THOUGHTS 
 
 UPON 
 
 TFIE LAWFULNESS AND EXPEDIENCY 
 
 OP 
 
 etnucn 3S0t'tWf$ftment$; 
 
 AND 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR THE APPROPRIATION OF THE 
 
 CLERGY RESERVES 
 
 IN UPPER CANADA, 
 
 AS FAR AS RESPECTS THE CHURCH OK ENGLAND : 
 
 IN A LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 C. A. II A GERM AN, ESQ. M. P. 
 
 SOLICITOR CEKERAL or UPPER CANADA, 
 
 BY THE REV, A * N, BETHUNE, 
 
 RECTOR OP COBOL' SG, AND CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP OF 
 
 QUEBEC. 
 
 COBOURG: 
 
 R, D* CHATTERTON, PRINTER. 
 
 1836. 
 
TO C. A. HAGERMAN, ESQ, M. P. 
 
 &C. &C. &c. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 For the liberty which considerations of per- 
 sonal friendship would scarcely embolden me 
 to take in addressing this Letter to you without 
 the formality of first soliciting your permission 
 I shall waive any apology, from a persuasion 
 tli at your standing in our Legislative assembly 
 and especially your undaunted and consistent 
 advocacy of the principles which these pages 
 embody almost compel it as a public duty. 
 
 I am aware that the subject on which I am ad- 
 dressing you will shortly come under the grave 
 deliberations of that enlightened and patriotic 
 body ; and 1 am persuaded that there are amongst 
 its members many gentlemen who, anxious as 
 they may be for the settlement of this agitating 
 question, would at the same time never surren- 
 der the honest determination to consult the tru- 
 est interests of their country, both present and 
 prospective, in the decision which they may be 
 called upon to adopt. With these impressions 
 I shall not, I trust, be deemed presumptuous in 
 believing that they will not regret the present ef- 
 
fort to lay open the grand foundation upon widely 
 the merits of this important question ought to be 
 considered to rest, nor to be reminded ot the 
 high and indestructible principles connected with 
 this subject which no considerations of local or 
 temporary expediency should ever persuade them 
 to abandon. 
 
 I hope. Sir, 1 shall be acquitted of any o' her 
 motive in the present attempt than the simple 
 desire of slating what I conceive to be founded 
 upon the immutable principles of truth, and what 
 I believe to involve the dearest and most perma- 
 nent interests of this our rising country. With 
 an inward consciousness of this rectitude of in - 
 tention I proceed fearlessly to the task ; feeling 
 at the same time the cheering conviction that the 
 thoughts which will be brought to bear upon this 
 most important subject of your legislative deli- 
 berations will, by the great body of your fellow- 
 representatives, be accepted not only without 
 prejudice but with an honest resolution to be gui- 
 ded by whatever may appear to be the force of 
 truth, tlm claims of justice, or the demands of 
 the real interests of this our common country. 
 
 In pursuing the train of reflections which this 
 important subject suggests, we are led, I con- 
 ceive, naturally to the consideration of two pro- 
 minent points : — 
 
 I. The authority for ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments from Scripture and reason ; and 
 
 If. The various popular objections which are 
 entertained against such establishments. 
 
 I. Reverting to the beautiful Scriptural narra- 
 tive of the discovery and rescue of the infant 
 
Moses by the daughter of Pharaoh, and to her 
 charge to his unknown mother to nurse the child 
 for her and she would pay her wages, a small and 
 unpretending tract with which I chanced lately to 
 meet draws a very striking analogy between this 
 circumstance and the duty of n State or Govern- 
 ment in relation to the spiritual nourishment of 
 the millions who may perhaps compose the sub- 
 jects of its rule. On the part of the State we 
 can couceive it to be an obvious duty to delegate 
 the charge of that most essential instruction to 
 competent individuals, in language of precisely 
 the same import as that which the sacred narra- 
 tive furnishes ; “Take these children, and nur- 
 ture them for me, and i will give thee thy wages.” 
 The duty of a State to provide religious instruc- 
 tion for its subjects is certainly as strong as the 
 undoubted obligation to establish rules for the 
 security of national virtue and morality. The be- 
 nefits of law and the preservation of the advan- 
 tages of ordinary justice depend much for exam- 
 ple upon the sacredness which the public mind 
 attaches to an oath ; but as this cannot be expec- 
 ted to prevail without the existence of some 
 antecedent religious belief, the insisting upon 
 the former by the State without a provision at 
 the same time for the maintenance of the 
 latter, cannot but strike us as an inconsis- 
 tency. 
 
 From such an inconsistency, however, the his- 
 tory of mankind clearly proves that the human 
 mind has ever revolted. The spontaneous ap- 
 probation of government and order which is in- 
 herent in men had been applied as early and as 
 strongly to ecclesiastical as to civil polities ; for 
 no sooner did they discover the need of a legal 
 establishment for the preservation of their social 
 interests than they adopted the auxiliary of a na- 
 
6 
 
 tional religion for the security of pious obligation 
 and of moral restraint. 
 
 And the process was simple and the conclusion 
 natural : — 
 
 In every family, especially in every Christian 
 family, there is a species of religious establish- 
 ment which embraces all its members under its 
 jurisdiction. W e do not abandon a child to spon- 
 taneous instruction, nor do we leave him to glean 
 as he can his own religious faith : — we teach him 
 the method of serving God according to our own 
 persuasions of its propriety ; and although the 
 time may arrive when he will depart from that 
 particular line of religious instruction ; although 
 we may even foresee the possibility of his future 
 dissent from the main principles of our present 
 tuition ; still we feel it a duty to furnish him with 
 that instruction and to insist upon his conformity 
 as long as his state of tutorage, endures. 
 
