Chapter LVI: Part III: Of the Expense of public Works and public Institutions (5)

The equality which the presbyterian form of church government establishes
among the clergy, consists, first, in the equality of authority or
ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, secondly, in the equality of benefice.
In all presbyterian churches, the equality of authority is perfect; that
of benefice is not so. The difference, however, between one benefice and
another, is seldom so considerable, as commonly to tempt the possessor
even of the small one to pay court to his patron, by the vile arts of
flattery and assentation, in order to get a better. In all the
presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are thoroughly
established, it is by nobler and better arts, that the established clergy
in general endeavour to gain the favour of their superiors; by their
learning, by the irreproachable regularity of their life, and by the
faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their patrons even
frequently complain of the independency of their spirit, which they are
apt to construe into ingratitude for past favours, but which, at worse,
perhaps, is seldom anymore than that indifference which naturally arises
from the consciousness that no further favours of the kind are ever to be
expected. There is scarce, perhaps, to be found anywhere in Europe, a more
learned, decent, independent, and respectable set of men, than the greater
part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and
Scotland.

Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be very
great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may be, no doubt,
carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable effects. Nothing but
exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. The vices of
levity and vanity necessarily render him ridiculous, and are, besides,
almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common people. In his own
conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of morals which
the common people respect the most. He gains their esteem and affection,
by that plan of life which his own interest and situation would lead him
to follow. The common people look upon him with that kindness with which
we naturally regard one who approaches somewhat to our own condition, but
who, we think, ought to be in a higher. Their kindness naturally provokes
his kindness. He becomes careful to instruct them, and attentive to assist
and relieve them. He does not even despise the prejudices of people who
are disposed to be so favourable to him, and never treats them with those
contemptuous and arrogant airs, which we so often meet with in the proud
dignitaries of opulent and well endowed churches. The presbyterian clergy,
accordingly, have more influence over the minds of the common people, than
perhaps the clergy of any other established church. It is, accordingly, in
presbyterian countries only, that we ever find the common people
converted, without persecution completely, and almost to a man, to the
established church.

In countries where church benefices are, the greater part of them, very
moderate, a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than
a church benefice. The universities have, in this case, the picking and
chusing of their members from all the churchmen of the country, who, in
every country, constitute by far the most numerous class of men of
letters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many of them very
considerable, the church naturally draws from the universities the greater
part of their eminent men of letters; who generally find some patron, who
does himself honour by procuring them church preferment. In the former
situation, we are likely to find the universities filled with the most
eminent men of letters that are to be found in the country. In the latter,
we are likely to find few eminent men among them, and those few among the
youngest members of the society, who are likely, too, to be drained away
from it, before they can have acquired experience and knowledge enough to
be of much use to it. It is observed by Mr de Voltaire, that father
Porée, a jesuit of no great eminence in the republic of letters, was the
only professor they had ever had in France, whose works were worth the
reading. In a country which has produced so many eminent men of letters,
it must appear somewhat singular, that scarce one of them should have been
a professor in a university. The famous Cassendi was, in the beginning of
his life, a professor in the university of Aix. Upon the first dawning of
his genius, it was represented to him, that by going into the church he
could easily find a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well
as a better situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediately
followed the advice. The observation of Mr de Voltaire may be applied, I
believe, not only to France, but to all other Roman Catholic countries. We
very rarely find in any of them an eminent man of letters, who is a
professor in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions of law and
physic; professions from which the church is not so likely to draw them.
After the church of Rome, that of England is by far the richest and best
endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly, the church is
continually draining the universities of all their best and ablest
members; and an old college tutor who is known and distinguished in Europe
as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be found there as in any
Roman catholic country. In Geneva, on the contrary, in the protestant
cantons of Switzerland, in the protestant countries of Germany, in
Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark, the most eminent men of
letters whom those countries have produced, have, not all indeed, but the
far greater part of them, been professors in universities. In those
countries, the universities are continually draining the church of all its
most eminent men of letters.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the poets, a
few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of the other
eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to have been
either public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or of
rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true, from the days of Lysias
and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch and
Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the necessity
of teaching, year after year, in any particular branch of science seems in
reality to be the most effectual method for rendering him completely
master of it himself. By being obliged to go every year over the same
ground, if he is good for any thing, he necessarily becomes, in a few
years, well acquainted with every part of it, and if, upon any particular
point, he should form too hasty an opinion one year, when he comes, in the
course of his lectures to reconsider the same subject the year thereafter,
he is very likely to correct it. As to be a teacher of science is
certainly the natural employment of a mere man of letters; so is it
likewise, perhaps, the education which is most likely to render him a man
of solid learning and knowledge. The mediocrity of church benefices
naturally tends to draw the greater part of men of letters in the country
where it takes place, to the employment in which they can be the most
useful to the public, and at the same time to give them the best
education, perhaps, they are capable of receiving. It tends to render
their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful as possible.

