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The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

S >> Samuel Johnson >> The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes




We hear it sometimes urged, that this original right is passed out of
memory, and is obliterated and obscured by many translations of property
and changes of government; that scarce any church is now in the hands of
the heirs of the builders; and that the present persons have entered
subsequently upon the pretended rights by a thousand accidental and
unknown causes. Much of this, perhaps, is true. But how is the right of
patronage extinguished? If the right followed the lands, it is
possessed, by the same equity by which the lands are possessed. It is,
in effect, part of the manor, and protected by the same laws with every
other privilege. Let us suppose an estate forfeited by treason, and
granted by the crown to a new family. With the lands were forfeited all
the rights appendant to those lands; by the same power that grants the
lands, the rights also are granted. The right, lost to the patron, falls
not to the people, but is either retained by the crown, or, what to the
people is the same thing, is by the crown given away. Let it change
hands ever so often, it is possessed by him that receives it, with the
same right as it was conveyed. It may, indeed, like all our possessions,
be forcibly seized or fraudulently obtained. But no injury is still done
to the people; for what they never had, they have never lost. Caius may
usurp the right of Titius, but neither Caius nor Titius injure the
people; and no man's conscience, however tender or however active, can
prompt him to restore what may be proved to have been never taken away.
Supposing, what I think cannot be proved, that a popular election of
ministers were to be desired, our desires are not the measure of equity.
It were to be desired, that power should be only in the hands of the
merciful, and riches in the possession of the generous; but the law must
leave both riches and power where it finds them; and must often leave
riches with the covetous, and power with the cruel. Convenience may be a
rule in little things, where no other rule has been established. But, as
the great end of government is to give every man his own, no
inconvenience is greater than that of making right uncertain. Nor is any
man more an enemy to publick peace, than he who fills weak heads with
imaginary claims, and breaks the series of civil subordination, by
inciting the lower classes of mankind to encroach upon the higher.

Having thus shown that the right of patronage, being originally
purchased, may be legally transferred, and that it is now in the hands
of lawful possessours, at least as certainly as any other right, we have
left the advocates of the people no other plea than that of convenience.
Let us, therefore, now consider what the people would really gain by a
general abolition of the right of patronage. What is most to be desired
by such a change is, that the country should be supplied with better
ministers. But why should we suppose that the parish will make a wiser
choice than the patron? If we suppose mankind actuated by interest, the
patron is more likely to choose with caution, because he will suffer
more by choosing wrong. By the deficiencies of his minister, or by his
vices, he is equally offended with the rest of the congregation; but he
will have this reason more to lament them, that they will be imputed to
his absurdity or corruption. The qualifications of a minister are well
known to be learning and piety. Of his learning the patron is probably
the only judge in the parish; and of his piety not less a judge than
others; and is more likely to inquire minutely and diligently before he
gives a presentation, than one of the parochial rabble, who can give
nothing but a vote. It may be urged, that though the parish might not
choose better ministers, they would, at least, choose ministers whom
they like better, and who would, therefore, officiate with greater
efficacy. That ignorance and perverseness should always obtain what they
like, was never considered as the end of government; of which it is the
great and standing benefit, that the wise see for the simple, and the
regular act for the capricious. But that this argument supposes the
people capable of judging, and resolute to act according to their best
judgments, though this be sufficiently absurd, it is not all its
absurdity. It supposes not only wisdom, but unanimity in those, who upon
no other occasions are unanimous or wise. If by some strange concurrence
all the voices of a parish should unite in the choice of any single man,
though I could not charge the patron with injustice for presenting a
minister, I should censure him as unkind and injudicious. But it is
evident, that, as in all other popular elections, there will be
contrariety of judgment and acrimony of passion; a parish upon every
vacancy would break into factions, and the contest for the choice of a
minister would set neighbours at variance, and bring discord into
families. The minister would be taught all the arts of a candidate,
would flatter some, and bribe others; and the electors, as in all other
cases, would call for holy-days and ale, and break the heads of each
other during the jollity of the canvass. The time must, however, come at
last, when one of the factions must prevail, and one of the ministers
get possession of the church. On what terms does he enter upon his
ministry, but those of enmity with half his parish? By what prudence or
what diligence can he hope to conciliate the affections of that party,
by whose defeat he has obtained his living? Every man who voted against
him will enter the church with hanging head and downcast eyes, afraid to
encounter that neighbour by whose vote and influence he has been
overpowered. He will hate his neighbour for opposing him, and his
minister for having prospered by the opposition; and, as he will never
see him but with pain, he will never see him but with hatred. Of a
minister presented by the patron, the parish has seldom any thing worse
to say, than that they do not know him. Of a minister chosen by a
popular contest, all those who do not favour him, have nursed up in
their bosoms principles of hatred and reasons of rejection. Anger is
excited principally by pride. The pride of a common man is very little
exasperated by the supposed usurpation of an acknowledged superiour. He
bears only his little share of a general evil, and suffers in common
with the whole parish; but when the contest is between equals, the
defeat has many aggravations, and he that is defeated by his next
neighbour, is seldom satisfied without some revenge: and it is hard to
say, what bitterness of malignity would prevail in a parish, where these
elections should happen to be frequent, and the enmity of opposition
should be rekindled before it had cooled.



