It would perhaps be regarded as incredible, if it rested upon the evidence of history alone, that a whole body of men, set apart as the instructors of mankind, weaned, as they are expected to be, from temporal ambition, and maintained upon the supposition that the existence of human virtue and divine truth depends on their exertions, should, with one consent, employ themselves in a casuistry the object of which is to prove the propriety of a man's declaring his assent to what he does not believe. These men either credit their own subterfuges, or they do not. If they do not, what can be expected from men so unprincipled and profligate? With what front can they exhort other men to virtue, with the brand of infamy upon their own foreheads? If they do yield this credit, what must be their portion of moral sensibility and discernment? Can we believe that men shall enter upon their profession with so notorious a perversion of reason and truth, and that no consequences will flow from it, to infect their general character?
Rather, can we fail to compare their unnatural and unfortunate state with the wisdom and virtue which the same industry and exertion might unquestionably have produced, if they had been left to their genuine operation? They are like the victims of Circe, to whom human understanding was preserved entire, that they might more exquisitely feel their degraded condition. They are incited, like Tantalus, to contemplate and desire an object, the fruition of which is constantly withheld from their unsuccessful attempts. They are held up to their contemporaries as the votaries of truth, while political institution tyrannically commands them, in all their varieties of understanding, and through a succession of ages, to model themselves by one invariable standard.
Such are the effects that a code of religious conformity produces upon the clergy; let us consider the effects that are produced upon their countrymen.
They are bid to look for instruction and morality to a denomination of men, formal, embarrassed and hypocritical, in whom the main spring of intellect is unbent and incapable of action. If the people be not blinded with religious zeal, they will discover and despise the imperfections of their spiritual guides. If they be so blinded, they will not the less transplant into their own characters the imbecile and unworthy spirit they are not able to detect.
Is virtue so deficient in attractions, as to be incapable of gaining adherents to her standard? Far otherwise. Nothing can bring the wisdom of a just and pure conduct into question but the circumstance of its being recommended to us from an equivocal quarter. The most malicious enemy of mankind could not have invented a scheme more destructive of their true happiness than that of hiring, at the expense of the state, a body of men whose business it should seem to be to dupe their contemporaries into the practice of virtue.
One of the lessons that powerful facts are perpetually reading to the inhabitants of such countries is that of duplicity and prevarication in an order of men, which, if it exists at all, ought to exist only for reverence.
Can it be thought that this prevarication is not a subject of general notoriety?
Can it be supposed that the first idea that rises to the understanding of the multitude at sight of a clergyman is not that of a man, inculcates certain propositions not so properly because he thinks them true, or thinks them interesting, as because he is hired to the employment? Whatever instruction a code of religious uniformity may fail to convey, there is one that it always communicates, the wisdom of sacrificing our understandings, and maintaining a perpetual discord between our professions and our sentiments.
Such are the effects that are produced by political institution, in a case in which it most zealously intends, with parental care, to guard its subjects from seduction and depravity.
These arguments do not apply to any particular articles and creeds, but to the notion of ecclesiastical establishments in general. Wherever the state sets apart a certain revenue for the support of religion, it will infallibly be given to the adherents of some particular opinions, and will operate, in the manner of prizes, to induce men to embrace and profess those opinions. Undoubtedly, if I think it right to have a spiritual instructor, to guide me in my researches, and, at stated intervals, publicly to remind me of my duty, I ought to be at liberty to take the proper steps to supply myself in this respect. A priest, who thus derives his mission from the unbiassed judgement of his parishioners, will stand a chance to possess, beforehand, and independently of corrupt influence, the requisites they demand. But why should I be compelled to contribute to the support of an institution, whether I approve of it or no? If public worship be conformable to reason, reason without doubt will prove adequate to its vindication and support. If it be from God, it is profanation to imagine that it stands in need of the alliance of the state. It must be, in an eminent degree, artificial and exotic, if it be incapable of preserving itself in existence otherwise than by the inauspicious interference of political institution.