PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

Of Religous Ertahlishmenls. ..15
ralore for the public advantage, the proposition, I
think, cannot be maintained. The security of civil
life, which is essential to the value and the enjoy.
ment of every blessing it contains, and the interruption
of which is followed by universal mi~ry and confU)10n,
is protected chiefly by the dread of puni"hmente
The misfortune of an individual, for suclt may
the ·;ufferin~, ·or evtn the death of an innocent person
be called, wnen they are occasioned by no el-!1 intention,
cannot be placed in competition with this object.
I dn not contend that the life or safety of the meanest
subject ought, in any case, to be knowingly sacrificed.
No principle of judic:tture, no end of purrisament can'
ever require that. But when certain rules of adjudication
must be pursued, when certain degrees of
credibility must be accepted, in order to reach the
crimes with which the public are infe~ted; courts of
justice should not be deterred from the application of
these rules by every ~uspicion of danger, or by the
mere possibility ~f confounding the innocent with the
guilty. Tl1ey ought rather [0 reflect, that he who
falls by a mi:-.taken sentence, may be considered as
falling for his country : whilst he suffers under th~)
operation of those rules, by the general effect and'
tendency of which the welfare of the comniunity is
Inaintained and upheld. .
•
CHAPTER x.
OF RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS, AND OF
TOLERA1'ION.
" A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of
Ch ristianity, it is only the means of incu lcating it."
Amongst the Jews, the rights and OffiCf', the order,
family, and succession of the priesthood were marked
out by the authority which declared the law itself.
These, therefore, were parts of the Jewish religion, as
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