152

“ The other point, which respects the payment made by sectaries,has more difficulty in it; and it becomes perplexed, indeed,when a great majority of a country is not of th.it sect which isestablished by government. The just principle is this: everyman should contribute his due proportion to the maintenance ofthe ministers of religion, (for no state can subsist without somereligion,) and a Christian state should allow a co-establishment ofthe different sects of Christians ; that each individual might havean opportunity of frequenting his own place of worship, withoutbeing burdened by any additional payment to his own minister,exclusive of what he paid to the minister established by the state.

“ This co-establishment cannot, probably, take place in coun-tries which have been long accustomed to patronise one particularmode of worship, with a simple toleration of others; nor is thereany injustice in its not taking place, whilst the majority of the per-sons of property in the country are of opinion that it is more for theinterests of the state to support one sect exclusively, than to sup-port all sects promiscuously. The dissenters in England consti-tute, it has been said, a fourth part of the whole community, butthey do not possess, I think, a fiftieth part of the property of thewhole kingdom. Whether it would be advantageous to the statethat their ministers should be paid by the state, is a question onwhich I have had no occasion to form an opinion; but I amclear in this, that they suffer no injustice in paying tithes, becausethe lands, out of which the tithes issue, were subject to that pay-ment ages before the name of a dissenter was heard of. Theymay as justly be compelled (not to frequent a place of worshipwhich they dislike, that is quite another thing) to pay towards areligious establishment which they dislike, as Your Grace and I,