Chapter III.: The Church and Dissenters, I.—: Utility of an Established Church.

Actions which refer only to individuals, not to society, are usually considered without the pale of public legislation. The minor transactions of individuals in trade, in the management of their families, and in mutual intercourse, are not within the animadversion of the law. Religion seems still less within the scope of civil government than morals. It has reference solely to the individual—to a future state, and the relations that subsist between man and his Maker. It has little or no reference to his duties as a citizen, nor has it any reference to the fundamental purposes for which government itself was principally established—namely, the security of persons, property, and public institutions.

Notwithstanding these obvious truths it has been affirmed that it is the duty of the state to tender religious instruction to all its subjects. Upon what foundation this obligation rests has not been stated. Prima facie it seems as little the duty of the state to tender religion to the people as to tender medicine, or a trade or occupation by which they may obtain a livelihood.

It is a sound principle that a government should never interfere to do for the people what the people will voluntarily do as well for themselves. Before, therefore, a church establishment supported by public endowments can be deemed defensible, it must be shewn that a benefit is conferred on society that could not otherwise be obtained. Before any portion of the public resources can be fairly appropriated to the support of any order, it must be shewn that the people derive a benefit from that order which otherwise they would not receive.

Now this ground for the maintenance of the ecclesiastical establishment of the country seems to be entirely cut away by the example of the Dissenters. The established priesthood confers no exclusive benefit on the people. Under the auspices of a voluntary ministry religion has thriven more than under the auspices of a stipendiary one. Nonconformists may claim precedency of the church in the support of institutions for education, of works of charity and benevolence; they may boast of their private and civic virtues, of their habits of order, peaceful industry, and devotion to the liberties of the country. On these points the church can claim no superiority, nor hardly equality. Does it not then follow that its compulsory maintenance is an unjustifiable waste of the resources of the community, and its connexion with the state as a great public institution, an evil, not a benefit?

But a waste of the public revenue is not the only objection. All orders and all establishments that are not positively beneficial are positively mischievous. First, because they are a cost to the peeple; secondly, because they monopolize advantages at the expense of the rest of society; thirdly, because they are an obstacle to social improvement. Wherever there is a body of men enjoying exclusive profit or privilege there must be an impediment to the onward march of society—an aversion to change, and this from the very obvious motive, that, possessing above their share of social benefits, they are conscious they may lose but cannot gain by innovation. It is thus that the church and aristocracy have been mostly in the ranks of anti-reformers, and, like islands in a stream, opposed to the general current. They felt that any new disposition of social power and influence, whether educational, political, or ecclesiastical might lessen, but could not aggrandize them.

Applying these principles to the established church of this country, we find, first, it confers no exclusive benefit on the people which they would not otherwise obtain; and, secondly, that it is a positive evil by operating to the social disfranchisement of a large portion of the community. Upon the great and influential body of Dissenters its exclusive privileges inflict many and grievous injuries. Their case may be briefly stated.

1. They are excluded from the parochial registry, unless they conform to the baptismal rites of the church.

2. They cannot marry without conforming to the church ceremonial, to which they object as “superstitious and indelicate.”

3. They cannot bury their dead in the parish churchyard, except according to the rites of the church.

4. They are excluded from the national universities; from Oxford entirely, and to Cambridge they are only admitted for instruction, but not allowed to graduate without subscription to the church articles.

5. By the 10 Geo. IV. c. 7, s. 25, if they hold any judicial, civil, or corporate office, they are not allowed to attend in their official costume, or with the insignia of office, except at a church or chapel of the establishment.

These are all practical grievances, arising out of the monopoly of office and function vested in the church ministry; they are absolute persecutions for conscience sake,—penalties inflicted for nonconformity. The two remaining grievences are of a different character.

6. They are compelled to contribute towards the maintenance of a church from which they have withdrawn, and from which they derive no benefit.

7. Their religion is stigmatized and degraded by the state preferring another denomination of religionists, first, by the grant of endowments; second, by the grant of the exclusive privileges of registration, baptism, burial, and marriage; and third, by giving the church exclusively a political representation in the legislature.

The church is national, the universities are national, yet from the benefits of both the nation is excluded. If the Dissenters formed an insignificant fraction of the community, their complaints might be disregarded, their hardships might be considered an evil inseparable from the social state, which renders it impossible that every man’s natural rights and inclinations can be respected; but when it is considered that they form a majority of the community, that they are in fact the community itself (for a majority is the community), for whose benefit all laws and all establishments ought to be framed and maintained, the case is marvellously altered; and the injustice of their position is further heightened when it is considered that there is nothing in the dogmas of their worship, in the source from whence it is derived, nor in its influence on their characters as citizens, to place them one iota on a lower level than churchmen.

For the abatement of this great social wrong there is only one remedy, and the longer it is delayed the more disadvantageously it must be applied. The remedy to which we allude is the state ceasing to patronise any sect of religionists, any more than any sect of philosophers. Let no man in purse, person, reputation, or civil privilege, suffer on account of his spiritual faith; it is, as before remarked, a matter solely personal to the individual, and of which government ought to be less cognizant than even of moral conduct.

For the adoption of this change in social polity the reasons are many and convincing. First, the separation of church and state is a catastrophe wholly unavoidable; the churchman can never compete with the dissenter; loaded with sinecure wealth, like the soldier in battle loaded with spoil, he must ultimately yield the field to his more ardent and enterprising opponent.

Secondly, it must strike all men, that an expensive church establishment is wholly unnecessary in a country where experience demonstrates that the religious instruction of the people will be amply provided for without a compulsory provision for the purpose. It is indeed alleged that in the remote districts of the kingdom religious teachers would not be found without the aid of parish endowments; but this seems sufficiently answered by the fact of the ample provision made, on “the voluntary principle,” for the religious instruction of the scattered population of Wales, and in the distant settlements of North America.

Thirdly, the patronage by the state of the episcopalian form of worship is a real obstacle to the peaceful and effective government of the country. No plan of popular education, of municipal institutions, nor of civil registration, can be well introduced and established until all classes of religionists are placed on the same level as to office, favour, and immunity.

Lastly, this concession is demanded from government by the rapidly increasing numbers and wealth of the dissenters. Upon these points we shall not enlarge, as we purpose hereafter to insert some illustrative statements.