning, are careful
to maintain the necessary discipline over their inferiors, but seldom give
themselves any trouble about the instruction of the people.

“Most of the arts and professions in a state,” says by far the most
illustrious philosopher and historian of the present age, “are of such a
nature, that, while they promote the interests of the society, they are
also useful or agreeable to some individuals; and, in that case, the
constant rule of the magistrate, except, perhaps, on the first
introduction of any art, is, to leave the profession to itself, and trust
its encouragement to the individuals who reap the benefit of it. The
artizans, finding their profits to rise by the favour of their customers,
increase, as much as possible, their skill and industry; and as matters
are not disturbed by any injudicious tampering, the commodity is always
sure to be at all times nearly proportioned to the demand.

“But there are also some callings which, though useful and even necessary
in a state, bring no advantage or pleasure to any individual; and the
supreme power is obliged to alter its conduct with regard to the retainers
of those professions. It must give them public encouragement in order to
their subsistence; and it must provide against that negligence to which
they will naturally be subject, either by annexing particular honours to
profession, by establishing a long subordination of ranks, and a strict
dependence, or by some other expedient. The persons employed in the
finances, fleets, and magistracy, are instances of this order of men.

“It may naturally be thought, at first sight, that the ecclesiastics
belong to the first class, and that their encouragement, as well as that
of lawyers and physicians, may safely be entrusted to the liberality of
individuals, who are attached to their doctrines, and who find benefit or
consolation from their spiritual ministry and assistance. Their industry
and vigilance will, no doubt, be whetted by such an additional motive; and
their skill in the profession, as well as their address in governing the
minds of the people, must receive daily increase, from their increasing
practice, study, and attention.

“But if we consider the matter more closely, we shall find that this
interested diligence of the clergy is what every wise legislator will
study to prevent; because, in every religion except the true, it is highly
pernicious, and it has even a natural tendency to pervert the truth, by
infusing into it a strong mixture of superstition, folly, and delusion.
Each ghostly practitioner, in order to render himself more precious and
sacred in the eyes of his retainers, will inspire them with the most
violent abhorrence of all other sects, and continually endeavour, by some
novelty, to excite the languid devotion of his audience. No regard will be
paid to truth, morals, or decency, in the doctrines inculcated. Every
tenet will be adopted that best suits the disorderly affections of the
human frame. Customers will be drawn to each conventicle by new industry
and address, in practising on the passions and credulity of the populace.
And, in the end, the civil magistrate will find that he has dearly paid
for his intended frugality, in saving a fixed establishment for the
priests; and that, in reality, the most decent and advantageous
composition, which he can make with the spiritual guides, is to bribe
their indolence, by assigning stated salaries to their profession, and
rendering it superfluous for them to be farther active, than merely to
prevent their flock from straying in quest of new pastors. And in this
manner ecclesiastical establishments, though commonly they arose at first
from religious views, prove in the end advantageous to the political
interests of society.”

But whatever may have been the good or bad effects of the independent
provision of the clergy, it has, perhaps, been very seldom bestowed upon
them from any view to those effects. Times of violent religious
controversy have generally been times of equally violent political
faction. Upon such occasions, each political party has either found it, or
imagined it, for his interest, to league itself with some one or other of
the contending religious sects. But this could be done only by adopting,
or, at least, by favouring the tenets of that particular sect. The sect
which had the good fortune to be leagued with the conquering party
necessarily shared in the victory of its ally, by whose favour and
protection it was soon enabled, in some degree, to silence and subdue all
its adversaries. Those adversaries had generally leagued themselves with
the enemies of the conquering party, and were, therefore the enemies of
that party. The clergy of this particular sect having thus become complete
masters of the field, and their influence and authority with the great
body of the people being in its highest vigour, they were powerful enough
to overawe the chiefs and leaders of their own party, and to oblige the
civil magistrate to respect their opinions and inclinations. Their first
demand was generally that he should silence and subdue all their
adversaries; and their second, that he should bestow an independent
provision on themselves. As they had generally contributed a good deal to
the victory, it seemed not unreasonable that they should have some share
in the spoil. They were weary, besides, of humouring the people, and of
depending upon their caprice for a subsistence. In making this demand,
therefore, they consulted their own ease and comfort, without troubling
themselves about the effect which it might have, in future times, upon the
influence and authority of their order. The civil magistrate, who could
comply with their demand only by giving them something which he would have
chosen much rather to take, or to keep to himself, was seldom very forward
to grant it. Necessity, however, always forced him to submit at last,
though frequently not till after many delays, evasions, and affected
excuses.

