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

and ofTol1!'N: 1 ion. 425
some solid advantages; ne~ ertheless, it labours under
inconveniences which will be found, I think, upon
-trial to overbalance all its recOinmendations. !t is
scarcely compatible with that, which is the first requisite
in an ecclesiastical establishment, the division of
the country into parishes of a commodious extent.
If the parishes be small, and mini~ters of every de-
·nomination be stationed in each, which the plan seems
to suppose, the expense of their maintenance will become
too burthensome a charge for the country to
support. If) to reduce the eXpe11SC, the districts be
enlarged, the place of assembling will oftentimes be
too far remdved from the residence of the persons
who ought to resort to it. Again, the m~king the pecuniary
success of the different teachers of religion
to depend upon the number and wealth of too!" respective
followers, would naturally generate strifes,
and indecent jealousies amongst them,. as well as produce
a polemical and proselyting spirit, founded in
or mixed with views of private gain, Which would
both deprave the principles of the ~Ierg}~, and distract
the country with endless coDtentions. -
The argument, then, by which eccle&astkcJ establishments
are defended, proceeds by these steps. The - /~
knowledge and profession of Christianity cannot be: ~
upheld without a clergy; a clergy cannot be sup-~.' ,
ported withou~ d legal provision; a lebrat provision-_
for the clergy cannot be constituted without the,
preference ~f one su.t of Christians to the rest: and ,.
the (onclusion will be conveniently satisfactory in the
degree in which the truth of these several propositions
can be made out.
H it be deemed expedient to establish a national
religion, that is to say, one sect in preference to aU
others; some test, by which the teachers of that S(~ct
may be distinguished from the teachers of different
sects, appears to be an indispensabl~ consequence.
The existence of such an establishment supposes it;
the very notion of a national religion includes that of
a test. But this necessity, which is real, hath, according
to the fa&hio~ of J.tuanan afairs, furnished to aI •