The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as may
arise from particular lands or manors, is a branch, it ought to be
observed, of the general revenue of the state, which is thus diverted to a
purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe, for
example, is a real land tax, which puts it out of the power of the
proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence of the
state as they otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land, however,
is, according to some, the sole fund; and, according to others, the
principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the exigencies of the
state must be ultimately supplied. The more of this fund that is given to
the church, the less, it is evident, can be spared to the state. It may be
laid down as a certain maxim, that all other things being supposed equal,
the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily be, either the
sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other; and, in all cases,
the less able must the state be to defend itself. In several protestant
countries, particularly in all the protestant cantons of Switzerland, the
revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman catholic church, the tithes
and church lands, has been found a fund sufficient, not only to afford
competent salaries to the established clergy, but to defray, with little
or no addition, all the other expenses of the state. The magistrates of
the powerful canton of Berne, in particular, have accumulated, out of the
savings from this fund, a very large sum, supposed to amount to several
millions; part of which is deposited in a public treasure, and part is
placed at interest in what are called the public funds of the different
indebted nations of Europe; chiefly in those of France and Great Britain.
What may be the amount of the whole expense which the church, either of
Berne, or of any other protestant canton, costs the state, I do not
pretend to know. By a very exact account it appears, that, in 1755, the
whole revenue of the clergy of the church of Scotland, including their
glebe or church lands, and the rent of their manses or dwelling-houses,
estimated according to a reasonable valuation, amounted only to
£68,514:1:5 ¹⁄₁₂d. This very moderate revenue affords a decent subsistence
to nine hundred and forty-four ministers. The whole expense of the church,
including what is occasionally laid out for the building and reparation of
churches, and of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to
exceed eighty or eighty-five thousand pounds a-year. The most opulent
church in Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith,
the fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere
morals, in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed
church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious, which
an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced by it as
completely as by any other. The greater part of the protestant churches of
Switzerland, which, in general, are not better endowed than the church of
Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree. In the greater
part of the protestant cantons, there is not a single person to be found,
who does not profess himself to be of the established church. If he
professes himself to be of any other, indeed, the law obliges him to leave
the canton. But so severe, or, rather, indeed, so oppressive a law, could
never have been executed in such free countries, had not the diligence of
the clergy beforehand converted to the established church the whole body
of the people, with the exception of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In
some parts of Switzerland, accordingly, where, from the accidental union
of a protestant and Roman catholic country, the conversion has not been so
complete, both religions are not only tolerated, but established by law.

The proper performance of every service seems to require, that its pay or
recompence should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the nature
of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is very apt to
suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of those who are
employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is apt to suffer, perhaps
still more, by their negligence and idleness. A man of a large revenue,
whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live like other men of
large revenues; and to spend a great part of his time in festivity, in
vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman, this train of life not
only consumes the time which ought to be employed in the duties of his
function, but in the eyes of the common people, destroys almost entirely
that sanctity of character, which can alone enable him to perform those
duties with proper weight and authority.