 The analogy will hold in that greater family, 
 the State. This evidently has a claim to a simi- 
 lar guidance and control ; and recognizing, as it 
 must, the duty of supplying that instruction, it 
 has a right to assume the same general authority 
 as to the manner and matter of instruction. We 
 would not suppose that when the father of a fa- 
 mily had, by increase of population, become head 
 of a village or governor of a tribe, he would be 
 expected to withdraw the sanction which he had 
 formerly given to the worship of God, lest his 
 public capacity should vitiate what before was 
 lawful in his private one. For instance, when 
 Abraham by attention to this duty gained so ex- 
 press a commendation from God, wc are not to 
 believe that, when his household would have be- 
 come so numerous or his other employments so 
 
y 
 
 7 
 
 ■pressing as to have precluded the practicability 
 of his personal teaching, he would have been vio- 
 lating any rule of Scripture or any dictate of his 
 conscience in providing suitable religious teach- 
 ers for them, in the terms of the language already 
 quoted ; “ Take these children and instruetthem 
 for me, and I will give thee thy wages.” 
 
 These, 1 contend, are the dictates of nature ; 
 nor are they without the sanction of divine au- 
 thority. The Almighty, so far from forbidding 
 the interference of the civil government with his 
 Church, expressly enjoined such ordinances in 
 the case of the Jews as served to form a national 
 establishment of religion ; so that, \>y divine, com- 
 mand, we have in that instance a religious estab- 
 lishment connected and even incorporated with 
 the Stato. It is certainly not loo much to assume 
 that — until contradicted-this command, if it does 
 not strictly bind all future generations, will at 
 least most powerfully sanction their adoption of 
 the same practice. Any economy which can lay 
 claim to a divine origin must be held to involve 
 at least some few universal principles converti- 
 ble, with due modification, to other instances ; 
 and — to adduce the testimony of a Dissenter — 
 it is impossible to admit the divine origination of 
 the Mosaic scheme, and at the same time to af- 
 firm that its fundamental principles are out of har- 
 mony with human nature, and not in any sense 
 capable of extension from one people and age 
 to another.* Nor is it less certain that, so far 
 from any violence being done to the opinions and 
 prejudices of mankind in that instance, the es- 
 tablishment of the Jewish religion was merely in 
 consonance with sentiments and a practice pre- 
 
 * Spiritual Despotism, by the Author of the Nat Hist of En- 
 thusiasm, p* $5. 
 
viously and universally prevailing. Tins conside- 
 ration will meet the objection, if advanced, that 
 tiie Jews were under a theocracy, and that there- 
 fore the system adopted in their case was inap- 
 plicable to other forms of government ; while its 
 force will bo further diminished from the fact that 
 under the judges and the kings, and even under 
 the control of a foreign power, the principle and 
 most of the details of the Jewish hierarchy re- 
 mained unimpaired. 
 
 To the validity of the principle embraced in 
 the national establishment of the Jews we are fur- 
 nished with a satisfactory testimony from our Sa- 
 viour himself. He uniformly joined in and up- 
 held, both by his precepts and example, the ser- 
 vices which that establishment provided; and 
 oven if be had offered no positive sanction from 
 his general conversation and practice, his having 
 expressed no disapprobation of either its sound- 
 ness or its utility could not but be construed into an 
 argument in its favour. In common phraseology, 
 his silence upon the subject would have amount- 
 ed to consent . 
 
 There is often an argument attempted to be 
 adduced against the connection of the Christian 
 Church with the State from the expression of 
 0 “ r ? aviour when arraigned before the tribunal 
 ot 1 date, “ My kingdom is not of this world.” 
 Inese, however, are words clearly inapplicable 
 to the subject for which they are so frequently ad- 
 vanced. lhe correct and natural interpretation 
 is evidently contained in the following para- 
 
 P Vc^n^ 011 * ie P assa S e by Dr. Doddridge, him- 
 sc a jss enter, and therefore in the present in- 
 stance in voiy impartial authority: “Jesus an- 
 swered, My kingdom is not of this world, nor 
 Js it my business or design to erect a temporal 
 
9 
 
 dominion, and to establish any claim which 
 should at all interfere with that of Csesar, or of 
 which any prince has reason to be jealous: in- 
 deed, if I should have entertained such views, I 
 might have found support and encouragement 
 from the very persons who are now my accusers: 
 and if I had asserted that my kingdom was of 
 this world, and had favoured such methods of 
 defence, my servants, who professed of late so 
 great and so public a regard to me, would reso- 
 lutely have fought that 1 might not have been de- 
 livered to the Jews, or would attempt even now 
 to rescue me out of their hands : but now my 
 kingdom is not from lienee, nor to be erected 
 here; and therefore 1 have been so far from arm- 
 ing my followers with secular weapons, that the 
 guard, who came to apprehend me, know that f 
 forbade their making any use of those they had.” 
 
 3n regard to our Lord’s inspired Apostles, it 
 is manifest that they said not a word against re- 
 ligious establishments; and as the prejudices of 
 mankind were in favor of such a system, and as 
 these undoubtedly comported with their own views 
 and opinions, it was unnecessary for them to say 
 a word in their defence,: but it would have been 
 their duty to have condemned them in express 
 terms had it been their impression that it was the 
 meaning or intention of their heavenly Master to 
 forbid the application to his religion of this uni- 
 versal practice of Jews and Gentiles, 
 
 From the first rise of Christianity to the reign 
 of Constantine no opportunity was presented of 
 introducing that connection of the Church with 
 the State ; but in the case of this "emperor it was 
 done, and that without a word of objection from 
 the Christian teachers of the time or the citation 
 of any scriptural or traditionary authority to re- 
 
10 
 
 present it as incompatible with the tenets of their 
 religion or with those of its founder and first pro- 
 pagators. 
 
