The second of those remedies is the frequency
and gaiety of public diversions. The
state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire
liberty to all those who, from their own
interest, would attempt, without scandal or
indecency, to amuse and divert the people
by painting, poetry, music, dancing; by all
sorts of dramatic representations and exhibitions;
would easily dissipate, in the greater
part of them, that melancholy and gloomy
humour which is almost always the nurse of
popular superstition and enthusiasm. Public
diversions have always been the objects of
dread and hatred to all the fanatical promoters
of those popular frenzies. The gaiety and
good humour which those diversions inspire,
were altogether inconsistent with that temper
of mind which was fittest for their purpose,
or which they could best work upon. Dramatic
representations, besides, frequently exposing
their artifices to public ridicule, and
sometimes even to public execration, were,
upon that account, more than all other diversions,
the objects of their peculiar abhorrence.
In a country where the law favoured the
teachers of no one religion more than those
of another, it would not be necessary that
any of them should have any particular or
immediate dependency upon the sovereign or
executive power; or that he should have any
thing to do either in appointing or in dismissing
them from their offices. In such a situation,
he would have no occasion to give
himself any concern about them, further than
to keep the peace among them, in the same
manner as among the rest of his subjects,
that is, to hinder them from persecuting,
abusing, or oppressing one another. But it
is quite otherwise in countries where there is
an established or governing religion. The
sovereign can in this case never be secure,
unless he has the means of influencing in a
considerable degree the greater part of the
teachers of that religion.
The clergy of every established church
constitute a great incorporation. They can
act in concert, and pursue their interest upon
one plan, and with one spirit as much as if
they were under the direction of one man;
and they are frequently, too, under such
direction. Their interest as an incorporated
body is never the same with that of the sovereign,
and is sometimes directly opposite to
it. Their great interest is to maintain their
authority with the people, and this authority
depends upon the supposed certainty and
importance of the whole doctrine which they
inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity
of adopting every part of it with the most implicit
faith, in order to avoid eternal misery.
Should the sovereign have the imprudence
to appear either to deride, or doubt himself
of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or
from humanity, attempt to protect those who
did either the one or the other, the punctilious
honour of a clergy, who have no sort of
dependency upon him, is immediately provoked
to proscribe him as a profane person,
and to employ all the terrors of religion, in
order to oblige the people to transfer their
allegiance to some more orthodox and obedient
prince. Should he oppose any of their
pretensions or usurpations, the danger is
equally great. The princes who have dared
in this manner to rebel against the church,
over and above this crime of rebellion, have
generally been charged, too, with the additional
crime of heresy, notwithstanding their
solemn protestations of their faith, and humble
submission to every tenet which she
thought proper to prescribe to them. But
the authority of religion is superior to every
other authority. The fears which it suggests
conquer all other fears. When the authorized
teachers of religion propagate through
the great body of the people, doctrines subversive
of the authority of the sovereign, it is
by violence only, or by the force of a standing
army, that he can maintain his authority.
Even a standing army cannot in this case give
him any lasting security; because if the soldiers
are not foreigners, which can seldom be
the case, but drawn from the great body of
the people, which must almost always be the
case, they are likely to be soon corrupted by
those very doctrines. The revolutions which
the turbulence of the Greek clergy was continually
occasioning at Constantinople, as
long as the eastern empire subsisted; the
convulsions which, during the course of several
centuries, the turbulence of the Roman
clergy was continually occasioning in every
part of Europe, sufficiently demonstrate how
precarious and insecure must always be the
situation of the sovereign, who has no proper
means of influencing the clergy of the established
and governing religion of his country.
Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual
matters, it is evident enough, are not
within the proper department of a temporal
sovereign, who, though he may be very well
qualified for protecting, is seldom supposed
to be so for instructing the people. With
regard to such matters, therefore, his authority
can seldom be sufficient to counterbalance
the united authority of the clergy of the established
church. The public tranquillity,
however, and his own security, may frequently
depend upon the doctrines which
they may think proper to propagate concerning
such matters. As he can seldom directly oppose
their decision, therefore, with proper weight
and authority, it is necessary that he should
be able to influence it; and he can influence
it only by the fears and expectations which
he may excite in the greater part of the individuals
of the order. Those fears and expectations