But if politics had never called in the aid of religion, had the
conquering party never adopted the tenets of one sect more than those of
another, when it had gained the victory, it would probably have dealt
equally and impartially with all the different sects, and have allowed
every man to choose his own priest, and his own religion, as he thought
proper. There would, and, in this case, no doubt, have been, a great
multitude of religious sects. Almost every different congregation might
probably have had a little sect by itself, or have entertained some
peculiar tenets of its own. Each teacher, would, no doubt, have felt
himself under the necessity of making the utmost exertion, and of using
every art, both to preserve and to increase the number of his disciples.
But as every other teacher would have felt himself under the same
necessity, the success of no one teacher, or sect of teachers, could have
been very great. The interested and active zeal of religious teachers can
be dangerous and troublesome only where there is either but one sect
tolerated in the society, or where the whole of a large society is divided
into two or three great sects; the teachers of each acting by concert, and
under a regular discipline and subordination. But that zeal must be
altogether innocent, where the society is divided into two or three
hundred, or, perhaps, into as many thousand small sects, of which no one
could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity. The
teachers of each sect, seeing themselves surrounded on all sides with more
adversaries than friends, would be obliged to learn that candour and
moderation which are so seldom to be found among the teachers of those
great sects, whose tenets, being supported by the civil magistrate, are
held in veneration by almost all the inhabitants of extensive kingdoms and
empires, and who, therefore, see nothing round them but followers,
disciples, and humble admirers. The teachers of each little sect, finding
themselves almost alone, would be obliged to respect those of almost every
other sect; and the concessions which they would mutually find it both
convenient and agreeable to make one to another, might in time, probably
reduce the doctrine of the greater part of them to that pure and rational
religion, free from every mixture of absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism,
such as wise men have, in all ages of the world, wished to see
established; but such as positive law has, perhaps, never yet established,
and probably never will establish in any country; because, with regard to
religion, positive law always has been, and probably always will be, more
or less influenced by popular superstition and enthusiasm. This plan of
ecclesiastical government, or, more properly, of no ecclesiastical
government, was what the sect called Independents (a sect, no doubt, of
very wild enthusiasts), proposed to establish in England towards the end
of the civil war. If it had been established, though of a very
unphilosophical origin, it would probably, by this time, have been
productive of the most philosophical good temper and moderation with
regard to every sort of religious principle. It has been established in
Pennsylvania, where, though the quakers happen to be the most numerous,
the law, in reality, favours no one sect more than another; and it is
there said to have been productive of this philosophical good temper and
moderation.

But though this equality of treatment should not be productive of this
good temper and moderation in all, or even in the greater part of the
religious sects of a particular country; yet, provided those sects were
sufficiently numerous, and each of them consequently too small to disturb
the public tranquillity, the excessive zeal of each for its particular
tenets could not well be productive of any very hurtful effects, but, on
the contrary, of several good ones; and if the government was perfectly
decided, both to let them all alone, and to oblige them all to let alone
one another, there is little danger that they would not of their own
accord, subdivide themselves fast enough, so as soon to become
sufficiently numerous.

In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of
ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two
different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of
which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the liberal,
or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally admired and
revered by the common people; the latter is commonly more esteemed and
adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The degree of
disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of levity, the vices
which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from the excess of
gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal distinction
between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the liberal or loose
system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the pursuit of pleasure
to some degree of intemperance, the breach of chastity, at least in one of
the two sexes, etc. provided they are not accompanied with gross
indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and injustice, are generally
treated with a good deal of indulgence, and are easily either excused or
pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on the contrary, those
excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and detestation. The
vices of levity are always ruinous to the common people, and a single
week’s thoughtlessness and dissipation is often sufficient to undo a poor
workman for ever, and to drive him, through despair, upon committing the
most enormous crimes. The wiser and better sort of the common people,
therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence and detestation of such
excesses, which their experience tells them are so immediately fatal to
people of their condition. The disorder and extravagance of several years,
on the contrary, will not always ruin a man of fashion; and people of that
rank are very apt to consider the power of indulging in some degree of
excess, as one of the advantages of their fortune; and the liberty of
doing so without censure or reproach, as one of the privileges which
belong to their station. In people of their own station, therefore, they
regard such excesses with but a small degree of disapprobation, and
censure them either very slightly or not at all.

Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom
they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous
proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been adopted
by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions; for there
have been some. It was the system by which they could best recommend
themselves to that order of people, to whom they first proposed their plan
of reformation upon what had been before established. Many of them,
perhaps the greater part of them, have even endeavoured to gain credit by
refining upon this austere system, and by carrying it to some degree of
folly and extravagance; and this excessive rigour has frequently
recommended them, more than any thing else, to the respect and veneration
of the common people.

