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{97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people, which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad purpose. It is, therefore, impossible that the government and clergy can, for any length of time, act in opposition to each other: one or other of the two must soon fall, and there have been instances of the triumph of each. We have sometimes seen kings triumph over the clergy, but not very often; and we have frequently seen governments overturned by their means: except, therefore, in a state of revolution, they must mutually support each other. This is the natural state of things; but, in Roman Catholic countries, priests have a superior sway to what they have in any other, for several reasons that are very obvious. In the first place, the sovereign of the nation is not the head of the church; and, in the second, by means of a very superior degree of art and attention, during the dark ages, when the laity were sunk in ignorance, the catholic clergy contrived to entail the church property, from generation to generation, upon the whole body: at the same time, enjoining celibacy, by which all chance of alienation, even of personal property, was done away. As to the means of acquiring property, and of augmenting it; they were many, and, in every contest with the secular authority, they had a great advantage, by speaking, as it were, through ten thousand mouths at once, and giving the alarm to the consciences of the weak. In countries where the protestant religion has been established, the case is widely different. Gothic darkness was nearly fled before the reformation: besides this, the clergy are like other men, with regard to the manner of living; they are fathers and husbands, and, as such, liable to have all the property that is their own alienated, as much as any other set of men [end of page #117] whatever. The reformers, who were neither destitute of penetration nor zeal, and who knew all the abuses of the church of Rome, in matters of regulation as well as of opinion, were very careful to settle the new order of things on such a plan, as to be free from the evils which they had experienced, and against which they had risen with such energy and zeal.
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The simple state of the case is, that the interest of the people is that of the sovereign; and, except in cases where there is a profound ignorance of what is good for the nation, every wise sovereign takes the part of the people. But, under a limited monarchy, or in a democracy, the case is different. There, those bodies, which an arbitrary monarch would reduce to obedience at once, stand upon prerogative themselves; they form a band in the legislature, and act true to their own interests; so that the sovereign himself is compelled to admit of abuses, which he is willing but not able to remedy.
It is a great mistake, and one of the greatest into which people have of late been apt to run, that the government and people of a country are of opposite interests; and that governments wish to oppress the people, and rob them of the means of being affluent and happy: the very contrary is the case; all enlightened monarchs have acted quite differently.
Alfred the Great, Edward III. Queen Elizabeth, and nearly all her successors have endeavoured to increase the wealth and happiness of the people in England. Henry IV. of France, even Louis XIV. Peter the Great of Russia, Catherine, and indeed all his successors, as also the Kings of Prussia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other sovereigns, who know how to shew their disposition, have tried to enrich their people, and render them happy. The great study of the English government has always been directed to that end, and the Romans extended their care even to the nations they subdued. Though there are many sovereigns who have not known how to do this, and therefore have either not attempted it, or erred in the mode they have taken; yet, with very few exceptions indeed, sovereigns have been found to wish for the prosperity of the nations over which they ruled.
In all human institutions there is much that is bad, and something [end of page #118] that is good; and the best, as well as the worst, are only combinations of good and evil, differing in the proportions. In mixt governments, or in limited governments, the people can defend their rights better against the sovereign than against those bodies that spring up amongst themselves: whereas, in pure monarchies, they have only to guard against the encroachments of the sovereign; and he will take care to prevent them from being oppressed by any other power.
This tendency to destruction, from encroachments of public bodies in established governments, is more to be dreaded in limited monarchies, and in democracies, than in pure monarchies; but we have had little occasion to observe the progress in governments of the former sort, excepting the clergy, though the military and the nobles generally play their part.
In Rome, the military never were dangerous, while the armies were only raised, like militias, for the purpose of a particular war; but, when they became a standing body, they were the proximate efficient cause of destroying liberty, though this was only the prelude to that decline which afterwards took place.
In limited monarchies, the lawyers are the greatest body, from which this sort of danger arises, and the reasons are numerous and evident.