saying with the apostles in like cases, Judge ye whether it is best to obey God or men,' and also of acting as they acted. "Therefore, as it is contrary to our prin jects of civil governments are the happiness and protection of men in their present state of existence; the security of the life, liberty, and property of the citizens; the restraint of the vicious, and the encourage-ciples and interest, and, as we think, submeut of the virtuous, by wholesome laws, versive of religious liberty, we do again equally extending to every individual; and most earnestly entreat that our Legislathat the duty which men owe to their Cre-ture would never extend any assessment ator, and the manner of discharging it, can for religious purposes to us, or to the cononly be directed by reason and conviction, gregations under our care.' and is nowhere cognizable but at the tribu- This memorial, and probably still more, nal of the universal Judge, the presbytery | the strenuous efforts of the Baptists, led, express themselves as follows: in 1779, to the abandonment of the pro With the return of peace, the Legislature of Virginia resumed the subject of legislating in behalf of religion; and in the sessions of 1784 two important matters were much debated. One was to provide by law for the incorporation of "all societies of the Christian religion which may apply for the same;" the other was the old project of a general assessment for the support of religion. The celebrated Patrick Henry* was the great advocate To illustrate and confirm these asser-posed "general assessment," after a bill tions, we beg leave to observe, that to to that effect had been ordered a third judge for ourselves, and to engage in the reading. exercise of religion agreeably to the dictates of our own consciences, is an inalienable right, which, upon the principles on which the Gospel was first propagated, and the Reformation from Popery carried on, can never be transferred to another. Neither does the Church of Christ stand in need of a general assessment for its support; and most certain we are that it would be of no advantage, but an injury to the Society to which we belong; and as every good Christian believes that Christ has ordained a complete system of laws for the government of His kingdom, so we are persuaded that by His providence He will support it to its final consummation. In the fixed belief of this principle, that the kingdom of Christ and the concerns of religion are beyond the limits of civil control, we should act a dishonest, inconsistent part, were we to receive any emoluments from human establishments for the support of the Gospel. "These things being considered, we hope that we shall be excused for remonstrating against a general assessment for any religious purpose. As the maxims have long been approved, that every servant is to obey his master, and that the hireling is accountable for his conduct to him from whom he receives his wages; in like manner, if the Legislature has any rightful authority over the ministers of the Gospel in the exercise of their sacred office, and if it is their duty to levy a maintenance for them as such, then it will follow that they may revive the old Establishment in its former extent, or ordain a new one for any sect that they may think proper; they are invested with a power not only to determine, but it is incumbent on them to declare who shall preach, what they shall preach, to whom, when, and in what places they shall preach; or to impose any regulations and restrictions upon religious societies that they may judge expedient. These consequences are so plain as not to be denied, and they are so entirely subversive of religious liberty, that if they should take place in Virginia, we should be reduced to the melancholy necessity of that America has ever produced, was for many years 66 as When very old, he was induced to be a candidate to render the churches altogether independent of the civil power, and to have all placed precisely on the same footing, as respected the civil government. Mr. Jefferson's grand achievement, im the line of legislating about religious rights, was the famous act "for establishing religious freedom," drawn up by him, and adopted by the Legislature of Virginia in 1785.† That act in itself, however, con of both measures. The Hanover Pres- | for the support of all Protestant denomibytery soon reappeared upon the field, and nations defeated.* Mr. Jefferson, it is true, opposed the latter of these proposals, al- when a member of the Assembly in 1776, though it would have proved as favoura- rendered all the aid in his power, and ble to the Presbyterian Church as any oth- would have been very well pleased to have er. But on this occasion there was an ev- had such parties to co-operate with him in ident wavering on the part of the presby- some other schemes, if he could. But they, tery, probably owing to an expectation not he, began the movement in this case, that the measure would be sure to be adopt-and they persevered in their endeavours ed, and from their desire to secure the least injurious plan of giving it effect. It has also been alleged as one cause of the temporary abatement of their zeal, that Mr. Henry had won over to his opinions the Rev. Dr. John B. Smith, one of the ablest members of the presbytery. Certain