 Had tiie Jews, indeed, by the conversion for 
 instance of their Sanhedrim, chanced to have 
 embraced Christianity as a nation, is any thing 
 more natural than tiiat they would have placed 
 the new religion upon the same temporal footing 
 as iiad been the one which it superseded 1 Or, 
 to take another example, had king Agrippa beea 
 induced by the preaching of St. Paul to have 
 yielded a full assent to the truths of which he 
 was partially convinced, is any thing more na- 
 tural than the belief not only that he would have 
 been inclined but encouraged to direct to the pro- 
 pagation and establishment of Cliristianity all 
 the power and influence which, from his situa- 
 tion, he commanded] The same impression and 
 conduct would have been equally natural in the 
 imperial master of the Roman world himself, 
 bad he been ihe convert to apostolic teaching ; — 
 he undoubtedly would then, as Constantine did 
 afterwards, have raised the Christian religion to 
 that rank in his favour and influence which the 
 renounced rights and worship of paganism had 
 formerly enjoyed. Pious rulers, in short, "under 
 the New Testament dispensation would natural- 
 ly and justly appropriate to themselves the duties 
 
 and responsibilities enjoined under ihe Old; 
 
 they would take it for granted that they were ' to 
 be “ nursing fathers and nursing mothers” to the 
 Church of whose truth they were convinced and 
 whose tenets they embraced. A national Church, 
 as applicable to Christianity, had even been al- 
 luded to as early as the days of lrenseus, more 
 than a century before tbe reign uf Constantine; 
 and so far from its presenting any contradiction 
 fo the Christian mind, it may bo considered as a 
 
natural expansion uf tlie first rudiments of exter- 
 nal Christianity, and as a virtual fulfilment of the 
 command, “ Forsake not the assembling of your- 
 selves together.”* 
 
 While there can be no denial of the fact that 
 all States and people, in every age, — wherever 
 at least there prevailed the belief of superior be- 
 ings and the persuasion of a. future state of re- 
 wards and punishments — had an established re- 
 ligion ; it is no slight diminution of the force of 
 the arguments against establishments that the 
 innovation upon the system has been comparative- 
 ly recent and partial. Such innovation was not the 
 sentiment of the Reformers in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury; neither of Calvin, nor Beza, nor Cranmer, 
 nor Ridley, nor Knox ; nor had the opposition to 
 establishments assumed any formidable front un- 
 til the times of the French Revolution, when, as 
 is well known, the hostility that was manifested 
 was the result of open and avowed infidelity. An 
 eloquent and philosophicstntesman had reminded 
 the reckless innovators of those times, that “ peo- 
 ple who never look back to their ancestors will 
 not look forward to posterity for in making 
 this retrospection they cannot fail to discover that 
 “ all nations have begun the fabric o fa new govern- 
 ment or the reformation of an old, by establish- 
 ing originally, or by enforcing with greater ex- 
 actness, some riles or other of religion.”t 
 
 But religious establishments, possessing as 
 they clothe authority of revelation and the inhe- 
 rent approbation of men in every age, cannot be 
 without some obvious arguments in their favor 
 from practical expediency. Mankind must have 
 
 # Stfe Scriptural Despotism, p, 99* 
 f Iktrkc’g Letter on the Vretich devolution. 
 
12 
 
 discerned their benefit, to have thus universally 
 adopted them ; and this benefit must have been 
 admitted by the divine wisdom, when they gained 
 His express sanction in the case of the Jews. — 
 This position I may repeat in the words of the 
 excellent Wilberforce ; “ The tendency of reli- 
 gion to promote the temporal well-being of po- 
 litical communities is a fact which depends on 
 such obvious and undeniable principles, and which 
 is so forcibly inculcated by the history of all ages, 
 that there can be no necessity for entering into a 
 formal proof of it. It has indeed been maintain- 
 ed not merely by schoolmen and divines, but by 
 the most celebrated philosophers and moralists 
 and politicians of every age.”* 
 
 Wollaston, in his Religion of Nature, demon- 
 strates that were it not for that sense of virtue 
 which is principally preserved, as far as it is pre- 
 served, by national forms and habits of religion, 
 “men would soonlose it all, run wild, prey upon 
 one another, and do what else the worst of sa- 
 vages do.” This discernment of (lie advanta- 
 ges of religion to a State, and of the deplora- 
 ble effects of its absence would at once have dic- 
 tated, as by the voice of nature, its connection 
 with the civil institutions. It is the argument of 
 the philosophic Warburton,f which reason better 
 supports than some other of the theories of his 
 gigantic mind, that as the care of the civil so- 
 ciety, abstractedly considered, has reference only 
 to the affairs of the body, and the care of the 
 religious society only to those of the soul ; the 
 civil power, to obtain the more direct benefit of 
 the influence of religion, would naturally seek 
 an union or alliance with the ecclesiastical. But 
 
 * Practical View, cliap* 6. 
 f Divine Legation of Most*;;, 
 
 ildin/ijiiijiniT 
 
13 
 
 as, abstractedly, they have separate provinces, 
 it does not seem that there can be any combined 
 action between them or any mutual influence 
 produced unless by association. 
 
 The advantages of the alliance of religion to 
 a State are apparent, in strengthening, by its na- 
 tural influence, the sanctions of law and of pro- 
 moting a spirit of general subordination ; while 
 a disadvantage, as the consequence of their se- 
 paration, is equally apparent from the collisions 
 which, in that event, would sometimes neces- 
 sarily arise. As the influence of religion touch- 
 j es the mind at all points, it becomes an influence 
 
 which, if the State cannot gain to its side, it will 
 “ assuredly view with jealousy. This would ne- 
 
 cessarily awaken and bring into collision two 
 powerful antagonist principles ; and the opera- 
 tion of the contest must inevitably be to weaken 
 * or corruplon the one hand, or to produce insubor- 
 
 dination on the other. It has been clearly es- 
 tablished by a writer already quoted,* that the 
 effect of this separation and mutual jealousy be- 
 tween the ecclesiastical and civil government of 
 the Jews in the time of our Saviour, when the 
 subjugation of the country by the lfomans did 
 not allow the proper operation of the alliance be- 
 tween them, was the source of most of the reli- 
 gious corruption as well as of the popular tu- 
 mults of which those unhappy times were so rife. 
 The conclusion from this argument I cannot bet- 
 ter express than in the words of the same writer, f 
 that “a well adjusted Church and State polity 
 recommends itself in this special respect — as an 
 arrangement which provides against ordinary oc- 
 casions of concussion, and as immensely better 
 
 * See Spirit, Despotism* p, 88 
 flbid, p. 178, 
 
f4 
 
 than the leaving two potent principles open to- 
 every casualty that may throw them rudely one 
 upon the other.” It may be added that the pro- 
 tection of religion by the State, on the principle 
 of a national Establishment, serves to guard the 
 great defences of Christianity from external vio- 
 lence, while at the same time it helps to break 
 the force of, by diminishing the motives to, inter- 
 nal dissention. 
 