A man of rank and fortune is, by his station, the distinguished member of
a great society, who attend to every part of his conduct, and who thereby
oblige him to attend to every part of it himself. His authority and
consideration depend very much upon the respect which this society bears
to him. He dares not do anything which would disgrace or discredit him in
it; and he is obliged to a very strict observation of that species of
morals, whether liberal or austere, which the general consent of this
society prescribes to persons of his rank and fortune. A man of low
condition, on the contrary, is far from being a distinguished member of
any great society. While he remains in a country village, his conduct may
be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it himself. In this
situation, and in this situation only, he may have what is called a
character to lose. But as soon as he comes into a great city, he is sunk
in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and attended to by
nobody; and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it himself, and to
abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and vice. He never emerges
so effectually from this obscurity, his conduct never excites so much the
attention of any respectable society, as by his becoming the member of a
small religious sect. He from that moment acquires a degree of
consideration which he never had before. All his brother sectaries are,
for the credit of the sect, interested to observe his conduct; and, if he
gives occasion to any scandal, if he deviates very much from those austere
morals which they almost always require of one another, to punish him by
what is always a very severe punishment, even where no evil effects attend
it, expulsion or excommunication from the sect. In little religious sects,
accordingly, the morals of the common people have been almost always
remarkably regular and orderly; generally much more so than in the
established church. The morals of those little sects, indeed, have
frequently been rather disagreeably rigorous and unsocial.

There are two very easy and effectual remedies, however, by whose joint
operation the state might, without violence, correct whatever was unsocial
or disagreeably rigorous in the morals of all the little sects into which
the country was divided.

The first of those remedies is the study of science and philosophy, which
the state might render almost universal among all people of middling or
more than middling rank and fortune; not by giving salaries to teachers in
order to make them negligent and idle, but by instituting some sort of
probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences, to be undergone
by every person before he was permitted to exercise any liberal
profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for any
honourable office, of trust or profit. If the state imposed upon this
order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion to give
itself any trouble about providing them with proper teachers. They would
soon find better teachers for themselves, than any whom the state could
provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the poison of
enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people
were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.

The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public
diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire liberty
to all those who, from their own interest, would attempt, without scandal
or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting, poetry, music,
dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations and exhibitions; would
easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that melancholy and gloomy
humour which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and
enthusiasm. Public diversions have always been the objects of dread and
hatred to all the fanatical promoters of those popular frenzies. The
gaiety and good humour which those diversions inspire, were altogether
inconsistent with that temper of mind which was fittest for their purpose,
or which they could best work upon. Dramatic representations, besides,
frequently exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even
to public execration, were, upon that account, more than all other
diversions, the objects of their peculiar abhorrence.

In a country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more
than those of another, it would not be necessary that any of them should
have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sovereign or
executive power; or that he should have anything to do either in
appointing or in dismissing them from their offices. In such a situation,
he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about them, further
than to keep the peace among them, in the same manner as among the rest of
his subjects, that is, to hinder them from persecuting, abusing, or
oppressing one another. But it is quite otherwise in countries where there
is an established or governing religion. The sovereign can in this case
never be secure, unless he has the means of influencing in a considerable
degree the greater part of the teachers of that religion.

The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation.
They can act in concert, and pursue their interest upon one plan, and with
one spirit as much as if they were under the direction of one man; and
they are frequently, too, under such direction. Their interest as an
incorporated body is never the same with that of the sovereign, and is
sometimes directly opposite to it. Their great interest is to maintain
their authority with the people, and this authority depends upon the
supposed certainty and importance of the whole doctrine which they
inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity of adopting every part of it
with the most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery. Should the
sovereign have the imprudence to appear either to deride, or doubt himself
of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity, attempt to
protect those who did either the one or the other, the punctilious honour
of a clergy, who have no sort of dependency upon him, is immediately
provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to employ all the
terrors of religion, in order to oblige the people to transfer their
allegiance to some more orthodox and obedient prince. Should he oppose any
of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger is equally great. The
princes who have dared in this manner to rebel against the church, over
and above this crime of rebellion, have generally been charged, too, with
the additional crime of heresy, notwithstanding their solemn protestations
of their faith, and humble submission to every tenet which she thought
proper to prescribe to them. But the authority of religion is superior to
every other authority. The fears which it suggests conquer all other
fears. When the authorized teachers of religion propagate through the
great body of the people, doctrines subversive of the authority of the
sovereign, it is by violence only, or by the force of a standing army,
that he can maintain his authority. Even a standing army cannot in this
case give him any lasting security; because if the soldiers are not
foreigners, which can seldom be the case, but drawn from the great body of
the people, which must almost always be the case, they are likely to be
soon corrupted by those very doctrines. The revolutions which the
turbulence of the Greek clergy was continually occasioning at
Constantinople, as long as the eastern empire subsisted; the convulsions
which, during the course of several centuries, the turbulence of the Roman
clergy was continually occasioning in every part of Europe, sufficiently
demonstrate how precarious and insecure must always be the situation of
the sovereign, who has no proper means of influencing the clergy of the
established and governing religion of his country.

Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evident
enough, are not within the proper department of a temporal sovereign, who,
though he may be very well qualified for protecting, is seldom supposed to
be so for instructing the people. With regard to such matters, therefore,
his authority can seldom be sufficient to counterbalance the united
authority of the clergy of the established church. The public
tranquillity, however, and his own security, may frequently depend upon
the doctrines which they may think proper to propagate concerning such
matters. As he can seldom directly oppose their decision, therefore, with
proper weight and authority, it is necessary that he should be able to
influence it; and he can influence it only by the fears and expectations
which he may excite in the greater part of the individuals of the order.
Those fears and expectations may consist in the fear of deprivation or
other punishment, and in the expectation of further preferment.

In all Christian churches, the benefices of the clergy are a sort of
freeholds, which they enjoy, not during pleasure, but during life or good
behaviour. If they held them by a more precarious tenure, and were liable
to be turned out upon every slight disobligation either of the sovereign
or of his ministers, it would perhaps be impossible for them to maintain
their authority with the people, who would then consider them as mercenary
dependents upon the court, in the sincerity of whose instructions they
could no longer have any confidence. But should the sovereign attempt
irregularly, and by violence, to deprive any number of clergymen of their
freeholds, on account, perhaps, of their having propagated, with more than
ordinary zeal, some factious or seditious doctrine, he would only render,
by such persecution, both them and their doctrine ten times more popular,
and therefore ten times more troublesome and dangerous, than they had been
before. Fear is in almost all cases a wretched instrument of govermnent,
and ought in particular never to be employed against any order of men who
have the smallest pretensions to independency. To attempt to terrify them,
serves only to irritate their bad humour, and to confirm them in an
opposition, which more gentle usage, perhaps, might easily induce them
either to soften, or to lay aside altogether. The violence which the
French government usually employed in order to oblige all their
parliaments, or sovereign courts of justice, to enregister any unpopular
edict, very seldom succeeded. The means commonly employed, however, the
imprisonment of all the refractory members, one would think, were forcible
enough. The princes of the house of Stuart sometimes employed the like
means in order to influence some of the members of the parliament of
England, and they generally found them equally intractable. The parliament
of England is now managed in another manner; and a very small experiment,
which the duke of Choiseul made, about twelve years ago, upon the
parliament of Paris, demonstrated sufficiently that all the parliaments of
France might have been managed still more easily in the same manner. That
experiment was not pursued. For though management and persuasion are
always the easiest and safest instruments of government as force and
violence are the worst and the most dangerous; yet such, it seems, is the
natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the good
instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The French
government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to use
management and persuasion. But there is no order of men, it appears I
believe, from the experience of all ages, upon whom it is so dangerous or
rather so perfectly ruinous, to employ force and violence, as upon the
respected clergy of an established church. The rights, the privileges, the
personal liberty of every individual ecclesiastic, who is upon good terms
with his own order, are, even in the most despotic governments, more
respected than those of any other person of nearly equal rank and fortune.
It is so in every gradation of despotism, from that of the gentle and mild
government of Paris, to that of the violent and furious government of
Constantinople. But though this order of men can scarce ever be forced,
they may be managed as easily as any other; and the security of the
sovereign, as well as the public tranquillity, seems to depend very much
upon the means which he has of managing them; and those means seem to
consist altogether in the preferment which he has to bestow upon them.

In the ancient constitution of the Christian church, the bishop of each
diocese was elected by the joint votes of the clergy and of the people of
the episcopal city. The people did not long retain their right of
election; and while they did retain it, they almost always acted under the
influence of the clergy, who, in such spiritual matters, appeared to be
their natural guides. The clergy, however, soon grew weary of the trouble
of managing them, and found it easier to elect their own bishops
themselves. The abbot, in the same manner, was elected by the monks of the
monastery, at least in the greater part of abbacies. All the inferior
ecclesiastical benefices comprehended within the diocese were collated by
the bishop, who bestowed them upon such ecclesiastics as he thought
proper. All church preferments were in this manner in the disposal of the
church. The sovereign, though he might have some indirect influence in
those elections, and though it was sometimes usual to ask both his consent
to elect, and his approbation of the election, yet had no direct or
sufficient means of managing the clergy. The ambition of every clergyman
naturally led him to pay court, not so much to his sovereign as to his own
order, from which only he could expect preferment.

