VOLUNTARYISM, or THE VOLUN TARY SYSTEM, a term applied to the support of ministers of religion and their churches by the voluntary contnbutions of the people, as opposed to the connection of church and state, and the support of the ministry frotn tithes or general taxation. Whenever the clergy receive stipends from the state, it is evident that the taxpayer, in addition to the volun tary support, if any, which he gives to some particular church contributes through taxation to the support of an established church or of state-recognized churches in general.
In ancient times state and church were in separable, and opposition to the church was re garded as treason to the state. This relation existed throughout the Middle Ages, and until a comparatively recent period, under the papacy, with the important difference that the state was regarded and treated as subordinate to the church, and as bound to obey its decrees. In the countries which accepted the Protestant doctrines in one form or another the relations of church and state were reversed, and the state, as represented by the sovereign, assumed control of the church, a fact which had much to do with the spread of the Reformation. While the conditions of the connection were changed, however, the tie between church and state be came, in Protestant countries, even stronger than before, an ever-present and jealous mon arch uniting in his own person the hereditary civil power of the Crown, and the religious authority which had formerly been exercised by a distant pope. Dissentees from the estab lished church became rebels, whereas before they had only been heretics, and the devastating civil wars of the 16th and 17th centuries were the outcome, in a large, if not a principal de gree, of this new relation.
The dissentee from a church establislunent did not seek to put a voluntary system in its place. If he triumphed in England or immi grated to Aznerica his aim was to create an established church of his own, and doom to stake or scaffold any intruder who disagreed with him. The colonies of Rhode Island and Maryland, the former founded by Protestants, the latter by Roman Catholics, were framed on tlie plan, then novel to the world, of teleration in matters of conscience, accompanied by its correlate, the voluntary system.
'While the world has made admirable prog ress toward complete liberty of conscience, while the prison and scaffold no longer menace dissenters from an established creed, and men can be friends, and acknowledge each other's good qualities although differing pole-wide — to. use Whittier's expression—in religious opinions, the voluntary system is still almost confined to the United States, Mexico and the leading British colonies. State-supported churches are the rule, even in France and Ger many, where all creeds are on an eqttal foot ing, in Switzerland, where absolute liberty of conscience is decreed by law, the magistrates keep a certain degree of supervision over religion, and Brazil, while providing in her Constitution for absolute separation of Church and State, still supports the ecclesiastics who were in receipt of state support when the new relation came into force.
In the United States, saving the fact that church property is usually exempt from taxa tion, the voluntary system prevails everywhere, and only chaplains in the army and navy., and those who say prayers before public bodies, as at the opening of the United States Senate, receive pay from the public treasury. This universal voluntaryism did not come about with independence, or even with the adoption of the Federal Constitution. The first amend ment to the Constitution of the United States provided that Congress should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or pro hibiting the free exercise thereof. This, of course, did not affect the power of the several States to create or continue church establish ments. The convention which framed a con stitution for Massachusetts provided in the °Bill of Rights,° that "the legislature shall au thorize and require the several towns, parishes and precincts to make suitable provision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God, and the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.° Officers known as tithingmen were appointed to collect the dues, and if a taxpayer defaulted, distress and even imprisonment followed. This system amounted to State support of the Con gregational Church, and it was not until 1815 that dissenters from the prevailing creed were released from paying taxes to maintain the ministers of the majority. The involuntary system was abolished altogether in Massa chusetts in 1833. In Connecticut the constitu tion of 1818, while giving every society of Chris tians, power to tax the members of such society, permitted any member to escape this obligation by giving notice of withdrawal in writing. And now, as for many years past, without any pro vision of the Federal Constitution to coerce the States, and by force of enlightened public opinion, voluntaryism in the maintenance of ministers and churches prevails everywhere throughout the republic, and in no country in the world is religion better supported, while the clergy also, conscious of their freedorn from State control, are self-respecting in their personal attitude, and devoted to the service of God and of their flocics.