a presbytery, a synod, and, finally, a general assembly; before all of which this matter may be contended; and, in some cases, the presbytery having refused to induct or settle, as they call it, the person presented by the patron, it has been found necessary to appeal to the general assembly.  Johnson said, I might see the subject well treated in the Defence of Pluralities; and although he thought that a patron should exercise his right with tenderness to the inclinations of the people of a parish, he was very clear as to his right.  Then supposing the question to be pleaded before the general assembly, he dictated to me what follows.”—­Boswell, ii. 248.]

Against the right of patrons is commonly opposed, by the inferiour judicatures, the plea of conscience.  Their conscience tells them, that the people ought to choose their pastor; their conscience tells them, that they ought not to impose upon a congregation a minister ungrateful and unacceptable to his auditors.  Conscience is nothing more than a conviction, felt by ourselves, of something to be done, or something to be avoided; and in questions of simple unperplexed morality, conscience is very often a guide that may be trusted.  But before conscience can determine, the state of the question is supposed to be completely known.  In questions of law, or of fact, conscience is very often confounded with opinion.  No man’s conscience can tell him the rights of another man; they must be known by rational investigation, or historical inquiry.  Opinion, which he that holds it may call his conscience, may teach some men that religion would be promoted, and quiet preserved, by granting to the people universally the choice of their ministers.  But it is a conscience very ill informed that violates the rights of one man, for the convenience of another.  Religion cannot be promoted by injustice:  and it was never yet found that a popular election was very quietly transacted.

That justice would be violated by transferring to the people the right of patronage, is apparent to all who know whence that right had its original.  The right of patronage was not at first a privilege torn by power from unresisting poverty.  It is not an authority, at first usurped in times of ignorance, and established only by succession and by precedents.  It is not a grant capriciously made from a higher tyrant to a lower.  It is a right dearly purchased by the first possessours, and justly inherited by those that succeed them.  When Christianity was established in this island, a regular mode of worship was prescribed.  Publick worship requires a publick place; and the proprietors of lands, as they were converted, built churches for their families and their vassals.  For the maintenance of ministers they settled a certain portion of their lands; and a district, through which each minister was required to extend his care, was, by that circumscription, constituted a parish.  This is a position so generally