Through the greater part of Europe, the pope gradually drew to himself,
first the collation of almost all bishoprics and abbacies, or of what were
called consistorial benefices, and afterwards, by various machinations and
pretences, of the greater part of inferior benefices comprehended within
each diocese, little more being left to the bishop than what was barely
necessary to give him a decent authority with his own clergy. By this
arrangement the condition of the sovereign was still worse than it had
been before. The clergy of all the different countries of Europe were thus
formed into a sort of spiritual army, dispersed in different quarters
indeed, but of which all the movements and operations could now be
directed by one head, and conducted upon one uniform plan. The clergy of
each particular country might be considered as a particular detachment of
that army, of which the operations could easily be supported and seconded
by all the other detachments quartered in the different countries round
about. Each detachment was not only independent of the sovereign of the
country in which it was quartered, and by which it was maintained, but
dependent upon a foreign sovereign, who could at any time turn its arms
against the sovereign of that particular country, and support them by the
arms of all the other detachments.

Those arms were the most formidable that can well be imagined. In the
ancient state of Europe, before the establishment of arts and
manufactures, the wealth of the clergy gave them the same sort of
influence over the common people which that of the great barons gave them
over their respective vassals, tenants, and retainers. In the great landed
estates, which the mistaken piety both of princes and private persons had
bestowed upon the church, jurisdictions were established, of the same kind
with those of the great barons, and for the same reason. In those great
landed estates, the clergy, or their bailiffs, could easily keep the
peace, without the support or assistance either of the king or of any
other person; and neither the king nor any other person could keep the
peace there without the support and assistance of the clergy. The
jurisdictions of the clergy, therefore, in their particular baronies or
manors, were equally independent, and equally exclusive of the authority
of the king’s courts, as those of the great temporal lords. The tenants of
the clergy were, like those of the great barons, almost all tenants at
will, entirely dependent upon their immediate lords, and, therefore,
liable to be called out at pleasure, in order to fight in any quarrel in
which the clergy might think proper to engage them. Over and above the
rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in the tithes a very large
portion of the rents of all the other estates in every kingdom of Europe.
The revenues arising from both those species of rents were, the greater
part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine, cattle, poultry, etc. The
quantity exceeded greatly what the clergy could themselves consume; and
there were neither arts nor manufactures, for the produce of which they
could exchange the surplus. The clergy could derive advantage from this
immense surplus in no other way than by employing it, as the great barons
employed the like surplus of their revenues, in the most profuse
hospitality, and in the most extensive charity. Both the hospitality and
the charity of the ancient clergy, accordingly, are said to have been very
great. They not only maintained almost the whole poor of every kingdom,
but many knights and gentlemen had frequently no other means of
subsistence than by travelling about from monastery to monastery, under
pretence of devotion, but in reality to enjoy the hospitality of the
clergy. The retainers of some particular prelates were often as numerous
as those of the greatest lay-lords; and the retainers of all the clergy
taken together were, perhaps, more numerous than those of all the
lay-lords. There was always much more union among the clergy than among
the lay-lords. The former were under a regular discipline and
subordination to the papal authority. The latter were under no regular
discipline or subordination, but almost always equally jealous of one
another, and of the king. Though the tenants and retainers of the clergy,
therefore, had both together been less numerous than those of the great
lay-lords, and their tenants were probably much less numerous, yet their
union would have rendered them more formidable. The hospitality and
charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the command of a great
temporal force, but increased very much the weight of their spiritual
weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect and veneration
among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were constantly, and
almost all occasionally, fed by them. Everything belonging or related to
so popular an order, its possessions, its privileges, its doctrines,
necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes of the common people; and every
violation of them, whether real or pretended, the highest act of
sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness. In this state of things, if the
sovereign frequently found it difficult to resist the confederacy of a few
of the great nobility, we cannot wonder that he should find it still more
so to resist the united force of the clergy of his own dominions,
supported by that of the clergy of all the neighbouring dominions. In such
circumstances, the wonder is, not that he was sometimes obliged to yield,
but that he ever was able to resist.