 But to return to the more direct and positive 
 advantages of this alliance of the spiritual with 
 the civil power ; — an Establishment of religion 
 provides the only certain means of conferring 
 upon a nation the benefits of religion at all, at 
 least of rendering them generally accessible or 
 extensively permanent. Without the provision 
 for its maintainance furnished by the State, a 
 vast majority of a nation must be deprived of any 
 certain or regular religious instruction ; — the re- 
 mote and sequestered population, without the 
 means as it were of purchasing these advanta- 
 ges, would never be adequately or permanently 
 furnished with them by the operations of a spon- 
 taneous zeal. 
 
 Admitting, what may safely be assumed, that 
 Christianity eamiot be upheld or propagated with- 
 out a standing ministry ; and that a ministry who 
 shall possess all the diversified acquirements es- 
 sential, as a general rule, to the successful dis- 
 semination as well as defence of Christianity, 
 must possess a leisure and opportunity for study 
 and action, with which no secular occupation 
 would be compatible ; it seems plainly demon- 
 strable that voluntary contributions can never 
 supply the means of maintaining and perpetua- 
 ting a body of men of this order. “ To the scheme 
 of voluntary contribution there exists this insur- 
 
 1 
 
15 
 
 mountable objection,” says Pa ley, “ that few 
 would ultimately contribute any tiling at all. — 
 However the zeal of a sect, or the novelty of a 
 change, might support such an experiment for a 
 while, no reliance could be placed upon it as a 
 general and permanent provision. If by de- 
 clining to frequent religious assemblies, men could 
 save their money, at the same time that they in- 
 dulged their indolence, and their disinclination to 
 exercises of seriousness and reflection ; or if, by 
 dissenting from the national religion, they could 
 be excused from contributing to the support of 
 the ministers of religion, it is to be feared that 
 many would take advantage of the option which 
 was thus imprudently loft open to them, and that 
 this liberty might finally operate to the decay of 
 virtue, and an irrecoverable forgetfulness of all 
 religion in the country. Is there not too much 
 reason to fear, that if it were referred to the dis- 
 cretion of each neighbourhood, whether they 
 would maintain amongst them a teacher of re- 
 ligion or not, many districts would remain unpro- 
 vided with any 1 That, with the difficulties which 
 encumber every measure requiring the co-opera- 
 tion of numbers, and where each individual of 
 the number lias an interest secretly pleading 
 against the success of the measure itself, associ- 
 ations for the support of Christian worship and in- 
 struction would neither be numerous nor long- 
 continued '! The devout and pious might lament 
 in vain the want or the distance of a religious as- 
 sembly ; they could not form or maintain*one, 
 without the concurrence of neighbours who felt 
 neither their zeal nor their liberality.”* 
 
 What immediately follows from this able wri- 
 ter is so extremely in point, that I cannot refrain 
 
 * Moral. Philosophy, Book G. Chap. 10. 
 
16 
 
 from further quotation : “ From the difficulty 
 with which congregations would be established 
 and upheld on the voluntary plan, let us carry 
 our thoughts to the condition of those who are 
 to officiate in them. Preaching, in time, would 
 become a mode of begging. YVith what since- 
 rity, or with what dignity, can a preacher dis- 
 pense the truths of Christianity, whose thoughts 
 are perpetually solicited to the reflection how he 
 may increase his subscription 1 His eloquence, 
 if he possess any, resembles rather the exhibi- 
 tion of a player who is computing the profits of 
 his theatre, than the simplicity of a man who, 
 feeling himself the awful expectations of religion, 
 is seeking to bring others to such a sense and 
 understanding of their duty as may save their 
 souls. Moreover, a little experience of the dis- 
 position of the common people will in every 
 country inform us, that it is one thing to edify 
 them in Christian knowledge, and another to 
 gratify their taste for vehement, impassioned ora- 
 tory ; that he, not only whose success, hut, whose 
 subsistence depends upon collecting and plea- 
 sing a crowd, must resort to other arts than the 
 acquirement and communication of sober and 
 profitable instruction. For a preacher to be 
 thus at the mercy of his audience; to be obliged 
 to adapt his doctrines to the pleasure of a ca- 
 pricious multitude; to be continually affecting 
 a style and manner neither natural to him, nor 
 agreeable to his judgment ; to live in constant 
 bondage to tyrannical and insolent directors ; are 
 circumstances so mortifying not only to the 
 pride of the human heart, but to the virtuous love 
 ol independency, that they are rarely submitted 
 to without a sacrifice of principle, and a depra- 
 vation of character ; — at feast it may be pronoun- 
 ced, that a ministry so degraded would soon fall 
 into the lowest hands ; for it would be found 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 
n 
 
 
 17 
 
 impossible to engage men of worth and ability 
 
 • in so precarious and humiliating a profession.” 
 
 # 
 
 The answer that may be given to these obser- 
 vations that a high standard both of learning and 
 piety, in ministers and people, prevails amongst 
 many of those who dissent from the Established 
 Church, is met by the consideration that the learn- 
 ing thus acquired is owing, primarily and essen- 
 tially, to the existence of such an establishment, 
 and the piety that subsists to the religious taste 
 which has been fostered and maintained through 
 the same influence. A national establishment 
 produces the condition of things which gives suc- 
 cess to the ministrations of dissenters ; — it con- 
 stitutes, as it were, a standing fund from which 
 dissenters, for purposes of literature or of the 
 more internal interests of the common cause, 
 can always draw. Such an objection cannot 
 therefore be admitted as valid in countries where 
 religious establishments exist ; — no, not even in 
 the Uni ted States of America, which, altho’ they 
 have no national church supported by law, are in 
 the condition of a body enjoying the benefits of 
 the Established Churches of Great Britain. — 
 , Sprung from the same source, speaking the same 
 
 language, and having access, by constant inter- 
 course, to all the advantages which, through the 
 instrumentality of those establishments, have 
 been provided, they may fairly be said to be com- 
 prised within the compass of that influence which 
 the national churches of Great Britain naturally 
 exert. 
 