it is, that an act to incorporate the churches passed by a large vote, and a bill in favour of a general assessment passed two readings, was ordered to be read a third time, and was then sent forth to be finite mischief. It never could have been confined * A general assessment bill would have done insubmitted to the people for their opinion to the Evangelical Churches, and would have endbefore being passed into a law. On the ed in building up Unitarianism, Universalism, &c., same day, likewise, on which an act was in Virginia, just as a similar measure did afterward passed for the incorporation of such churchin New-England. † As the reader may wish to see this famous ores as might apply for the same, leave was dinance, which Mr. Jefferson challenged so much granted to introduce a bill for the incorpo- credit to himself for having written and advocated, ration of the Protestant Episcopal Church. we give it in this note: "Whereas Almighty God Mr. Henry introduced the bill. It had for hath created the mind free; that all attempts to inits object the securing to that church all by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of fluence it by temporal punishments or burdens, or the property that it had ever had, both in hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from those parishes which had churches in use, the plan of the holy Author of our religion, who, be and in the still greater number which had ing Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to no ministers, and not even vestries, and propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his al-where the church edifices had become di- of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiasti-. mighty power to do; that the impious presumption lapidated during the war of the Revolu- cal, who, being themselves but fallible and unin-tion. This bill was approved by the Le-spired men, have assumed dominion over the faith gislature, and promised permanent peace of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of and protection to the Episcopal Church. thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath estabBut the prospect was not of long contin- lished or maintained false religions over the greatest uance. The incorporation of the Episco- part of the world, and through all time; that to compal clergy was strongly opposed in a me- pel a man to furnish contributions of money for the morial from the Presbytery of Hanover, ful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to suppropagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinunder the influence of which the Legisla-port this or that preacher of his own religious perture delayed farther proceedings, in order suasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty that public opinion might have time to ex- of giving his contributions to the particular pastor press itself. Meanwhile, petitions against whose morals he would make his pattern, and whose the measure were sent in from all parts and is withdrawing from the ministry those tempopowers he feels most persuasive to righteousness, of Virginia, signed by no fewer than 10,000 ral rewards, which, proceeding from an approbation. persons. Still, as the Legislature seemed of their personal conduct, are an additional incitedisposed to pass the bill in question, the ment to earnest and unremitting labours for the inPresbyterian churches held a convention, dependance on our religious opinions, any more than struction of mankind; that our civil rights have no ~ at which another memorial was drawn up, on our opinions in physic and geometry; that thereand the Rev. Dr. John B. Smith, who had fore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy of the now become more confirmed in his oppo- public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity sition to the contemplated measure, was of being called to offices of trust and emolument, appointed to accompany the presentation opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those priviunless he profess or renounce this or that religious of the memorial with his personal advo-leges and advantages to which, in common with his cacy at the bar of the Assembly, and was heard there for three successive days. This decided the matter; the whole scheme was abandoned. fellow-citizens, he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt the principles of that religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments those who will externally profess or conform to it; that though, inThus, it was mainly owing to the exer- deed, those are criminal who do not withstand such tions of the Presbyterians, Baptists, and temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay Quakers that the union of Church and the bait in their way; that to suffer the civil magisState in Virginia was dissolved, and the and to restrain the profession or propagation of printrate to intrude his powers into the field of opinion, scheme of having a general assessmentciples on suspicion of their ill-tendency, is a danger tains nothing to which a friend of full and equal liberty of conscience would perhaps object; but it gave its author great satisfaction, not because it imbodied the principles of eternal justice, but because, by putting all religious sects on an equality, it seemed to degrade Christianity, and "to comprehend," to use his own words, "within the mantle of protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mohammedan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination." It was this that made the arch-infidel chuckle with satisfaction-not, we repeat, that the great principles imbodied in the measure were right. I have.now gone through the history of the dissolution of the union of Church and State in Virginia*—a dissolution effected, in reality, by the act of the 6th of December, 1776, which repealed all former acts relating to that union. What followed had no necessary connexion with that act, but bore only upon certain measures, designed to guard against what was deemed by the majority to be an injurious legislation for promoting the interests of religion. dissolving the union of Church and State in Virginia, after the war of the Revolution had broken out, had some effect, probably, on other states placed in similar circumstances. Such, at least, is the prevailing impression in the absence of authentic documentary proof. After the Declaration of Independence, measures to the same effect were very promptly taken in Maryland. On the 3d of November, 1776, the Legislature of that state put forth a Declaration of Rights similar to that made by Virginia in the early part of the same year, and imbodying principles directly subversive of the union of Church and State. The Episcopal Church, nevertheless, was secured in the possession of the glebes and all other church property, and it was decided that the stipends of all the incumbents who should remain at their posts should be paid up to the first day of the month in which said Declaration was made. This righteous decision was not departed from, and Maryland, accordingly, was spared those tedious and wretched disputes about the property of the Church that had once been established; disputes that did much harm to religion in Virginia, and' were little reputable to the authors of them. In the Maryland" Declaration of Rights," it was declared, " that as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such a manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons professing the Christian religion are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate on account of his re This early discussion of the propriety of ous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious liberty; because, he being, of course, judge of that tendency, will make his opinions the rule of judg ment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others only as they shall square with or differ from his own that it is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order: and, finally, that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons--free argument and debate-errors ceasing to be danger-ligious persuasion or profession, or for his ous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. "Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever; nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burdened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities. "And though we well know that this Assembly, elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural right of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.” * I might have gone into an ampler detail of the measures pursued by the opponents of the Episcopal Church in Virginia to annul the law incorporating the clergy of that church, and of those, also, which were followed up, in 1802, by the sale of the glebes; but such details have no proper connexion with the subject in hand. The law ordaining the sale of the glebes was, I think, unconstitutional, and would have been pronounced to be so had it been brought to a fair and full decision before the proper tribunal. The opposition to the Episcopal Church towards the end was marked by a cruelty which admits of no apology. religious practice, unless, under colour of religion, any man shall disturb the good order, peace, or safety of the state, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their natural, civil, or religious rights." It was farther declared that no one ought to be compelled to frequent or maintain the religious worship of any denomination; but, at the same time, it was affirmed that the Legislature might, in its discretion, impose a common and equal tax for the support of the Christian religion in general; in such case, however, every individual paying the tax was held to possess the right of designating the religious denomination to the support of which it was to be applied; or he might resolve this legislative support of Christianity in general into mere almsgiving, and direct his tax to be applied to the maintenance of the poor.* The union of Church and State was dissolved in like manner, by acts of their respective legislatures, in New-York, South Carolina, and all the other colonies in which the Protestant Episcopal Church *See Dr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church of Maryland," p. 288. was predominant. But it is unnecessary to trace the steps by which this dissolution was accomplished in all cases. There was nothing particularly important, in so far as I am aware, in these details. Enough to know that the dissolution did take place at no distant periods after the Revolution. people is (not only Christ's, but also), in reality, the king's minister; and the salary raised for him is raised in the king's name, and is the king's allowance unto him."