That all agreements made by the inhabitants of a society or the major part of them assembled in a society-meeting, respecting the settlement and maintenance of the minister they have chosen, shall be binding to all the inhabitants of such society, and to their successors; which sums or payments so agreed to shall be levied and assessed on the several inhabitants in such society, according to their respective estates from time to time, as they shall be set in the general list; which sums or payments shall be gathered by such person said society shall appoint to be the collector of them, who is to repair to an assistant or justice of the peace for a warrant to enable him to collect the rate.
Now then, as by the preceeding laws, such agreements are made binding to the inhabitants of a society and their successors &c. hence to be denied and secluded the benefit of any law made for the support and encouragement of the gospel ministry, includes in it the being denied and secluded the benefit of holding the society to such agreements; and so this law plainly intends, by prohibiting any assistant or justice of the peace, to sign any warrant for collecting a rate where a minister has been certified against, as having acted contrary to this law. So that, in short, the punishment is the deprivation of his livelihood; and thence forward he may beg his bread. This appears unreasonable, to inflict so heavy a punishment for preaching in such cases as abovementioned, when (as it may happen) it might be evidently duty so to do. But let the preaching be at the desire of more or fewer, still it is no immorality: it is but an ecclesiastical disorder, even in the account of this law, which surely can’t deserve so severe a penalty. Many gross immoralities have a much less punishment assigned for them, than this heretofore supposed innocent action of preaching the gospel. If the civil peace was broken by it, I can’t see how so severe a punishment for it can be justified. But it is evident, the civil peace is not broken by this supposed crime, which is nothing but preaching the gospel; which is so far from breaking the peace, or tending thereto, that it intirely tends to make men better, and so better subjects. The preaching out of his own parish does not alter the nature of the action, nor is the natural tendency of the word changed thereby; no man’s civil property or interest is at all invaded by it; and how such an action can be punished at all, appears mysterious to me! It is not for preaching sedition or treason, but even the gospel of peace, that CHRIST’S ministers are render’d liable to be deprived of their daily bread.
If it should be here said, That these laws made for the support of the gospel ministry, are to be looked upon as acts of favour, relative to such as comply with the ecclesiastical constitution of the government; and so if any ministers will not keep within the bounds of that constitution, they justly forfeit such favour; and so the punishment here is to be understood, a declaration that their right to such favour now ceases. I answer,
1. That action, which by this law is made thus criminal, is not contrary to, but well consistent with the ecclesiastical constitution, under which these ministers are supposed to settle. It is not inconsistent with that ecclesiastical constitution, for any minister to preach in any other parish than his own to any number of Christians on their desire at any of their private religious exercises. But I will only instance in one particular made thus criminal by this act, which is warranted by that ecclesiastical constitution, and the constant practice of the churches. The right hand of fellowship is given at every ordination, in which the ministers and churches concerned, do solemnly promise to esteem and treat the person ordained as a duly authorized minister of CHRIST, and to be ready on all occasions to own him as such, and to assist him in his work: In consequence of these solemn promises, ministers & churches have looked upon themselves under such obligations to each other, that if one of these ministers’ judges he has real need of assistance in preaching, from another (where these mutual obligations take place) he has right to ask it, tho’ the church does not join with him in it, and the church’s so hearing him preach they have always judged (and therein they have judged truly) is acting but agreable to those previous obligations they have laid themselves under to him, to treat him as an authorized minister of CHRIST, and to hold communion with him as such; one way of doing which, is certainly hearing the word from him. So that it is plain, one minister’s preaching for another upon his desire, tho’ the church joins not in it, is at least well consistent with the ecclesiastical constitution (and I need say no more of it in this argument) under which these ministers are supposed to settle, according to the objection: and therefore no forfeiture is made, by such an action, of the benefit of the laws made in favour of the ecclesiastical constitution. They have right to this benefit so long (at least) as they act consistently with that ecclesiastical constitution under which they settled. The act, disallow’d by this law, and for which they are deprived of this benefit, is consistent with that constitution. In this manner therefore to deprive them of it, is to take it away while their right to it in equity remains good. This, you see, I have said on the supposition, those laws are to be considered only as acts of grace, as laid in the objection. But then I say in the next place—
2. The laws here referred to, made for the support of the gospel ministry, are not acts of grace; they are no other than what the legislature tho’t themselves obliged to make. If the civil authority of a state are obliged to take care for the support of religion, or in other words, of schools and the gospel ministry, in order to their approving themselves nursing fathers (as, I suppose, every body will own, and therefore I shall not spend any time in proving it), then the law especially referred to is not an act of grace. It was what the legislature judged most just, easy, and equal for the people, safe and easy for the minister, who is to give himself wholly to his work; or in a word, best for the people and the minister, that contracts should be so made, so binding and so performed; for both people and minister are concerned in the act. I don’t say, the legislature could not have provided as well in some other way: this is no ways necessary to be supposed in the case. But as they were obliged to make some good provision in the case, both with respect to the people who are to pay, and the minister who is to receive, so in their wisdom they fixed on that method, as what was good for the whole. ’Tis therefore no more an act of grace, than any act of the legislature respecting any civil interests or contracts of the subject. What the public good calls for therein, they are obliged to do: And the acts they make in pursuance thereof are no acts of grace, but (strictly speaking) of debt to the people. And as the act, referred to, is not an act of grace, so this law brings a punishment, not only on the minister, as before observed, but on the people too, by letting them loose from their agreement with their minister, the now supposed offender. For the minister remaining with the people, they have a new contract to make, and must take some other method for performing it, than what the law in the former case had provided: And from the known straithanded disposition in too many towards the support of the gospel, it must needs follow, that the burden of the support of it must lie much more unequally upon the people, and perhaps on but a very few. As this is the certain consequence, so is it a certainty, that an innocent people are punished, with their minister, by this law. Besides, how the letting a people loose from their solemn agreements with their minister, for an action never supposed criminal before this law was made, and is certainly no violation of the contract he made with them, can consist with justice and equity, is beyond the ken of ordinary understandings: which I might have argued from as a distinct head; but it is sufficient to observe it as I pass, it lying now in my way. To return, As the punishment is extraordinary, so is the manner of inflicting it extraordinary too, viz. the minister of the parish where he shall so offend, or the civil authority or any two of the committee of such parish, sending an information thereof in writing under their hands to the clerk of the parish where such offending minister does belong, this does the business at once, as appears by the third paragraph in the act. So that meerly from the information of one person (as it may be) of a different persuasion in religion, and inclined from a party-spirit to oppress, or one that has a personal prejudice against a minister, given to the clerk of a parish (whether true or false) the minister is deprived of his livelihood. Thus the business is effected without any formality of a legal trial, or the shadow of it. This, as I take it, is directly contrary to the priviledges of an Englishman contained in Magna Charta, which has cost our predecessors rivers of blood to defend, and transmit down as sacred to their descendants. If such a law as condemns a man without hearing him, deserves to be expunged the records of a free people (I might