 Should it be affirmed that the voluntary con- 
 tributions of the rich and pious, when thrown 
 into the hands of some religious association un- 
 controlled by the State, would suffice for the sup- 
 ply of the spiritually destitute in their respective 
 
IB 
 
 countries, we reply that, while the specific pio- 
 vision which the Slate affords is undoubtedly pre- 
 ferable to contributions which must necessarily 
 be so mutable and precarious as these, the means 
 of religious ministrations thus furnished leave to 
 the pious and benevolent another important field 
 for the operations of their bounty which does not 
 eorne so directly within the province of a govern- 
 ment, — the diffusion of true religion amongst the 
 unconverted heathen. Besides, the very exis- 
 tence of such associations, whether for foreign 
 or domestic purposes, furnishes an obvious ar- 
 gument in favor of the principle of Establish- 
 ments ; — at least they concede the full force of 
 the argument advanced by the advocates ol es- 
 tablishments that direct voluntary contributions 
 will not suffice for the religious instruction of a 
 people ; and they certainly yield to them the ad- 
 mission that an extraneous provision, one which 
 the population benefited have no share in fui- 
 nislhng, is not as a general principle to be repu- 
 diated. 
 
 I shall conclude this branch of our argument 
 in the forcible language of Dr. Chalmers : “It is 
 perhaps the best among all our more general ar- 
 guments for a Religious Establishment in a coun- 
 try, that the spontaneous demand of human be- 
 ings for religion is far short ol the actual inter- 
 est which they have in it. This is not so with 
 their demand for food or raiment or any article 
 which ministers to the necessities of our physi- 
 cal nature. The more destitute we are of those 
 articles, the greater is our desire after them. But 
 the case is widely different when the appetite for 
 any good is short of that degree in which that 
 good is useful or necessary : and above all, when 
 just in proportion to our want of it, is the decay 
 of our appetite towards it. Now this is, gene- 
 
T 
 
 
 f 
 
 - 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 f 
 
 19 
 
 rally speaking, the case with religious instruc- 
 tion ; the less we have of it, the less we desire 
 it. It is not with the aliment of the soul as it it 
 is with the aliment of the hotly. — The latter will 
 be sought after ; the former must be offered to a 
 people whose spiritual appetite is in a state of 
 dormancy, and with whom it is just as necessary 
 to create a hunger as it is to minister a positive 
 supply. In these circumstances, it were vain to 
 wait lor any original movement on the part of 
 the receivers : it must be made on the part of 
 the dispensers. Nor does it follow that because 
 Government may wisely abandon to the princi- 
 ple of demand and supply all those interests where 
 the desires of our nature and the necessities of 
 our nature are adequate the one to the other, 
 she ought therefore to abandon all care of our 
 interest, when the desire on the part of our spe- 
 cies is but rare and feeble and inoperative ; while 
 the necessity is of such a deep and awful character 
 that there is not ono of the concerns of earthli- 
 ncss which ought for a moment to be compared 
 with it.” 
 
 II. I now proceed to the consideration, as pro- 
 posed, of various popular objections entertained 
 against Religious Establishments. 
 
 The objections to Religious Establishments — 
 and it is certainly an advantage which their as- 
 sailants, like those who assume the side of op- 
 position in general, possess — are usually accom- 
 panied with those professions of moderation and 
 liberality which so much favour the native pro- 
 pensity of mankind to liberty and indulgence. — 
 Here, however, it should not be forgotten by those 
 who may be imposed upon by such a disguise 
 that the same method has ever been adopted, 
 and that it has always proved the one most 
 

 successfully employed by the enemies of Divine 
 Revelation itself. 
 
 The grand objection to Religious Establish- 
 ments is founded upon the charge of the corrup- 
 tions in Christian faith and practice which such 
 establishments are said to have induced. Were 
 we to admit the truth of this accusation, and push 
 the objection to establishments of religion which, 
 on that ground, is assumed, we should find our- 
 selves obliged to arraign the wisdom even of 
 certain Divine appointments : for such an objec- 
 tion would be applicable, in all its condemnatory 
 effect, as much to the Jewish Church established 
 by God himself, as to any other constituted after 
 the same model. The Church of Judea, we as- 
 certain from history, was by no means free from 
 some corruptions and defects, induced by the de- 
 generacy of the people ; — these, undoubtedly, the 
 Divine Wisdom foresaw, and many cautions 
 were, at various times, given against the very 
 depravations which arose ; — vet had it been fore- 
 seen or certain that an establishment of religion 
 was 'peculiarly or necessarily productive of that 
 effect, the Jewish Church, we must believe, 
 would never have been placed in a condition 
 which involved its own corruption and overthrow. 
 The causes, therefore, of corruption and in par- 
 ticular instances of decay, are no more in the 
 Christian Church than in the Jewish to be ascri- 
 bed to the natural or necessary operations of an 
 establishment. Where such corruptions arise, 
 we must refer them, not to the injurious work- 
 ing of that principle, but either to internal causes 
 involved in the frailty or bad passions of man, or 
 to external circumstances wholly separated from 
 any necessary influence which an establishment 
 exerts. “ It must needs be that offences come,” 
 is a declaration from infallible lips which, — re- 
 
vrorring to its proper cause, the corruption of the 
 human heart — will better account for the errors 
 and decays of Churches than any of the modern 
 accusations against establishments which have 
 neither the support of philosophic argument, nor 
 the testimony of practical experience. 
 
 It has been said, with the same specious man- 
 ner of reasoning which so often captivates and 
 deludes the unthinking, that God ever watches 
 over and protects his church, and that, with such 
 a guarantee for its security and maintenance, it 
 needs not the adventitious defences which an es- 
 tablishment provides. To this we reply that, al- 
 though every thing we possess is dependent, pri- 
 marily, upon the providence of God, we arc not 
 only not precluded from the exercise of the ob- 
 vious means of their attainment, but are even 
 commanded industriously to apply those efforts 
 which, with the Divine blessing, will produce 
 such results. Although the husbandman, with- 
 out the showers and sunshine of heaven, cannot 
 hope for the abundance of harvest, his depen- 
 dence upon an unseen power for that result ne- 
 ver, surely, diminishes his own diligence in cul- 
 tivating the land ; nor does he deem it less ne- 
 cessary to enclose his growing crop from the de- 
 predations of neighboring cattle. While, there- 
 fore, we look to the divine blessing as indispen- 
 sable for the prosperity of religion, we must our- 
 selves labour, by the best ami most efficacious 
 means, for its dissemination and maintenance ; 
 as well as guard it from external violence or the 
 destroying influence of internal dissention by 
 every bulwark which, consistently with divine re- 
 velation, human skill can employ. The propa- 
 gation of religion, if not to be adequately effec- 
 ted by the operations of a spontaneous zeal, must 
 bo ensured by the more powerful means of a State 
 
22 
 
 provision, and the uniformity and purity of reli- 
 gion maintained by those safeguards which an 
 establishment most effectually provides. 
 