ON PULPIT CENSURE.

[This case shall be introduced by Mr. Boswell himself. "In the course of
a contested election for the borough of Dumfermline, which I attended as
one of my friend Sir Archibald Campbell's counsel, one of his political
agents, who was charged with having been unfaithful to his employer, and
having deserted to the opposite party for a pecuniary reward, attacked,
very rudely, in the newspapers, the reverend James Thompson, one of the
ministers of that place, on account of a supposed allusion to him in one
of his sermons. Upon this, the minister, on a subsequent Sunday,
arraigned him by name, from the pulpit, with some severity; and the
agent, after the sermon was over, rose up and asked the minister aloud,
'What bribe he had received for telling so many lies from the chair of
verity.' I was present at this very extraordinary scene. The person
arraigned, and his father and brother, who also had a share both of the
reproof from the pulpit, and in the retaliation, brought an action
against Mr. Thompson, in the court of session, for defamation and
damages, and I was one of the counsel for the reverend defendant. The
liberty of the pulpit was our great ground of defence; but we argued
also on the provocation of the previous attack, and on the instant
retaliation. The court of session, however, the fifteen judges, who are
at the same time the jury, decided against the minister, contrary to my
humble opinion; and several of them expressed themselves with
indignation against him. He was an aged gentleman, formerly a military
chaplain, and a man of high spirit and honour. He wished to bring the
cause by appeal before the house of lords, but was dissuaded by the
advice of the noble person, who lately presided so ably in that most
honourable house, and who was then attorney-general. Johnson was
satisfied that the judgment was wrong, and dictated to me the following
argument in confutation of it." As our readers will, no doubt, be
pleased to read the opinion of so eminent a man as lord Thurlow, in
immediate comparison with one on the same subject by Johnson, we refer
them to Boswell's Life, vol. iii. p. 59. edit. 1802; from whence the
above extract is taken.]

Of the censure pronounced from the pulpit, our determination must be
formed, as in other cases, by a consideration of the act itself, and the
particular circumstances with which it is invested.

The right of censure and rebuke seems necessarily appendant to the
pastoral office. He, to whom the care of a congregation is entrusted, is
considered as the shepherd of a flock, as the teacher of a school, as
the father of a family. As a shepherd, tending not his own sheep but
those of his master, he is answerable for those that stray, and that
lose themselves by straying. But no man can be answerable for losses
which he has not power to prevent, or for vagrancy which he has not
authority to restrain.

As a teacher giving instruction for wages, and liable to reproach, if
those whom he undertakes to inform make no proficiency, he must have the
power of enforcing attendance, of awakening negligence, and repressing
contradiction.

As a father, he possesses the paternal authority of admonition, rebuke
and punishment. He cannot, without reducing his office to an empty name,
be hindered from the exercise of any practice necessary to stimulate the
idle, to reform the vicious, to check the petulant, and correct the
stubborn.

If we inquire into the practice of the primitive church, we shall, I
believe, find the ministers of the word exercising the whole authority
of this complicated character. We shall find them not only encouraging
the good by exhortation, but terrifying the wicked by reproof and
denunciation. In the earliest ages of the church, while religion was yet
pure from secular advantages, the punishment of sinners was publick
censure, and open penance; penalties inflicted merely by ecclesiastical
authority, at a time when the church had yet no help from the civil
power; while the hand of the magistrate lifted only the rod of
persecution; and when governours were ready to afford a refuge to all
those who fled from clerical authority.

That the church, therefore, had once a power of publick censure is
evident, because that power was frequently exercised. That it borrowed
not its power from the civil authority is, likewise, certain, because
civil authority was at that time its enemy.

The hour came, at length, when, after three hundred years of struggle
and distress, truth took possession of imperial power, and the civil
laws lent their aid to the ecclesiastical constitutions. The magistrate,
from that time, cooperated with the priest, and clerical sentences were
made efficacious by secular force. But the state, when it came to the
assistance of the church, had no intention to diminish its authority.
Those rebukes and those censures, which were lawful before, were lawful
still. But they had hitherto operated only upon voluntary submission.
The refractory and contemptuous were at first in no danger of temporal
severities, except what they might suffer from the reproaches of
conscience, or the detestation of their fellow christians. When religion
obtained the support of law, if admonitions and censures had no effect,
they were seconded by the magistrates with coercion and punishment.

It, therefore, appears, from ecclesiastical history, that the right of
inflicting shame by publick censure has been always considered as
inherent in the church; and that this right was not conferred by the
civil power; for it was exercised when the civil power operated against
it. By the civil power it was never taken away; for the Christian
magistrate interposed his office, not to rescue sinners from censure,
but to supply more powerful means of reformation; to add pain where
shame was insufficient; and when men were proclaimed unworthy of the
society of the faithful, to restrain them by imprisonment, from
spreading abroad the contagion of wickedness.

