e concerns of religion; and there
is no argument in favor of establishing the Christian religion but what
may be pleaded with equal propriety for establishing the tenets of
Mohammed by those who believe the Alcoran; or, if this be not true, it
is at least impossible for the magistrate to adjudge the right of
preference among the various sects that profess the Christian faith,
without erecting a chair of infallibility which would lead us back to
the church of Rome." Religious establishments (they contended) are
injurious to the temporal interests of any community; and the more early
settlement of Virginia, and her natural advantages, would have
attracted hither multitudes of industrious and useful members of
society, but they had either remained in their place of nativity, or
preferred worse civil governments and a more barren soil, where they
might enjoy the rights of conscience more fully. Nor did religion need
the aid of an establishment; on the contrary, as her weapons are
spiritual, Christianity would flourish in the greatest purity when left
to her native excellence; and the duty which we owe our Creator can only
be directed by reason and conviction.

This memorial was composed, in behalf of the presbytery, by the Rev.
Caleb Wallace, of Charlotte County, a graduate of Princeton. He was in
attendance upon the assembly for six or eight weeks for the furthering
of this object.[674:A]

The clergy of the established church presented petitions in favor of
continuing the establishment, and they were re-enforced by the
Methodists as a society in communion with the Church of England. It was
urged that good faith to the clergy required that they should not be
deprived of their livings, which belonged to them for life, or during
good behaviour; that an ecclesiastical establishment was in itself a
desirable institution, it being for the benefit of the community that a
body of Christian ministers should be thus supported; and that if all
denominations were reduced to an equality, the contest for superiority
among them would involve confusion, and probably civil commotion; and
finally that a majority of the people of Virginia desired to have the
church establishment maintained.

The assembly exempted dissenters from contributions for the support of
the Church of England, and repealed all penal laws against any mode of
worship, leaving all denominations for the present to support their
clergy by voluntary contributions, and re