 But to return to the specific charge of corrup- 
 tion as induced by establishments, and that espe- 
 cially the corruption of the Christian Church 
 commenced with its establishment by Constantine, 
 — we can safely combat the fact, and unhesita- 
 tingly declare that this is one of the common er- 
 rors which the present age at least is likely to 
 explode. “No allegation,” says the author of 
 Spiritual Despotism, “can stand more fully con- 
 tradicted by the records of antiquity than does 
 this ; nor can anything be more easy than to dis- 
 prove the assertion. We must, in charity, im- 
 pute extreme ignorance to those who have pro- 
 fessed to think that the political establishment of 
 Christianity was the cause of its corruption.”* 
 Ecclesiastical history furnishes us with sufficient 
 evidence that the corruption charged upon the 
 Christian Religion as the particular effect of its 
 establishment by Constantine, had commenced 
 long before, and that even the Apostolic age was 
 not free from many heresies against which we 
 find the first preachers of Christianity most se- 
 dulous in guarding their converts. It can indeed 
 be safely asserted that such was the vast influ- 
 ence of the surrounding irreJigion and idolatry, 
 united with the internal dissensions and heresies 
 in the Church itself, in the days of Constantine, 
 that, without the benefit of bis imperial protec- 
 tion, the corruption that existed would rather have 
 been augmented than diminished. “ There would 
 certainly,” says Milner, “ have been this remark- 
 able difference, namely, that half of the Ro- 
 man world, without the aid of the magistrate. 
 
 '* |>« 151 . 
 
23 
 
 would have remained destitute of even the loin 
 of Christianity,”* 
 
 In contradiction to the opinion sometimes also 
 advanced that, so far from there being any advan- 
 tage to vital religion from the fostering protec- 
 tion of the State, a condition of suffering and 
 persecution is, as a general rule, more conge- 
 nial to its spiritual advancement, we may cite 
 the declaration in the Acts regarding the Aposto- 
 lic Churches, that “they had rest and were edi- 
 fied, and walking in the fear of the Lord and the 
 comfort of the Holy Ghost, were multiplied'' f 
 
 It may be remarked as an historical fact bear- 
 ing upon the question, that the revenues of the 
 Church, antecedent to the days ol Constantine 
 when no State provision was afforded, were far 
 greater in amount and value, through the pious 
 donations of the wealthy, than would have in- 
 duced the clergy to accept of any compromise 
 from the imperial government which would have 
 secured to them a definite maintenance. Altho’ 
 this was a state of things peculiar to the times 
 and not to be expected ns a general rule applying 
 to all conditions of the church in every age, it is 
 sufficient to say that the court patronage at that 
 period, if productive of any corruption at all, 
 was not so through the means so universally al- 
 leged, — by what has usually been termed the pe- 
 cuniary bribe of a State provision. An author, 
 already frequently quoted, declares, in contra- 
 diction to a commonly received opinion upon this 
 point, that “ it may on the most substantial 
 grounds be affirmed that it was the want of a 
 well-devised Church and State system, -the want 
 
 * Church History, vol. 2, p. 213. 
 + Arts ix 31. 
 
24 
 
 of an establishment, which made the revolution 
 at court in the time of Constantine, in favor of 
 Christianity, extensively arid lastingly injurious 
 to the Church.”* 
 
 In the times which followed, when a cloud of 
 gloom overshadowed the literary world and gave 
 to several successive centuries the expressive 
 appellation of the “dark ages,” if it be asked, 
 says an eloquent writer, “ by what causes it hap- 
 pened that a few sparks of ancient learning sur- 
 vived through this long winter, we can only as- 
 cribe their preservation to the Establishment of 
 Christianity ” f And setting aside the condi- 
 tion of the unconverted world, there are facts 
 to prove that in the ease of those Churches which 
 did not possess the advantage of legal protec- 
 tion and where the direct benefits of an estab- 
 lishment did not extend, Christianity did not 
 bear up against the gathering darkness ; and 
 that it was only in those which enjoyed that 
 advantage that " religion made a bridge, as it 
 were, across the chaos, and linked the two pe- 
 riods of ancient and modern civilization.” J 
 
 To the often asserted objection that the alli- 
 ance between Church and State is unnatural, 
 it might be sufficient to reply that this has never 
 been proved. But adopting that opinion, we 
 must necessarily regard the State, in its abstract 
 position, either as anti-christiaii, or as posses- 
 sing nothing within itself consentaneous to the 
 natural operations of Christianity. If this hos- 
 tility to amalgamation necessarily exist between 
 the civil and ecclesiastical polity* it would not be 
 
 * Spirit* Despotism, p> 198* 
 
 + Hallam : Middle Ages, Yof. 3 t p, 035, 
 t Hallam, ibid. 
 
u 
 
 loo much to assert thut there could be no proper 
 congruity between the work of religion and the 
 ordinary business of life; that the private, as much 
 as the magisterial, capacity of any man must, 
 upon this principle, be inconsistent with the al- 
 lied influence of religion. The necessary exis- 
 tence of this asserted opposition would seem in- 
 deed to imply that the man who is a Christian 
 in his closet, must he an infidel upon the throne 
 or the bench ; — nay more, that the character of 
 Christianity applies only to the direct exercise of 
 its peculiar duties, and is inconsistently assumed 
 in the pursuit, for example, of an ordinary me- 
 chanical art or literary 7 labour! No terms of re- 
 buke or ridicule can, T conceive, be too strong 
 for a position involving so many monstrous con- 
 clusions as this. 
 
