and to surpass each other. Before sunset the Empire is saved. France has lost in a day the fruits of eighty years of intrigue and of victory. And the allies, after conquering together, return thanks to God separately, each after his own form of worship. Now, is this practica atheism? Would any man in his senses say, that, because the allied army had unity of action and a common interest, and because a heavy responsibility lay on its chiefs, it was therefore imperatively necessary that the army should, as an army, have one established religion-that Eugene should be deprived of his command for being a Catholic -that all the Dutch and Austrian colonels should be broken for not subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles? Certainly not-the most ignorant grenadier on the field of battle would have seen the absurdity of such a proposition. "I know," he would have said, "that the Prince of Savoy goes to mass, and that our Corporal John cannot abide it; but what has the mass to do with taking the village of Blenheim? The prince wants to beat the French, and so does Corporal John. If we stand by each other, we shall most likely beat them. If we send all the Papists and Dutch away, Tallard will have every man of us." Mr. Gladstone himself, we imagine, would admit that our honest grenadier had the best of the argument; and if so, what follows? Even this: that all Mr. Gladstone's general principles about power, and responsibility, and personality, and conjoint action, must be given up; and that, if his theory is to stand at all, it must stand on some other foundation. We have now, we conceive, shown that it may be proper to form men into combinations for important purposes, which combinations shall have unity and common interests, and shall be under the direction of rulers intrusted with great power and lying under solemn responsibility; and yet that it may be highly improper that these combinations should, as such, profess any one system of religious belief, or perform any joint act of religious worship. How, then, is it proved that this may not be the case with some of those great combinations which we call States? We firmly believe that it is the case with some states. We firmly believe that there are communities in which it would be as absurd to mix up theology with governinent, as it would have been in the right wing of the allied army' at Blenheim to commence a controversy with the left wing, in the middle of the battle, about purgatory and the worship of images. It is the duty, Mr. Gladstone tells us, of the persons, be they who they may, who hold supreme power in the state, to employ that power in order to promote whatever they may deem to be theological truth. Now, surely, before he can call on us to admit this proposition, he is bound to prove that these persons are likely to do more good than harm by so employing their power. The first question is, whether a government, proposing to itself the propagation of religious truth, as one of its principal ends, is more likely to lead the people right than to lead them wrong? Mr. Glad stone evades this question, and perhaps it was his wisest course to do so. it have its natural duties and powers at its "If," says he, "the government be good, let command; but, if not good, let it be made so We follow, therefore, the true course in looking first for the true, or abstract con ance for the evil and frailty that are in man, ception of a government, of course with allow. and then in examining whether there be com prised in that a capacity and consequent duty on the part of a government to lay down any laws, or devote any means for the purposes of religion,-in short, to exercise a choice upon religion." Of course, Mr. Gladstone has a perfect right to argue any abstract question; provided that he will constantly bear in mind that it is only an abstract question that he is arguing. Whether a perfect government would or would not be a good machinery for the propagation of religious truth, is certainly a harmless, and may, for aught we know, be an edifying subject of inquiry. But it is very important that we should remember, that there is not, and never has been, any such government in the world. There is no harm at all in inquiring what course a stone thrown into the air would take, if the law of gravitation did not operate. But the consequences would be unpleasant, if the inquirer, as soon as he had finished his calculation, were to begin to throw stones about in all directions, without considering that his conclusion rests on a false hypothesis; and that his projectiles, instead of flying away through infinite space, will speedily return in parabolas, and break the windows and heads of his neighbours. It is very easy to say that governments are good, or, if not good, ought to be made so. But what is meant by good government? And how are all the bad governments in the world to be made good? And of what value is a theory which is true only on a supposition in the highest degree extravagant? We do not admit that, if a government were, for all its temporal ends, as perfect as human frailty allows, such government would, therefore, be necessarily qualified to propagate true religion. For we see that the fitness of govern ments to propagate true religion is by no means proportioned to their fitness for the temporal ends of their institution. Looking at indivi duals, we see that the princes under whose rule nations have been most ably protected from foreign and domestic disturbance, and have made the most rapid advances in civilization, have been by no means good teachers of divinity. Take, for example, the best French sovereign,-Henry the Fourth, a king who re stored order, terminated a terrible civil war brought the finances into an excellent cond tion, made his country respected throughout Europe, and endeared himself to the great body of the people whom he ruled. Yet this man was twice a Huguenot, and twice a Papist He was, as Davila hints, strongly suspected of having no religion at all in theory; and was certainly not much under religious restraints n his practice. Take the Czar Peter,-the tions. We see that, for the temporal ends of But we shall leave this abstract question, and look at the world as we find it. Does, then, the way in which governments generally If, indeed, the magistrate would content himobtain their power, make it at all probable that self with laying his opinions and reasons before they will be more favourable to orthodoxy than the people, and would leave the people, uncor to heterodoxy? A nation of barbarians pours rupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, down on a rich and unwarlike empire, enslaves we should see little reason to apprehend that the people, portions out the land, and blends his interference in favour of error would be the institutions which it finds in the cities with seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. those which it has brought from the woods. A Nor do we, as will hereafter be seen, object to handful of daring adventurers from a civilized his taking this course, when it is compatible nation, wander to some savage country, and with the efficient discharge of his more espe reduce the aboriginal race to bondage. A suc-cial duties. But this will not satisfy Mr. Gladcessful general turns his arms against the stone. He would have the magistrate resort state which he serves. A society made brutal to means which have great tendency to make by oppression, rises madly on its masters, malcontents, to make hypocrites, to make care sweeps away ail old laws and usages, and, less nominal conformists, but no tendency when its first paroxysm of rage is over, sinks whatever to produce honest and rational condown passively under any form of polity which viction. It seems to us quite clear that an may spring out of the chaos. A chief of a inquirer who has no wish, except to know the party, as at Florence, becomes imperceptibly truth, is more likely to arrive at the truth than a sovereign and the founder of a dynasty. A an inquirer