The privileges of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us, who live
in the present times, appear the most absurd), their total exemption from
the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England was called the
benefit of clergy, were the natural, or rather the necessary, consequences
of this state of things. How dangerous must it have been for the sovereign
to attempt to punish a clergyman for any crime whatever, if his order were
disposed to protect him, and to represent either the proof as insufficient
for convicting so holy a man, or the punishment as too severe to be
inflicted upon one whose person had been rendered sacred by religion? The
sovereign could, in such circumstances, do no better than leave him to be
tried by the ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own
order, were interested to restrain, as much as possible, every member of
it from committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such
gross scandal as might disgust the minds of the people.

In the state in which things were, through the greater part of Europe,
during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and for
some time both before and after that period, the constitution of the
church of Rome may be considered as the most formidable combination that
ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government, as
well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind, which can
flourish only where civil government is able to protect them. In that
constitution, the grossest delusions of superstition were supported in
such a manner by the private interests of so great a number of people, as
put them out of all danger from any assault of human reason; because,
though human reason might, perhaps, have been able to unveil, even to the
eyes of the common people, some of the delusions of superstition, it could
never have dissolved the ties of private interest. Had this constitution
been attacked by no other enemies but the feeble efforts of human reason,
it must have endured for ever. But that immense and well-built fabric,
which all the wisdom and virtue of man could never have shaken, much less
have overturned, was, by the natural course of things, first weakened, and
afterwards in part destroyed; and is now likely, in the course of a few
centuries more, perhaps, to crumble into ruins altogether.

The gradual improvements of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the
same causes which destroyed the power of the great barons, destroyed,
in the same manner, through the greater part of Europe, the whole
temporal power of the clergy. In the produce of arts, manufactures, and
commerce, the clergy, like the great barons, found something for which
they could exchange their rude produce, and thereby discovered the
means of spending their whole revenues upon their own persons, without
giving any considerable share of them to other people. Their charity
became gradually less extensive, their hospitality less liberal, or
less profuse. Their retainers became consequently less numerous, and,
by degrees, dwindled away altogether. The clergy, too, like the great
barons, wished to get a better rent from their landed estates, in order
to spend it, in the same manner, upon the gratification of their own
private vanity and folly. But this increase of rent could be got only
by granting leases to their tenants, who thereby became, in a great
measure, independent of them. The ties of interest, which bound the
inferior ranks of people to the clergy, were in this manner gradually
broken and dissolved. They were even broken and dissolved sooner than
those which bound the same ranks of people to the great barons; because
the benefices of the church being, the greater part of them, much smaller
than the estates of the great barons, the possessor of each benefice was
much sooner able to spend the whole of its revenue upon his own person.
During the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the
power of the great barons was, through the greater part of Europe, in
full vigour. But the temporal power of the clergy, the absolute command
which they had once had over the great body of the people was very much
decayed. The power of the church was, by that time, very nearly reduced,
through the greater part of Europe, to what arose from their spiritual
authority; and even that spiritual authority was much weakened, when it
ceased to be supported by the charity and hospitality of the clergy. The
inferior ranks of people no longer looked upon that order as they had
done before; as the comforters of their distress, and the relievers of
their indigence. On the contrary, they were provoked and disgusted by the
vanity, luxury, and expense of the richer clergy, who appeared to spend
upon their own pleasures what had always before been regarded as the
patrimony of the poor.

In this situation of things, the sovereigns in the different states of
Europe endeavoured to recover the influence which they had once had in the
disposal of the great benefices of the church; by procuring to the deans
and chapters of each diocese the restoration of their ancient right of
electing the bishop; and to the monks of each abbacy that of electing the
abbot. The re-establishing this ancient order was the object of several
statutes enacted in England during the course of the fourteenth century,
particularly of what is called the statute of provisors; and of the
pragmatic sanction, established in France in the fifteenth century. In
order to render the election valid, it was necessary that the sovereign
should both consent to it before hand, and afterwards approve of the
person elected; and though the election was still supposed to be free, he
had, however all the indirect means which his situation necessarily
afforded him, of influencing the clergy in his own dominions. Other
regulations, of a similar tendency, were established in other parts of
Europe. But the power of the pope, in the collation of the great benefices
of the church, seems, before the reformation, to have been nowhere so
effectually and so universally restrained as in France and England. The
concordat afterwards, in the sixteenth century, gave to the kings of
France the absolute right of presenting to all the great, or what are
called the consistorial, benefices of the Gallican church.

Since the establishment of the pragmatic sanction and of the concordat,
the clergy of France have in general shewn less respect to the decrees of
the papal court, than the clergy of any other catholic country. In all the
disputes which their sovereign has had with the pope, they have almost
constantly taken part with the former. This independency of the clergy of
France upon the court of Rome seems to be principally founded upon the
pragmatic sanction and the concordat. In the earlier periods of the
monarchy, the clergy of France appear to have been as much devoted to the
pope as those of any other country. When Robert, the second prince of the
Capetian race, was most unjustly excommunicated by the court of Rome, his
own servants, it is said, threw the victuals which came from his table to
the dogs, and refused to taste any thing themselves which had been
polluted by the contact of a person in his situation. They were taught to
do so, it may very safely be presumed, by the clergy of his own dominions.

