I beg leave to speak of our church establishment, which is the first of
our prejudices, not a prejudice destitute of reason, but involving in
it profound and extensive wisdom. I speak of it first. It is first,
and last, and midst in our minds. For, taking ground on that religious
system, of which we are now in possession, we continue to act on the
early received and uniformly continued sense of mankind. That sense not
only, like a wise architect, hath built up the august fabric of
states, but like a provident proprietor, to preserve the structure from
profanation and ruin, as a sacred temple purged from all the impurities
of fraud, and violence, and injustice, and tyranny, hath solemnly and
for ever consecrated the commonwealth, and all that officiate in it.
This consecration is made, that all who administer in the government of
men, in which they stand in the person of God himself, should have high
and worthy notions of their function and destination; that their hope
should be full of immortality; that they should not look to the paltry
pelf of the moment, nor to the temporary and transient praise of the
vulgar, but to a solid, permanent existence, in the permanent part of
their nature, and to a permanent fame and glory, in the example they
leave as a rich inheritance to the world.
Such sublime principles ought to be infused into persons of exalted
situations; and religious establishments provided, that may continually
revive and enforce them. Every sort of moral, every sort of civil, every
sort of politic institution, aiding the rational and natural ties that
connect the human understanding and affections to the divine, are not
more than necessary, in order to build up that wonderful structure, Man;
whose prerogative it is, to be in a great degree a creature of his own
making; and who, when made as he ought to be made, is destined to hold
no trivial place in the creation. But whenever man is put over men, as
the better nature ought ever to preside, in that case more particularly,
he should as nearly as possible be approximated to his perfection.
The consecration of the state, by a state religious establishment,
is necessary also to operate with a wholesome awe upon free citizens;
because in order to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some
determinate portion of power. To them therefore a religion connected
with the state, and with their duty towards it, becomes even more
necessary than in such societies, where the people, by the terms of
their subjection, are confined to private sentiments, and the management
of their own family concerns. All persons possessing any portion of
power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they
act in trust; and that they are to account for their conduct in that
trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society. This
principle ought even to be more strongly impressed upon the minds of
those who compose the collective sovereignty, than upon those of single
princes. Without instruments, these princes can do nothing. Whoever uses
instruments, in finding helps, finds also impediments. Their power is
therefore by no means complete; nor are they safe in extreme abuse. Such
persons, however elevated by flattery, arrogance, and self-opinion, must
be sensible that whether covered or not by positive law, in some way or
other they are accountable even here for the abuse of their trust.
If they are not cut off by a rebellion of their people, they may be
strangled by the very janissaries kept for their security against
all other rebellion. Thus we have seen the king of France sold by his
soldiers for an increase of pay. But where popular authority is absolute
and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far
better founded, confidence in their own power. They are themselves, in a
great measure, their own instruments. They are nearer to their objects.
Besides, they are less under responsibility to one of the greatest
controlling powers on earth, the sense of fame and estimation. The
share of infamy, that is likely to fall to the lot of each individual
in public acts, is small indeed; the operation of opinion being in
the inverse ratio to the number of those who abuse power. Their own
approbation of their own acts has to them the appearance of a public
judgment in their favour. A perfect democracy is therefore the most
shameless thing in the world. As it is the most shameless, it is also
the most fearless. No man apprehends in his person that he can be made
subject to punishment. Certainly the people at large never ought: for as
all punishments are for example towards the conservation of the people
at large, the people at large can never become the subject of punishment
by any human hand. (Quicquid multis peccatur inultum.) It is therefore
of infinite importance that they should not be suffered to imagine that
their will, any more than that of kings, is the standard of right and
wrong. They ought to be persuaded that they are full as little entitled,
and far less qualified, with safety to themselves, to use any arbitrary
power whatsoever; that therefore they are not, under a false show of
liberty, but in truth, to exercise an unnatural, inverted domination,
tyranically to exact from those who officiate in the state, not an
entire devotion to their interest, which is their right, but an abject
submission to their occasional will; extinguishing thereby, in all those
who serve them, all moral principle, all sense of dignity, all use of
judgment, and all consistency of character; whilst by the very same
process they give themselves up a proper, a suitable, but a most
contemptible prey to the servile ambition of popular sycophants, or
courtly flatterers.