soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving
the public peace, to assume to himself
the right of presenting to all vacant benefices.
In Scotland, the most extensive
country in which this presbyterian form of
church government has ever been established,
the rights of patronage were in effect abolished
by the act which established presbytery
in the beginning of the reign of William III.
That act, at least, put in the power of certain
classes of people in each parish to purchase,
for a very small price, the right of electing
their own pastor. The constitution which
this act established, was allowed to subsist for
about two-and-twenty years, but was abolished
by the 10th of queen Anne, ch. 12, on
account of the confusions and disorders which
this more popular mode of election had almost
everywhere occasioned. In so extensive
a country as Scotland, however, a tumult
in a remote parish was not so likely to
give disturbance to government as in a smaller
state. The 10th of queen Anne restored
the rights of patronage. But though, in
Scotland, the law gives the benefice, without
any exception to the person presented by the
patron; yet the church requires sometimes
(for she has not in this respect been very uniform
in her decisions) a certain concurrence
of the people, before she will confer upon
the presentee what is called the cure of souls,
or the ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the parish.
She sometimes, at least, from an affected
concern for the peace of the parish, delays
the settlement till this concurrence can be
procured. The private tampering of some
of the neighbouring clergy, sometimes to
procure, but more frequently to prevent this
concurrence, and the popular arts which they
cultivate, in order to enable them upon such
occasions to tamper more effectually, are
perhaps the causes which principally keep up
whatever remains of the old fanatical spirit,
either in the clergy or in the people of Scotland.
The equality which the presbyterian form
of church government establishes among the
clergy, consists, first, in the equality of authority
or ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and,
secondly, in the equality of benefice. In all
presbyterian churches, the equality of authority
is perfect; that of benefice is not so.
The difference, however, between one benefice
and another, is seldom so considerable,
as commonly to tempt the possessor even of
the small one to pay court to his patron, by
the vile arts of flattery and assentation, in
order to get a better. In all the presbyterian
churches, where the rights of patronage are
thoroughly established, it is by nobler and
better arts, that the established clergy in general
endeavour to gain the favour of their
superiors; by their learning, by the irreproachable
regularity of their life, and by the
faithful and diligent discharge of their duty.
Their patrons even frequently complain of
the independency of their spirit, which they
are apt to construe into ingratitude for past
favours, but which, at worst, perhaps, is seldom
any more than that indifference which
naturally arises from the consciousness that
no further favours of the kind are ever to be
expected. There is scarce, perhaps, to be
found anywhere in Europe, a more learned,
decent, independent, and respectable set of
men, than the greater part of the presbyterian
clergy of Holland, Geneva, Switzerland, and
Scotland.
Where the church benefices are all nearly
equal, none of them can be very great; and
this mediocrity of benefice, though it may
be, no doubt, carried too far, has, however,
some very agreeable effects. Nothing but
exemplary morals can give dignity to a man
of small fortune. The vices of levity and
vanity necessarily render him ridiculous, and
are, besides, almost as ruinous to him as they
are to the common people. In his own conduct,
therefore, he is obliged to follow that
system of morals which the common people
respect the most. He gains their esteem and
affection, by that plan of life which his own
interest and situation would lead him to follow.
The common people look upon him
with that kindness with which we naturally
regard one who approaches somewhat to our
own condition, but who, we think, ought to
be in a higher. Their kindness naturally
provokes his kindness. He becomes careful
to instruct them, and attentive to assist and
relieve them. He does not even despise the
prejudices of people who are disposed to be
so favourable to him, and never treats them
with those contemptuous and arrogant airs,
which we so often meet with in the proud
dignitaries of opulent and well endowed
churches. The presbyterian clergy, accordingly,
have more influence over the minds of
the common people, than perhaps the clergy
of any other established church. It is, accordingly,
in presbyterian countries only,
that we ever find the common people converted,
without persecution completely, and
almost to a man, to the established church.
In countries where church benefices are,
the greater part of them, very moderate, a
chair in a university is generally a better establishment
than a church benefice. The
universities have, in this case, the picking
and chusing of their members from all the
churchmen of the country, who, in every
country, constitute by far the most numerous
class of men of letters. Where church benefices,
on the contrary, are many of them
very considerable, the church naturally draws
from the universities the greater part of their
eminent men of letters; who generally find
some patron, who does himself honour by
procuring them church preferment. In the
former situation, we are likely to find the