The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church, a claim in
defence of which the court of Rome had frequently shaken, and sometimes
overturned, the thrones of some of the greatest sovereigns in Christendom,
was in this manner either restrained or modified, or given up altogether,
in many different parts of Europe, even before the time of the
reformation. As the clergy had now less influence over the people, so the
state had more influence over the clergy. The clergy, therefore, had both
less power, and less inclination, to disturb the state.

The authority of the church of Rome was in this state of declension, when
the disputes which gave birth to the reformation began in Germany, and
soon spread themselves through every part of Europe. The new doctrines
were everywhere received with a high degree of popular favour. They were
propagated with all that enthusiastic zeal which commonly animates the
spirit of party, when it attacks established authority. The teachers of
those doctrines, though perhaps, in other respects, not more learned than
many of the divines who defended the established church, seem in general
to have been better acquainted with ecclesiastical history, and with the
origin and progress of that system of opinions upon which the authority of
the church was established; and they had thereby the advantage in almost
every dispute. The austerity of their manners gave them authority with the
common people, who contrasted the strict regularity of their conduct with
the disorderly lives of the greater part of their own clergy. They
possessed, too, in a much higher degree than their adversaries, all the
arts of popularity and of gaining proselytes; arts which the lofty and
dignified sons of the church had long neglected, as being to them in a
great measure useless. The reason of the new doctrines recommended them to
some, their novelty to many; the hatred and contempt of the established
clergy to a still greater number: but the zealous, passionate, and
fanatical, though frequently coarse and rustic eloquence, with which they
were almost everywhere inculcated, recommended them to by far the greatest
number.

The success of the new doctrines was almost everywhere so great, that the
princes, who at that time happened to be on bad terms with the court of
Rome, were, by means of them, easily enabled, in their own dominions, to
overturn the church, which having lost the respect and veneration of the
inferior ranks of people, could make scarce any resistance. The court of
Rome had disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern parts of
Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant to be worth
the managing. They universally, therefore, established the reformation in
their own dominions. The tyranny of Christiern II., and of Troll
archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them both from Sweden.
The pope favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and Gustavus Vasa found
no difficulty in establishing the reformation in Sweden. Christiern II.
was afterwards deposed from the throne of Denmark, where his conduct had
rendered him as odious as in Sweden. The pope, however, was still disposed
to favour him; and Frederic of Holstein, who had mounted the throne in his
stead, revenged himself, by following the example of Gustavus Vasa. The
magistrates of Berne and Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with the
pope, established with great ease the reformation in their respective
cantons, where just before some of the clergy had, by an imposture
somewhat grosser than ordinary, rendered the whole order both odious and
contemptible.

In this critical situation of its affairs the papal court was at
sufficient pains to cultivate the friendship of the powerful sovereigns of
France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that time emperor of Germany.
With their assistance, it was enabled, though not without great
difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or to
obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions. It
was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of England.
But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so without giving
offence to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king of Spain and
emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he did not embrace
himself the greater part of the doctrines of the reformation, was yet
enabled, by their general prevalence, to suppress all the monasteries, and
to abolish the authority of the church of Rome in his dominions. That he
should go so far, though he went no further, gave some satisfaction to the
patrons of the reformation, who, having got possession of the government
in the reign of his son and successor completed, without any difficulty,
the work which Henry VIII. had begun.

In some countries, as in Scotland, where the government was weak,
unpopular, and not very firmly established, the reformation was strong
enough to overturn, not only the church, but the state likewise, for
attempting to support the church.

Among the followers of the reformation, dispersed in all the different
countries of Europe, there was no general tribunal, which, like that of
the court of Rome, or an oecumenical council, could settle all disputes
among them, and, with irresistible authority, prescribe to all of them the
precise limits of orthodoxy. When the followers of the reformation in one
country, therefore, happened to differ from their brethren in another, as
they had no common judge to appeal to, the dispute could never be decided;
and many such disputes arose among them. Those concerning the government
of the church, and the right of conferring ecclesiastical benefices, were
perhaps the most interesting to the peace and welfare of civil society.
They gave birth, accordingly, to the two principal parties or sects among
the followers of the reformation, the Lutheran and Calvinistic sects, the
only sects among them, of which the doctrine and discipline have ever yet
been established by law in any part of Europe.