 The natural influence of religion upon the 
 State, and the admitted benefits of its operations 
 upon those principles of good order and general 
 morality which it is the business of a State to 
 maintain and promote, would rather demonstrate 
 that nothing can he more natural than an alliance 
 between them. And with the impression from 
 which a Christian people cannot be free, that ir- 
 religion and impiety in a nation will provoke the 
 vengeance of Almighty God and produce nation- 
 al visitations from his hand, how can the state fail 
 to recognize and act upon the duty to render 
 religion prevalent and respected among its sub- 
 jects 1 But if an alliance between the Church 
 and State were a thing unnatural and unlawful, 
 the fulfilment of such a duty would be attended 
 with difficulties not to be surmounted, at least as 
 long as such a position was maintained. 
 
 T shall merely adrl, in relation lo the alleged 
 injurious influence of State patronage upon re- 
 
20 
 
 ligion, — more particularly as inducing laxity and 
 <1 ego nc racy in those who enjoy the means of pro- 
 secuting their ministerial labours independent of 
 the popular will, — that the same objection must 
 assuredly apply to establishments that are inten- 
 ded lor the advancement of ordinary education. 
 Nor can 1 here forbear expressing my astonish- 
 ment that the opponents of all State provision 
 for a Church, anti the advocates of the voluntary 
 principle in religion, in this country, should have 
 failed to discern the contradiction which their 
 arguments evince when, at the same moment, 
 they contend for the necessity of such provision 
 for the advancement of common learning, and 
 avow the inefficiency of the voluntary principle 
 for accomplishing that important end. This 
 contradiction will strike us as the more gla- 
 ring when we recal to mind the argument of Dr. 
 Chalmers, and recollect that, in the case of ge- 
 neral education, the desire and the demand more 
 directly urges to the ordinary methods of supply 
 than in the “things hoped for and unseen” of 
 religion. 
 
 It has been urged that the extensive prevalence 
 of dissent is an argument against the soundness 
 of establishments, and an evidence of their in- 
 herent tendency to corruption and decay. With- 
 out dwelling upon the fact that there is no human 
 institution unaccompanied with a similar manifes- 
 tation of dissent,— nay, that the Christian reli- 
 gion itself, even in its fundamental principles, 
 has some opponents in every Christian land ; — 
 without dilating upon the weakness which this 
 argument experiences from the circumstance that 
 dissent itself is divided ; — we would ask whether 
 the numerous and vigorous shoots which we dis- 
 cern from the root of many a noble tree is an 
 infallible evidence of its approaching decay ; and 
 
27 
 
 wc might go on with the further question, whe- 
 ther, it the parent trunk were cut away, its nu- 
 merous and clustered progeny would ever, in 
 graceful strength of body or expansiveness of 
 limb, stand forth the same ornament to the land- 
 scape, afford the same refuge to the winged wan- 
 derers of the air, or yield to the wearied the 
 same refreshing shadow \ 
 
 I believe the sentiment is sometimes hazarded 
 by the opponents of Establishments, that public 
 opinion — the vox populi — is against the connec- 
 tion of the Church with the State. In contradic- 
 tion to this idea it will, I think, be very general- 
 ly conceded, at least by competent judges, that 
 the sentiment thus expressed by liurkc is as ap- 
 plicable to the present as it was to his own times; 
 — that “the majority of the people of England, 
 so far from thinking n religious establishment 
 unlawful, hardly think it lawful to be without 
 one.” Take the world at large, and it can most 
 confidently be affirmed that even at the present 
 day the rox populi is not against ttie principle of 
 art ecclesiastical establishment. And where, in 
 the excepted instances, such an objection maybe 
 supposed nationally to prevail, there is either 
 a prejudice to awaken it from its supposed in* 
 compatibility with the peculiar mode of their 
 civil polity, as in the United States of America, 
 or, as in our own country, no proper opportunity 
 has been afforded to ascertain the legitimate in- 
 fluence upon the public mind of an impartial and 
 enlightened discussion of the subject. Here both 
 the discussion and the objections have been par- 
 tial ; advanced chiefly for serving the purposes 
 of some political struggle, and almost solely con- 
 fined to that most fluctuating and least infallible 
 of all ephemeral productions, the periodical press. 
 We may ask with n popular writer, already fre- 
 
211 
 
 quently adduced,* “whether the qualities that 
 usually call men into the service of this species 
 of literature are a genuine intelligence and a high 
 sense of duty and principle ; or whether they are 
 not faculties which are seldom combined with vi- 
 gorous good sense, or with expansive views, or 
 with substantial acquirements, and never almost 
 with fervent and humble piety ?” — and we can 
 say, with the same writer, that “ rilled either by 
 immediate consideration of profit or looked upon 
 as the means of upholding and furthering parti- 
 cular interests, a philosophic impartiality can by 
 no means find place in works of this class.” 
 
 In short, the secret of the hostility against es- 
 tablishments of religion is to be looked for in the 
 camp of Infidelity. Were these opponents of 
 Christianity persuaded, as many of its disciples 
 profess to be, that a Church Establishment is 
 subversive of the interests of vital religion, they 
 would gladly" afford their countenance to the su- 
 icidal device, and not stand forth, as they do, 
 the steady and uncompromising enemies of a 
 system which they believe to contain the certain 
 means of effecting the overthrow' of the faith it 
 was appointed to defend. But this wariness of 
 the common enemy many 7 conscientious Dissent- 
 ers have discerned ; and they are alive to the 
 conviction that in the fall of the Establishment 
 is involved more than the probable overthrow of 
 all the pure and undefded religion in the land. 
 
 I have thus far, Sir, confined myself to the 
 principle of Religious Establishments, and have 
 laboured to shew, — without entering into their 
 minuter operations and minor details — that they 
 are institutions which possess the combined sup- 
 
 * Author of Spiritual Despotism. 
 
29 
 
 port of Scripture, reason, and expediency. Hav- 
 ing established this point— as, without ' the as- 
 sumption of any other merit than a discernment 
 of the native force of truth, 1 trust 1 have done 
 — I shall proceed to offer briefly some suggestions 
 as to the best manner of conferring upon the 
 Church of England in this Province the benefits 
 of that ecclesiastical provision which our Consti- 
 tutional Act supplies. And here I shall not in- 
 trude one observation upon the legality of tbe 
 claim which the Church of England prefers, con- 
 vinced that it rests upon a basis which no argu- 
 ment of mine could strengthen; nor shall J,°by 
 alluding to any other channels for the appropria- 
 tion of this property, trespass upon that delicate 
 ground of expediency, upon which the present 
 generation, in violation especially of any estab- 
 lished principle or vested right, are I conceive 
 scarcely justified in undertaking the responsibi- 
 lity of deciding. 
 