It is not improbable, that from this acknowledged power of publick
censure, grew, in time, the practice of auricular confession. Those who
dreaded the blast of publick reprehension, were willing to submit
themselves to the priest, by a private accusation of themselves; and to
obtain a reconciliation with the church by a kind of clandestine
absolution and invisible penance; conditions with which the priest
would, in times of ignorance and corruption, easily comply, as they
increased his influence, by adding the knowledge of secret sins to that
of notorious offences, and enlarged his authority, by making him the
sole arbiter of the terms of reconcilement.

From this bondage the Reformation set us free. The minister has no
longer power to press into the retirements of conscience, or torture us
by interrogatories, or put himself in possession of our secrets and our
lives. But though we have thus controlled his usurpations, his just and
original power remains unimpaired. He may still see, though he may not
pry; he may yet hear, though he may not question. And that knowledge
which his eyes and ears force upon him, it is still his duty to use, for
the benefit of his flock. A father, who lives near a wicked neighbour,
may forbid a son to frequent his company. A minister, who has in his
congregation a man of open and scandalous wickedness, may warn his
parishioners to shun his conversation. To warn them is not only lawful,
but not to warn them would be criminal. He may warn them, one by one, in
friendly converse, or by a parochial visitation. But if he may warn each
man singly, what shall forbid him to warn them altogether? Of that which
is to be made known to all, how is there any difference, whether it be
communicated to each singly, or to all together? What is known to all,
must necessarily be publick, whether it shall be publick at once, or
publick by degrees, is the only question. And of a sudden and Solemn
publication the impression is deeper, and the warning more effectual.

It may easily be urged, if a minister be thus left at liberty to delate
sinners from the pulpit, and to publish, at will, the crimes of a
parishioner, he may often blast the innocent and distress the timorous.
He may be suspicious, and condemn without evidence; he may be rash, and
judge without examination; he may be severe, and treat slight offences
with too much harshness; he may be malignant and partial, and gratify
his private interest or resentment under the shelter of his pastoral
character.

Of all this there is possibility, and of all this there is danger. But
if possibility of evil be to exclude good, no good ever can be done. If
nothing is to be attempted in which there is danger, we must all sink
into hopeless inactivity. The evils that may be feared from this
practice arise not from any defect in the institution, but from the
infirmities of human nature. Power, in whatever hands it is placed, will
be sometimes improperly exerted; yet courts of law must judge, though
they will sometimes judge amiss. A father must instruct his children,
though he himself may often want instruction. A minister must censure
sinners, though his censure may be sometimes erroneous by want of
judgment, and sometimes unjust by want of honesty.

If we examine the circumstances of the present case, we shall find the
sentence neither erroneous nor unjust; we shall find no breach of
private confidence, no intrusion into secret transactions. The fact was
notorious and indubitable; so easy to be proved, that no proof was
desired. The act was base and treacherous, the perpetration insolent and
open, and the example naturally mischievous. The minister, however,
being retired and recluse, had not yet heard what was publickly known
throughout the parish; and, on occasion of a publick election, warned
his people, according to his duty, against the crimes which publick
elections frequently produce. His warning was felt by one of his
parishioners, as pointed particularly at himself. But instead of
producing, as might be wished, private compunction and immediate
reformation, it kindled only rage and resentment. He charged his
minister, in a publick paper, with scandal, defamation, and falsehood.
The minister, thus reproached, had his own character to vindicate, upon
which his pastoral authority must necessarily depend. To be charged with
a defamatory lie is an injury which no man patiently endures in common
life. To be charged with polluting the pastoral office with scandal and
falsehood, was a violation of character still more atrocious, as it
affected not only his personal but his clerical veracity. His
indignation naturally rose in proportion to his honesty, and, with all
the fortitude of injured honesty, he dared this calumniator in the
church, and at once exonerated himself from censure, and rescued his
flock from deception and from danger. The man, whom he accuses, pretends
not to be innocent; or, at least, only pretends, for he declines a
trial. The crime of which he is accused has frequent opportunities, and
strong temptations. It has already spread far, with much depravation of
private morals, and much injury to publick happiness.

To warn the people, therefore, against it, was not wanton and officious,
but necessary and pastoral.

What then is the fault with which this worthy minister is charged? He
has usurped no dominion over conscience. He has exerted no authority in
support of doubtful and controverted opinions. He has not dragged into
light a bashful and corrigible sinner. His censure was directed against
a breach of morality, against an act which no man justifies. The man who
appropriated this censure to himself, is evidently and notoriously
guilty. His consciousness of his own wickedness incited him to attack
his faithful reprover with open insolence and printed accusations. Such
an attack made defence necessary; and we hope it will be, at last,
decided, that the means of defence were just and lawful[1].

[1] This nervous argument was honoured by the particular approbation of
Mr. Burke.--Boswell, iii. 62.




END OF VOL. V.