Page:Essay on the First Principles of Government 2nd Ed.djvu/233

 Among Dissenters, church emoluments are not worth contending for, and therefore those fierce contests about places, or in places, but seldom happen. A minister seldom chuses to be connected with a society whose general sentiments are much different from his own, nor do societies often invite a person to officiate among them without having previously sufficient reason to depend upon his being agreeable to them. Upon the whole, I am willing to appeal to any person who is well acquainted with the state of Dissenters in England, whether disagreeable events happy so often, or whether the worst effects are of so much consequence, as to bear being put in the balance with the capital advantages of their situation, for improving in religious knowledge and virtue.

Something of the spirit of controversy seems necessary to keep up men's attention to religion in general, as well as to other things; and, notwithstanding a fondness for debate may be of some disservice to practical religion, it is far less