* Before the Revolution took place, the Episcopalians had been relieved, by a special act of the Legislature, from contribuLet us now return to New-England, ting to the support of the parish churches, where the principle of religious establish- and their congregations had been erected ments was most firmly rooted, and most into incorporated societies, or poll-parishdifficult to be eradicated. es; that is, parishes comprising only indiIt was not until about forty years subse-viduals, and not marked by geographical quent to the separation of Church and State limits. But though the Constitution of in Virginia that the example was follow- 1780, which maintained the old assessment ed by Connecticut. It will be recollected for religious worship, allowed every perthat in the latter state the Established son to appropriate his taxes to whatever Church was the Congregational. In 1816, society he pleased, it was still held by the shortly after the close of the last war be- courts of that state, until the year 1811, tween the United States and Great Britain, that a member of a territorial parish (which all parties that differed from it-Episcopa- is a corporation) could not divert the taxlians, Baptists, Methodists, Universalists, es imposed on him for the support of reli&c.-combined to effect its overthrow. gious worship to the maintenance of a These various parties having succeeded in teacher of an unincorporated society. By gaining a majority in the Legislature, pro- the statute of 1811, amended in 1823, a ceeded to abolish the legal assessment for duly-attested certificate of membership in the parish churches, and by a new law left any other religious society, whether incorit optional to the rate-payers to support porated or not, sufficed to relieve the holdeither the parish church, or any other, as er of it from all taxes for the support of each thought fit. The same system was the parish church; but it was still the law adopted by New-Hampshire and Maine. and practice of Massachusetts to regard all Vermont, I believe, has at all times had persons, in any town or parish, who beessentially the voluntary scheme; that is, longed to no religious society whatever, as the people of each township have support- regular members of the parish or congreed such churches within their respective gational church, and taxable for the supboundaries, and in such a measure, as they port of its clergy. have thought proper. Of all the states in which there had ever been any connexion between the Church and the Civil Power, Massachusetts was the last to come under the operation of the voluntary principle. The fathers of that colony, in the indulgence of their theocratic principles and ideas, had ever prided themselves on the union made by the vine of the Lord's planting and the State. They had with great satisfaction reposed under the shadow of both, and discoursed of the happy fruits of such a union. Cotton Mather, for example, in a style peculiarly his own, talks not only of the advantage, but of the honour, likewise, of a religious establishment. "Ministers of the Gospel," says he, "would have a poor time of it, if they must rely on a free contribution of the people for their maintenance." " And again: I have elsewhere spoken of the accumulated evils which grew out of the connexion between the Church and the State in Massachusetts. Those evils became so great, that the friends of evangelical religion, in other words, of the orthodox faith of every name, resolved to unite in urging an amendment of the Constitution of the state, by which some better results might be obtained. Their efforts were crowned with success. The amendment having been voted by the Legislature in three successive sessions, 1831-33, became part of the organic law of the state, and the union of Church and State was brought to a close. CHAPTER IV. "The laws of the province (of Massachu-EFFECTS OF THE DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION setts) having had the royal approbation to ratify them, they are the king's laws. By these laws it is enacted that there shall be a public worship of God in every plantation; that the person elected by the majority of the inhabitants to be so, shall be looked upon as the minister of the place; and that the salary for him, which they shall agree upon, shall be levied by a rate upon all the inhabitants. In consequence of this, the minister thus chosen by the OF CHURCH AND STATE IN THE SEVERAL It will readily be believed that the union * "Ratio Disciplinæ; or, Faithful Account of the Discipline professed and practised in the Churches of New-England," p. 20. † For a brief and clear view of the laws of Massachusetts on this subject, the reader is referred to a sermon of the Rev. William Cogswell, D.D., on Religious Liberty, preached on the day of the annual Fast in Massachusetts, April 3d, 1828, and published in Boston. of Church and State, in any country where | people, so many of whom were republican it has once existed, cannot be dissolved in sentiment, and hostile for the time to without some attendant inconvenience. If the mother-country; and the Episcopal such has been the nature of the connexion