This business appears in two points of view. 1. Whether it is a matter
of grievance. 2. Whether it is within our province to redress it
with propriety and prudence. Whether it comes properly before us on a
petition upon matter of grievance, I would not inquire too curiously.
I know, technically speaking, that nothing agreeable to law can be
considered as a grievance. But an over-attention to the rules of any
act does sometimes defeat the ends of it, and I think it does so in
this parliamentary act, as much at least as in any other. I know many
gentlemen think, that the very essence of liberty consists in being
governed according to law; as if grievances had nothing real and
intrinsic; but I cannot be of that opinion. Grievances may subsist
by law. Nay, I do not know whether any grievance can be considered as
intolerable until it is established and sanctified by law. If the act
of toleration were not perfect, if there were a complaint of it, I would
gladly consent to amend it. But when I heard a complaint of a pressure
on religious liberty, to my astonishment, I find that there was no
complaint whatsoever of the insufficiency of the act of King William,
nor any attempt to make it more sufficient. The matter therefore does
not concern toleration, but establishment; and it is not the rights of
private conscience that are in question, but the propriety of the terms,
which are proposed by law as a title to public emoluments; so that the
complaint is not, that there is not toleration of diversity in opinion,
but that diversity in opinion is not rewarded by bishoprics, rectories,
and collegiate stalls. When gentlemen complain of the subscription
as matter of grievance, the complaint arises from confounding private
judgment, whose rights are anterior to law, and the qualifications,
which the law creates for its own magistracies, whether civil or
religious. To take away from men their lives, their liberty, or
their property, those things, for the protection of which society was
introduced, is great hardship and intolerable tyranny; but to annex
any condition you please to benefits, artificially created, is the most
just, natural, and proper thing in the world. When e novo you form an
arbitrary benefit, an advantage, pre-eminence, or emolument, not by
nature, but institution, you order and modify it with all the power of
a creator over his creature. Such benefits of institution are royalty,
nobility, priesthood; all of which you may limit to birth; you might
prescribe even shape and stature. The Jewish priesthood was hereditary.
Founders' kinsmen have a preference in the election of Fellows in many
colleges of our universities; the qualifications at All Souls are, that
they should be--optime nati, bene vestiti, mediocriter docti.
By contending for liberty in the candidate for orders, you take away the
liberty of the elector, which is the people; that is, the state. If
they can choose, they may assign a reason for their choice; if they
can assign a reason, they may do it in writing, and prescribe it as a
condition; they may transfer their authority to their representatives,
and enable them to exercise the same. In all human institutions a great
part, almost all regulations, are made from the mere necessity of the
case, let the theoretical merits of the question be what they will. For
nothing happened at the reformation, but what will happen in all
such revolutions. When tyranny is extreme, and abuses of government
intolerable, men resort to the rights of nature to shake it off.
When they have done so, the very same principle of necessity of human
affairs, to establish some other authority, which shall preserve
the order of this new institution, must be obeyed, until they grow
intolerable; and you shall not be suffered to plead original liberty
against such an institution. See Holland, Switzerland.
If you will have religion publicly practised and publicly taught, you
must have a power to say what that religion will be which you will
protect and encourage; and to distinguish it by such marks and
characteristics, as you in your wisdom shall think fit. As I said
before, your determination may be unwise in this as in other matters,
but it cannot be unjust, hard, or oppressive, or contrary to the liberty
of any man, or in the least degree exceeding your province.
It is therefore as a grievance fairly none at all, nothing but what
is essential not only to the order, but to the liberty, of the whole
community.