Excerpt from Two Discourses to Townsmen

Such, my friends, were the language and'sentiments of those, who have gone before you, and who have transmit ted to you, in common with other towns, all the privileges, which the friends of religion and liberty, could ask or de sire. 'they believed, that godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life, that now is, and of that which is to come. They believed that the temporal prosperity of towns, is intimately connected with their moral and religious welfare that the most effectual means of preserving habits of industry and sobriety among a people, are the regular observation of the Sabbath, and a regular attendance on the institutions and ordinances of the gospel. So far were they from considering the support of ministers as tending to poverty, that they regarded it as one of the best means of promoting their interest even in this world. A ministerial tax in their days was no such frightful, or burdensome thing, as in our day it has come to be. They looked upon well principled and well edu cated ministers, as worthy of support. They considered, that the Lord himself had ordained, that they who preach the gospel, should live of the gospel; and that a fixed and permanent support by taxation according to property, was not only the easiest, but the most likely to secure the ser vices of men of education and character. They believed, (and their principles have since been verified) that publick instruction committed to illiterate men, tended not only to degrade the ministerial character, but to vitiate the pub lick taste. They did not esteem a preacher the less, for having had a regular and liberal education; nor were their ears offended at 'the sound of a written discourse. The doctrine, that ignorance is the mother of devo tion, they well knew, was no doctrine of Protestants. They honoured knowledge. They honoured an enlight ened, as well as pious ministry.

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