Church could not fail to suffer from the that the Church has been wholly depend- sympathy shown by many of its clergy for ant on the State for its support, for the those who were considered the country's keeping of its places of worship in repair, enemies. This was, no doubt, counterthe maintenance of its pastors, and the in- acted so far by there being in the minority cidental expenses of public worship, very of the clergy such stanch republicans and serious embarrassments must inevitably avowed partisans of the colonies as the attend a sudden dissolution of such a union. Rev. Dr. Madison, afterward bishop of the Such was unquestionably the case in some state, Drs. Griffith and Bracken, Messrs. Buof the States of America. In others, again, chanan, Jarratt, and others;* while as rein which the connexion had been one of gards the laity, no men in all the colonies no long duration, had never been very entered more warmly into the Revolution close, and had not been carried out to a than did the Episcopalians of Virginia.† great extent, that result was attended with little and not very lasting evil. In the third place, Virginia was the immediate theatre of no small part of the war, and was repeatedly overrun by the armies of both sides. Now, without attributing too much to wantonness, though much, no doubt, was owing to that, it may readily be supposed that the Episcopal Churches, the best in the colony, would be sure to be used as barracks, storehouses, hospitals, &c., thus losing at once their sacred character, and suffering much in their furnishings. Partly, indeed, from accident, partly, it is believed, from design, not a few were destroyed by fire and other causes. teaching schools, but even to that the times were unfavourable. Many mere boys shouldered the musket and went to the war, returning no more to their homes until hostilities had ceased, if death did not prevent them from returning at all. Nowhere were the ill consequences of the disestablishment of the Church felt more seriously than in Virginia, and this may be ascribed to several causes. The worthless character of many of the clergymen sent over from England had bred in many places, from the very first, great indifference to the Church and its services. The people had become tired of compulsory payments for the support of a form of worship which they had ceased to love or respect. Thus many became indifferent to religious worship of every kind, and others went off to the "dissenters"- In the fourth place, so engrossed were the Presbyterians, Baptists, &c., when all men's minds with the war, that the there were churches of these denomina- time was very unfavourable for doing tions in their neighbourhoods. However good. Many of the ministers who redeplorable it might be that the venerable mained in the province found great diffiedifices in which their fathers had worship-culty in collecting the people together, ped should be almost deserted from such a or obtaining for themselves the means of cause, it was nevertheless inevitable. Not subsistence. Some betook themselves to that this representation applies to every parish; in many cases, the faithful and consistent lives of the pastors kept their flocks, under God, in a state of prosperity. In the second place, a large majority, some say rather more than two thirds of the Episcopal clergy* in Virginia were opposed to the Revolution, and most of these returned to England. Nor are they to be In one instance, an Episcopal clergyman of Virblamed without mercy for so doing. Many ginia, the Rev. Mr. Muhlenburg, relinquished his of them, it must be remembered, were Eng- charge, accepted a commission as colonel in the lishmen by birth, and England was the land American army, raised a regiment among his own parof all their early associations. They had from the service at its close with the rank of a brigishioners, served through the whole war, and retired never suffered oppression, but had ever been adier-general. The last sermon that he ever preachof the party in favour with the monarch.ed to his people before he left for the camp, was deThus nothing could be more natural than that even good men among them should be Tories. Others there were, doubtless, who saw that the independence of the country would be likely so to alter the state of things as to make it impossible for them to continue their delinquencies with impunity, which they had enjoyed when responsible only to a bishop 3000 miles off. But this loyalty to the British crown was not likely to find much forbearance among a * Dr. Hawks's" History of the Episcopal Church in Virginia," p. 136. H Bearing these things in mind, the state of the Episcopal Churches in Virginia livered in military dress.-Thatcher's "Military Jour- Such as General Washington, Patrick Henry (of whom we have spoken in the last chapter), Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the Declaration of Indeof the signers, George Mason, Edmund Pendleton, pendence, his brother, Francis Lightfoot Lee, one Peter Lyons, Paul Carrington, William Fleming, William Grayson, with the families of the Nelsons, Meades, Mercers, Harrisons, Randolphs, and hunDr. Hawks's "History of the Episcopal Church in Virdreds of other names deservedly dear to Virginia.ginia," p. 137. Not that the damage done by the war to other |