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

tllzd 'f ToleratiDn.
42S
without S0111e test proposed to the personS nominated,
the utmost discordancy of religious opini~ migM
arise betw ~I?n the seve1Cl1 teachers and their respe£ti,e
congrey3~!.:>ns. A t ~pish patron might appoint a priest
to say mass to a congregation of protestants; an episC9-
pal clergyman be sent to officiate in a parish of presbyterians;
or a presbyterian divine to inveigh again~
the errors of popery before an audience of papists.
The requisition then of subscription, or any other
test by which the national religion is guarded, may
be considered merely as a restriction upon the exercise
of private patronage. l~he· laws speak to the
private patron thus :-" Of those whonl we have
previou31y pronounced to be fitly qualified to teach
religion, we allow you to select one ; but we do oot
allow you to c!ecide what religion shall ue established.
- in a particular district of the country; for which d~c:ision
yon. are nowise fitted by any qualifications
which, as a private patron. you may happen to· poSe
sess. lf it be necessary that the point be determined
for the inhabitants by any other will than their own,
it is surely better that it skould be determined by a
deliberate resolution of the legislature, than by the
~sual indination of an indlvic;lual, by whom the
right is purchased, or t" whom it devolves as a mere
secular inheritance. "
Wheresoever, therefore, this
constitution of pan'onage is adopted, a national relig.
ion, or the legt'! preference of one particular religion
to aU other~, must almost necessarily accompany it.
But, sec~ildly, let it be supposed that the appointment
of th~ mini:;ter of religion was in every parish left to
thf! choice of the parishoners, might not this choice,
we ask, be safely exercised without its being limited
to the teachers of any particula~ sect? The effect of
such a liberty must be, that a papist, or a presbyterian,
a methodist, a moravian, or an anabaptist, ~'ouId
successively gain possession of the pulpit, according as
a majority of the party happened at each election to
prevail. ~o,v with ,vllat violence the conflict would
UI)on every vacancy be renewed; what bitter ani ..
mositics would be revived, or rather be constantly
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