The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• The Preface.
• Errata.
• Letters to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke.
• Letter I.: Of the General Principles of the French Revolution.
• Letter II.: Of Some Particulars In the New Constitution of France, and Some Circumstances Attending the Dissolution of the Old One.
• Letter III.: Of the Nature of Government, and the Rights of Men and of Kings.
• Letter IV.: Of the Revolution In England Compared With That In France.
• Letter V.: Of the Revolution Society In England, and Mr. Burke’s Reflexions On Dr. Price.
• Letter V.: Of the Interference of the State In Matters of Religion In General.
• Letter VI.: Of the Source of the Respect That Is Paid to Religion.
• Letter VII.: Of a Civil Establishment Being Essential to Christianity.
• Letter VIII.: Of the Uses of Civil Establishments of Religion.
• Letter IX.: Of an Elective Clergy.
• Letter X.: Of Monastic Institutions, and Mr. Burke’s General Maxim That Existing Powers Are Not to Be Destroyed.
• Letter XI.: Of the Sacredness of the Revenues of the Church.
• Letter XII.: Of the Danger of the Church, and of the Test Laws.
• Letter XIII.: Of the Prospect of the General Enlargement of Liberty, Civil and Religious, Opened By the Revolution In France.

LETTER IX.

Of an Elective Clergy.

Dear Sir,

THE dread you express of the clergy of this country becoming elective, is extreme, and the consequences which you imagine to flow from a regulation of this kind in the constitution of the church, you exhibit in the most alarming light. I shall select the following, as some of the strongest passages in your publication upon this subject, and I shall then make a few remarks upon them.

“The present ruling power” (viz. of France) “has,” you say, p. 217, “made a degrading, pensionary establishment, to which no man of liberal ideas, or liberal condition, will destine his children. It must settle into the lowest classes of the people. As with you, the inferior clergy are not numerous enough for their duty, as these duties are beyond measure, minute, and toilsome; as you have left no middle classes of clergy at their ease, in future nothing of science, or erudition, can exist in the Gallican church. To complete the project, without the least attention to the rights of patrons, the Assembly has provided in future an elective clergy; an arrangement which will drive out of the clerical profession all men of sobriety, all who can pretend to independence in their function or their conduct, and which will throw the whole direction of the public mind into the hands of a set of licentious, bold, crafty, factious, flattering wretches, of such condition, and such habits of life, as will make their contemptible pensions (in comparison of which the stipend of an exciseman is lucrative and honourable) an object of low and illiberal intrigue.”

“In short,” you say, p. 218, “it seems to me, that this new ecclesiastical establishment, is intended only to be temporary, and preparatory to the utter abolition, under any of its forms, of the christian religion, whenever the minds of men are prepared for this last stroke against it, by the accomplishment of the plan for bringing its ministers into universal contempt. I hope,” you add, p. 219, “their partizans in England, will succeed neither in the pillage of the ecclesiastics, nor in the introduction of a principle of popular election to our bishoprics and parochial cures. This, in the present condition of the world, would be the last corruption of the church, the utter ruin of the clerical character, the most dangerous shock that the state ever received through a misunderstood arrangement of religion.”

Now, Sir, had you reflected ever so little on the nature of the case, had you read ecclesiastical history, or had you opened your eyes to existing facts, such as almost obtrude themselves upon the most careless observer every day, you must have perceived that an elective clergy must have, always has had, and at this present time actually has, effects the very reverse of those with which your imagination (for here judgment is totally out of the question) is haunted.

Is it not true that, in all cases of a civil nature, every person, who receives a salary for any duty whatever, will be more attentive to that duty, when the person who pays the salary, and who is interested in the proper discharge of the duty, has the power of appointing and dismissing him? The reason is obvious. It then becomes the interest both of the person who performs the duty, and of the person who is benefited by it, that it be well done. And can it make any difference, whether the duty be of an ecclesiastical, or a civil nature, when both are discharged by men, beings of the same passions, and subject to the same influences? Every man will do his duty best when he has the eye of a master immediately upon him. Please, Sir, to make the trial. Let your domestic servants, or your domestic chaplain, be appointed not by yourself, but some other man, or body of men, and let it be as difficult and as slow a process, to obtain a change of them, as it now is for a parish to get rid of a minister whose conduct disgraces them, which is but too often the case. I do not believe that, upon this plan, you would have much expectation of being well served.

You dread a scene of faction, and low intrigue among the clergy who should be candidates for places in the church. But what was the fact for more than a thousand years in the christian church in general, when all the bishops and clergy were elective, when men were the same as they are now, and, when whatever you imagine of peculiar zeal, and disinterestedness, in the primitive times of the church, was certainly abated? Or what is now the case with the Diffenters in this country, and through all the states of North America, where the officiating clergy of all denominations are now, and ever have been, elective. In ancient times, where the emoluments were great, as in the churches of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome, the election of bishops was sometimes attended with factions, and dangerous ones; but even there cases of this kind were rare, and in the ordinary sees they seldom or never happened. There are more than a thousand dissenting ministers in this kingdom, and they are all elected by their respective congregations; but any great inconvenience attending an election of this kind very seldom occurs. It is probable that you, though living in the country, never heard of any such thing, any more than in America, or among the dissenters in Ireland.

