234 CHAPTER II. HONORARY TITLES. By honour, in its proper and genuine signification, we mean nothing else but the good opinion of others, which is counted more or less substantial, the more or less noise or bustle is made about the demonstration of it; and when we say the sovereign is the fountain of honour, it signifies that he has the power, by titles, ceremonies, or both together, to stamp a mark upon whom he pleases, that shall be as current as his coin, and procure the owner the good opinion of every body, whether he deserves it or not.-Mandeville. I had the curiosity to inquire in a particular manner by what methods great numbers had procured to themselves high titles of honour and prodigious estates; and I confined my inquiry to a very modern period, however without grating upon the present times, because I would be sure to give no offence....... A great number of persons concerned were called up, and upon a very slight examination discovered such a scene of infamy, that I cannot reflect upon it without some seriousness. Perjury, oppression, subornation, fraud, pandarism, and the like infirmities, were amongst the most excusable arts they had to mention; and for these I gave, as it was reasonable, great allowance. But when some confessed they owed their greatness and wealth to the prostituting of their own wives and daughters; others to the betraying their country or their prince; some to poisoning; more to the perverting of justice, in order to destroy the innocent; I hope I may be pardoned, if these discoveries inclined me a little to abate of that profound veneration which I am naturally apt to pay to persons of high rank, who ought to be treated with the utmost respect due to their sublime dignity by us their inferiors.—Swift. Titles are but nick-names, and every nick-name is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself; but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the countefeit of woman in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue rib bon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says, "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things." * * * * When we think or speak of a judge or a general, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity in the one, and bravery in the other: but when we use a word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam, there is not such an animal as a duke or a count; neither can we connect any certain idea with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect, then, can be paid to that which describes nothing, and means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript. But this is not all.-If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them.Paine. CHAPTER III. ECCLESIASTICAL ESTABLISHMENTS. A RELIGIOUS establishment is no part of Christianity, it is only the means of inculcating it. Amongst the Jews, the rights and offices, 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 well as the means of transmitting it. Not so with the new institution. It cannot be proved that any form of church-government was laid down in the Christian, as it had been in the Jewish Scriptures,* with a view of fixing a constitution for succeeding *This may be doubted, and with great reason. ages; and which constitution, consequently, the disciples of Christianity would, everywhere and at all times, by the very law of their religion, be obliged to adopt. The authority, therefore, of a church establishment is founded in its utility: and whenever, upon this principle, we deliberate concerning the form, propriety, or comparative excellency, of different establishments, the single view under which we ought to consider any of them is, that of "a scheme of instruction;" the single end we ought to propose by them is, "the preservation and communication of religious knowledge." Every other idea, and every other end, that have been mixed with this, as the making of the church an engine, or even an ally, of the state; converting it into the means of strengthening or diffusing influence; or regarding it as a support of regal in opposition to popular forms of government; have served only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses. The notion of a religious establishment comprehends three things:—a clergy, or an order of men secluded from other professions to attend upon the offices of religion; a legal provision for the maintenance of the clergy; and the confining of that provision to the teachers of a particular sect of Christianity. If any one of these three things be wanting; if there be no clergy, as amongst the Quakers; or if the clergy have no other provision than what they derive from the voluntary contribution of their hearers; or if the provision which the laws assign to the support of religion be extended to various sects and denominations of Christians; there exists no national religion or established church, according to the sense which these terms are usually made to convey.-Paley. The boasted alliance between church and state, on which so many encomiums have been lavished, seems to have been little more than a compact between the priest and the magistrate, to betray the liberties of mankind, both civil and religious. To this, the clergy, on their part at least, have continued steady, shunning inquiry, fearful of change, blind to the corruptions of government, skilful to discern the signs of the times, and eager to improve every opportunity, and to employ all their art and elo quence to extend the prerogative, and smooth the approaches of arbitrary power.-Robert Hall. By engendering the church with the state, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called The Church established by law. It is a stranger, even from its birth, to any parent mother on which it is begotten, and whom, in time, it kicks out and destroys.-Paine. The only pretence for uniting Christianity with civil governments, is the support it yields to the peace and good order of society. But this benefit will be derived from it, at least in as great a degree, without an establishment as with it. Religion, if it has any power, operates on the conscience of men. Resting solely on the belief of invisible realities, and having for its object the good and evil of eternity, it can derive no additional weight or solemnity from human sanctions, but will appear to the most advantage upon hallowed ground, remote from the noise and tumults of worldly policy. Can it be imagined that a dissenter, who believes in divine revelation, does not feel the same moral restraints as if he had received his religion from the hands of parliament? Human laws may debase Christianity, but can never improve it; and being able to add nothing to its evidence, they can add nothing to its force.-Robert Hall. Were any one to ask me what is the duty of the government with respect to religion, I should reply, to endow no particular mode of faith and worship with peculiar immunities or privileges, but to afford equal protection to all. The government owes every subject impartial justice, and this equality of right is invaded, when one form of religion is patronised to the exclusion of others. No man owes any religious service to the state; the state, therefore, has no right to demand any. Government should regard men simply as members of a social compact, formed solely for each other's present advantage. They should, therefore, secure to all the members of the community, the enjoyment of personal freedom, and the discretionary employment of property, together with the inalienable right of fairly examining all religious doctrines, of publicly professing, teaching, and defending them by speech and writing, and of paying public homage to the Supreme Being in the way which the worshipper believes to be most agreeable to that Being, provided there is no interference herein with the life, liberty, and property of others. This the government should do. But it is not the office of any government to prescribe any creeds and formularies, or furnish any secular inducements to the profession of any faith; much less to inflict any punishment, in any manner or degree, for any conduct considered simply as sin against God. False doctrines, irreligion, infidelity, and atheism, with all kinds of erroneous worship, come under the jurisdiction of the moral government of mankind, and cannot be treated as civil offences, subjecting their authors to temporal punishment. It is true, such sins were punished under the Jewish theocracy by the magistrate. But the case is now quite different. The circumstances of the Israelitish nation were altogether singular and extraordinary. The Divine Being was their king as well as their God. Jehovah was their political sovereign. He gave them laws as a nation, as well as a church. And consequently, a moral offence was a breach of national law, and sins against God were visited with immediate temporal inflictions, as state offences. The judge and the magistrates were commissioned to execute the Divine commands. But such a polity no longer exists, nor can it ever reasonably be made the model of a monarchy. The church of God no longer sustains a national form. Christ repeatedly disavowed all political power, and declined all magisterial and judicial interference. He refused to interpose in any civil affair as arbiter or judge; and maintained the perfect independence of his spiritual kingdom, as a matter quite distinct from every civil polity. The two things under the Christian dispensation were to be preserved separate and apart, and the officers of state can never exercise, as state officers, any jurisdiction in a kingdom totally dissimilar to that to which they belong. They have no authority to punish sin as such; but such sinful acts as invade the rights of mankind, or disturb the peace of society, and therefore partake of two natures, and are of a mixed character, unquestionably come under their cognizance, and subject their authors to civil chastisement. Among such offences may be reckoned perjury, theft, every kind of fraud, public drunkenness, gaming, seduction, rape, all the forms of impurity, cruelty to men or brutes, enslaving, murder, and some forms of sabbath-breaking. |