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.