The followers of Luther, together with what is called the church of
England, preserved more or less of the episcopal government, established
subordination among the clergy, gave the sovereign the disposal of all the
bishoprics, and other consistorial benefices within his dominions, and
thereby rendered him the real head of the church; and without depriving
the bishop of the right of collating to the smaller benefices within his
diocese, they, even to those benefices, not only admitted, but favoured
the right of presentation, both in the sovereign and in all other lay
patrons. This system of church government was, from the beginning,
favourable to peace and good order, and to submission to the civil
sovereign. It has never, accordingly, been the occasion of any tumult or
civil commotion in any country in which it has once been established. The
church of England, in particular, has always valued herself, with great
reason, upon the unexceptionable loyalty of her principles. Under such a
government, the clergy naturally endeavour to recommend themselves to the
sovereign, to the court, and to the nobility and gentry of the country, by
whose influence they chiefly expect to obtain preferment. They pay court
to those patrons, sometimes, no doubt, by the vilest flattery and
assentation; but frequently, too, by cultivating all those arts which best
deserve, and which are therefore most likely to gain them, the esteem of
people of rank and fortune; by their knowledge in all the different
branches of useful and ornamental learning, by the decent liberality of
their manners, by the social good humour of their conversation, and by
their avowed contempt of those absurd and hypocritical austerities which
fanatics inculcate and pretend to practise, in order to draw upon
themselves the veneration, and upon the greater part of men of rank and
fortune, who avow that they do not practise them, the abhorrence of the
common people. Such a clergy, however, while they pay their court in this
manner to the higher ranks of life, are very apt to neglect altogether the
means of maintaining their influence and authority with the lower. They
are listened to, esteemed, and respected by their superiors; but before
their inferiors they are frequently incapable of defending, effectually,
and to the conviction of such hearers, their own sober and moderate
doctrines, against the most ignorant enthusiast who chooses to attack
them.

The followers of Zuinglius, or more properly those of Calvin, on the
contrary, bestowed upon the people of each parish, whenever the church
became vacant, the right of electing their own pastor; and established, at
the same time, the most perfect equality among the clergy. The former part
of this institution, as long as it remained in vigour, seems to have been
productive of nothing but disorder and confusion, and to have tended
equally to corrupt the morals both of the clergy and of the people. The
latter part seems never to have had any effects but what were perfectly
agreeable.

As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing their
own pastors, they acted almost always under the influence of the clergy,
and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order. The clergy,
in order to preserve their influence in those popular elections, became,
or affected to become, many of them, fanatics themselves, encouraged
fanaticism among the people, and gave the preference almost always to the
most fanatical candidate. So small a matter as the appointment of a parish
priest, occasioned almost always a violent contest, not only in one
parish, but in all the neighbouring parishes who seldom failed to take
part in the quarrel. When the parish happened to be situated in a great
city, it divided all the inhabitants into two parties; and when that city
happened, either to constitute itself a little republic, or to be the head
and capital of a little republic, as in the case with many of the
considerable cities in Switzerland and Holland, every paltry dispute of
this kind, over and above exasperating the animosity of all their other
factions, threatened to leave behind it, both a new schism in the church,
and a new faction in the state. In those small republics, therefore, the
magistrate very soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the
public peace, to assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant
benefices. In Scotland, the most extensive country in which this
presbyterian form of church government has ever been established, the
rights of patronage were in effect abolished by the act which established
presbytery in the beginning of the reign of William III. That act, at
least, put in the power of certain classes of people in each parish to
purchase, for a very small price, the right of electing their own pastor.
The constitution which this act established, was allowed to subsist for
about two-and-twenty years, but was abolished by the 10th of queen Anne,
ch.12, on account of the confusions and disorders which this more popular
mode of election had almost everywhere occasioned. In so extensive a
country as Scotland, however, a tumult in a remote parish was not so
likely to give disturbance to government as in a smaller state. The 10th
of queen Anne restored the rights of patronage. But though, in Scotland,
the law gives the benefice, without any exception to the person presented
by the patron; yet the church requires sometimes (for she has not in this
respect been very uniform in her decisions) a certain concurrence of the
people, before she will confer upon the presentee what is called the cure
of souls, or the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the parish. She sometimes,
at least, from an affected concern for the peace of the parish, delays the
settlement till this concurrence can be procured. The private tampering of
some of the neighbouring clergy, sometimes to procure, but more frequently
to prevent this concurrence, and the popular arts which they cultivate, in
order to enable them upon such occasions to tamper more effectually, are
perhaps the causes which principally keep up whatever remains of the old
fanatical spirit, either in the clergy or in the people of Scotland.