So far is there from being any cabal, or intrigue, to obtain places with us, that the person chosen seldom hears of it, till his invitation is sent to him; and any thing like canvassing would be an effectual bar to his election. Indeed, it very seldom happens that there is more than one candidate named at one time, and the members of any congregation are considered as very imprudent if they admit of two.

You say, that no person liberally educated, or any other than those in the lowest classes of life, will be candidates for church preferment. This, Sir, goes upon the idea that no person will officiate in a christian church but for the sake of the temporal emolument which he receives from it, which is a most unjust and ill-founded reflection on christianity, and the ministers of it. It may be the case with a church, the articles of which men of sense cannot subscribe, and the stated duty of which is against their consciences. For such services as these men must be paid, and very well paid too; and in general it will be done for nothing but the pay. But this is not the case with us, nor was it so in the early ages of the church. Though few of our salaries will more than half maintain us, there are never wanting persons of independent fortune, and the most liberal education, who voluntarily devote themselves to the work of our ministry. From unbiassed choice they give their time, and their fortunes, to an employment which they deem to be most honourable and important, in whatever light it may appear to you; and our situation is such, that few besides persons of some ability and piety will think of the profession.

So respected is the character of a minister with us, though the case may be different with you, that whatever was his original rank in life, it places him on a level with the most opulent of his congregation; and it rarely happens but that, in all our congregations, there are some persons of as good fortunes, and as polished manners, as any others in the town or neighbourhood. On this account, as well as from a principle of genuine piety and benevolence, the situation of a dissenting minister has many attractions, especially to a person of a serious and studious turn of mind. We think it greatly preferable to that of the generality of the established clergy, with all their prospects of preferment, which often produce a cringing and servile disposition. And I will venture to say, that, independent of the private fortunes which many of our ministers have, their character and conduct render them as truly respectable, and independent in mind, as any set of clergy in the world; far more so, I am confident, than yours, with all the advantages you boast.

In consequence of the bishops in France becoming elective, you imagine that nothing of science, or erudition, will henceforth exist in the Gallican church. But did nothing of this kind exist in the christian church before the bishops ceased to be elective, which was a change made of late years in comparison? History shews the very reverse to have been the case. The dignified clergy, whom the court makes independent of the people, are not those who, in any country, produce learned theological works, but generally men in the lower orders, and who have no motive to chuse their profession besides an attachment to the duties and studies peculiar to it, and who wish to distinguish themselves in it. Very few of the bishops of your church have been writers, at least after they were made bishops. The greatest works your church has to boast of were the productions of obscure clergymen; and, despicable as our situation may appear to you, who certainly know very little about us, an application to the studies suited to our profession, appears, by the number of our writings, to be much greater than among the clergy of the established church. The relation we stand in to our congregations insures a respectable private character, and in a manner obliges us to devote the leisure we have to literature, to science, and to professional studies. How strangely, Sir, must you be blinded by your high church prejudices not to perceive that this both is, and necessarily must be the difference between the clergy of the established church, and ministers with us; a difference greatly to our advantage; and it arises wholly from our people having the choice of their ministers, and of course a power of dismissing them when, on any account, they do not approve of them.

You insinuate that the scheme to render the clergy of France elective, is preparatory to an intended abolition of christianity, as if christianity did not exist, and exist in infinitely greater purity, before any of the clergy were otherwise than elective. On the contrary, it is the system of church establishments that always has produced, and that ever must produce, unbelievers. You make it a mere engine of state, a source of wealth to some of the clergy, and of power to those who have the nomination of them; and in both cases the proper interests of religion are never thought of. In consequence of this, it is notorious that the superior clergy in France and Italy, have long been generally considered as unbelievers, as well as those who procure them their preferment. That the church of England is not exempt from the same censure, I have actually known myself; and it is highly probable that, from similar causes, it still exists in a degree which I have now no opportunity of knowing. Yet though you clearly see that a splendid church establishment, with bishops appointed by the court, actually makes many of the clergy mere men of the world, so that they have nothing of the christian minister, besides the name, and the consequence of this has been the disbelief and utter contempt of christianity in men of rank and fortune, you would pretend that the abolishing of christianity would be the consequence of their dissolution. Indeed, Sir, both the nature of the case, and facts, which are obvious to the most careless eye, shew that christianity cannot be preserved along with them. They are a disease that must be extirpated, or the subject will be destroyed.

I am, Dear Sir,
Yours, &c.