 Viewing the present demands, and contem- 
 plating the future religious wants of, this rising 
 Province, it is not too much to assume that each 
 Township-embracing as it does about 100 square 
 miles and capable of sustaining a population of 
 at least 10,000 souls — would at no very distant 
 period employ the active services of at least two 
 clergymen of the Church of England. There is 
 scarcely a settled township in the Province where 
 the ministrations of one would not, at the pre- 
 sent moment, be gladly welcomed ;* so that there 
 is no extravagance in the anticipation that two 
 would, in the course of a few years, be employed 
 in the same sphere with equal acceptance and uti- 
 lity. 
 
 * Of this fact the Bishop of Quebec, if called upon, could af- 
 ford the most convincing testimony. 
 
For the more permanent and secure mainten- 
 ance of the clergy thus appointed, I would sug- 
 gest, as an obvious dictate of prudence, an ina- 
 lienable allottmentof land to eacli respectively ; 
 — from two hundred to six hundred acres accord- 
 ing to the value of the land as affected by local 
 circumstances. Until the revenue from these 
 landed endowments became adequate to the main- 
 tenance of such clergymen, respectively, an an- 
 imal stipend of not less than £100 should be al- 
 lotted to each, payable from the general fund de- 
 rived from the interest of monies vested from 
 sides and from the annual rents of lands not set 
 apart as specific endowments : — this annual sti- 
 pend to be subject to partial reductions at cer- 
 tain intervals, proportionate to the augmentation 
 of income accruing from the landed appropria- 
 tion. And in order to remove all chance of the 
 deprecated evil of inordinate wealth in the future 
 clergy, a provision might be established by which 
 the surplus of any income exceeding, we may 
 say for example, £500 per annum and derived 
 from the landed endowment, should be paid over 
 to the general fund, to be appropriated to the 
 maintenance of a third rectory in the township, 
 or otherwise as circumstances at the time might 
 require. 
 
 But as the constitution of the Church of En- 
 gland implies the necessity of clerical supervi- 
 sion, a provision should, at the same time, be es- 
 tablished for the maintenance of the episcopal 
 office. For this purpose I would suggest the spe- 
 cial appropriation of 10,000 acres ; upon the prin- 
 ciple that, hereafter, one Bishop would no more 
 be sufficient for the Province of Upper Canada 
 than a single clergyman for one extensive and po- 
 pulous township. Until the above allottment be- 
 came sufficiently productive, an adequate appro- 
 
I 
 
 pnation from the general fund already alluded to 
 ought annually to be assigned for this object 
 and to guard against the possibility of extrava- 
 gant wealth in the future holders of the cpisco* 
 pal office, it might be enacted that all surplus re- 
 venue above £1500 per annum to an individual 
 Bishop, from this source, should be paid into the 
 general fund, to be appropriated to the support, 
 of a second or third Bishop, as the circumstan- 
 ces of the country might require. 
 
 It will be seen that the remarks I have offered 
 pre-suppose the sale of a very considerable por- 
 tion of the Clergy Reserves. ' For immediate ef- 
 ficiency rather than for prospective benefit is such 
 n step to be recommended ; but with the belief 
 that, upon the former ground, this would be ad- 
 visable, I would suggest the expediency of cau- 
 sing a special sale, perhaps of 20 or 30,000 acres, 
 to be made for the specific purpose of forming a 
 fund to aid in the erection of Parsonage or Glebe- 
 Houses. The possession of such is absolutely 
 essential to the ordinary comfort of every incum- 
 bent ; and the annexation to a mission or parish 
 of a commodious abode will hereafter, as it does 
 oiten now, compensate for many of the inconve- 
 niences consequent upon a straitened income. 
 
 This, Sir, constitutes the outline of the pian 
 which, as the result of my knowledge of the coun- 
 try and of its spiritual necessities, I feel induced 
 to offer for public consideration. I trust it will 
 possess the merit at least of simplicity; with the 
 means of bringing the plan itself into operation, 
 should it be approved. I do not feel that I need 
 trespass upon your attention by offering anv re- 
 marks. I shall confine myself to one further ob- 
 servation, that the plan proposed is not charge- 
 able with the imputation of unreasonable demand. 
 
 It requires not the appropriation to one object 
 
of such a quantity of the property in question as 
 would preclude the exercise of that more exten- 
 ded bounty which the constituted guardians of 
 our rights and privileges, civil and religious, may 
 feel themselves called upon to apportion ; while 
 the supply of Clergy of the Church of England 
 which the plan suggested would provide for, 
 would still leave open a wide field for the reli- 
 gious ministrations of other preachers of Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 In conclusion I must observe — what the can- 
 did and impartial cannot fail to concede — that in 
 this manner ol*Hiiipplying religious instruction to 
 the people of this Province to all future genera- 
 tions, there t.k>es not exist the possibility of its 
 proving grievous* or oppressive to any class of 
 people. While it places the means of affording 
 and perpetuating that most important instruction 
 upon a foundatioiv-not to be affected by the mu- 
 tabilities of the popular will, the civil and religious 
 rights of all are, in their fullest integrity, respec- 
 ted and preserved. The operations of a system 
 thus constituted, with that vigilant supervision 
 which the system itself involves, cannot fail, With 
 the blessing of the great Head of the Church, to 
 produce that result which should be the object 
 of the prayers- and efforts of every Christian, 
 “ Glory to God in the. Highest, and on earth 
 
 PEACE, ROOD-WILT/ TOWARDS MEN.” 
 
 I 'have the honor to be, Sir, 
 
 Your faithful humble servant, 
 
 A. N. BKTHUNE. 
 
 r * - ‘ B ' # # 
 
 Rectory, Cobourg, ) 
 
 Nov. Mth, 1836. \ 
 
 £6930 1 k