who knows that, if he decides one captain of mercenaries, as at Milan, seizes on way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he dea city, and by the sword makes himself its cides the other way, he shall be punished. ruler. An elective senate, as at Venice, usurps Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments permanent and hereditary power. It is in events propagate their opinions by excluding all dissuch as these that governments have generally senters from all civil offices. That is to say, originated; and we can see nothing such he uld have governments propagate their events to warrant us in believing that the go- opinions by a process which has no reference vernments thus called into existence will be whatever to the truth or falsehood of those peculiarly well fitted to distinguish between re- opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly ligious truth and heresy. advantages with one set of doctrines, and cerWhen, again, we look at the constitutions of tain worldly inconveniences with another set governments which have become settled, we It is of the very nature of argument to serve find no great security for the orthodoxy of the interest of truth; but if rewards and pu rulers. One magistrate holds power because nishments serve the interest of truth, it is by his name was drawn out of a purse; another, mere accident. It is very much easier to find because his father held it before him. There arguments for the Divine authority of the Gos are representative systems of all sorts,-large pel than for the Divine authority of the Koran. constituent bodies, small constituent bodies, But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew universal suffrage, high pecuniary qualifica- into Mohammedanism as into Christianity. VOL. III.-49 2 K From racks, indeed, and from all penalties | a single instance in which the system which directed against the persons, the property, and he recommends has succeeded. the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for office; and he would think it his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly exempt from its operation. This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop here? Why not roast Dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings on which this theory rests evidently lead to a sanguinary persecution. If the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as government; if it be the duty of a government to employ for that end its constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions-why should we not burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend family worship; he is forbidden to read irreligious books; if he will not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper; if he plays truant at church-time, a task is set him. If he should display the precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting short the controversy with a horsewhip. All the reasons which lead us to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of their children, and that education is a principal end of the parental relation, lead us also to think, that parents ought to be allowed to use punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then to: hrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For nothing can be clearer than that if you punish at all, you ought to punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and never ought to be inflicted except for the sake of some good. It is mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way the Albigenses were put down. In his way the Lollards were put down. In this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point or And why should he be so tender-hearted? What reason can he give for hanging a mur derer, and suffering a heresiarch to escape without even a pecuniary mulct? Is the here siarch a less pernicious member of society than the murderer? Is not the loss of one soul a greater evil than the extinction of many lives? And the number of murders committed by the most profligate bravo that ever let out his poniard to hire in Italy, or by the most savage buccanier that ever prowled on the Windward Station, is small indeed, when compared with the number of souls which have been caught in the snares of one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater evils than the murderer, why is he not as proper an object of penal legisla tion as the murderer ? We can give a reason, -a reason, short, simple, decisive, and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces; but we say that it is not evil of that sort against which it is the end of government to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which the heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end of government to guard, can escape from the obvious consequences of his doctrine, we do not understand. The world is full of parallel cases. An orange-woman stops up the pavement with her wheelbarrow, and a policeman takes her into custody. A miser who has amassed a million, suffers an old friend and benefactor to die in a workhouse, and cannot be questioned before any tribunal for his baseness and ingratitude. Is this be cause legislators think the orange-woman's conduct worse than the miser's? Not at all. It is because the stopping up of the pathway is one of the evils against which it is the business of the public authorities to protect society, and heartlessness is not one of those evils. It would be the height of folly to say, that the miser ought, indeed, to be punished, but that he ought to be punished less severely than the orange-woman. The heretical Constantius persecutes Athanasius; and why not? Shall Cæsar execute the robber who has taken one purse, and spare the wretch who has taught millions to rob the Creator of his honour, and to bestow it on the creature? The orthodox Theodosius persecutes the Arians, and with equal reason. Shall an insult offered to the Cæsarean majesty be expiated by death, and shall there be no penalty for him who degrades to the rank of a creature the Almighty, the infinite Creator? We have a short answer for both: "To Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's. Cæsar is appointed for the punishment of robbers and rebels. He is not appointed for the purpose of either propa gating or exterminating the doctrine of consub stantiality of the Father and the Son." "Not so," says Mr. Gladstone. "Cæsar is bound in conscience to propagate whatever he thinks to be the truth as to this question. Constantius is bound to establish the Arian worship throughout the empire, and to displace the bravest aptains of his legions, and the ablest ministers of his Treasury, if they ho'd the Nice ne faith. Theodosius is equally bound to turn out every | to have had any reference to the wound inflicted public servant whom his Arian predecessors by Peter on Malchus. They were addressed to have put in. But if Constantius lays on Pilate, in answer to the question, “Art thou the Athanasius a fine of a single aureus, if Theodo- King of the Jews?" We cannot help saying, ius imprisons an Arian presbyter for a week, that we are surprised that Mr. Gladstone should his is most unjustifiable oppression." Our not have more accurately verified a quotation eaders will be curious to know how this dis-on which, according to him, principally deinction is made out. pends the right of a hundred millions of his fellow-subjects, idolaters and Dissenters, t their property, their liberty, and their lives. The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives against persecution affecting life, limb, and property, may be divided into two classes; Mr. Gladstone's interpretations of Scripture first, reasons which can be called reasons only are lamentably destitute of one recommendaby extreme courtesy, and which nothing but tion, which he considers as of the highest va the most deplorable necessity would ever have lue:-they are by no means in accordance induced a man of his abilities to use; and, se- with the general precepts or practice of the condly, reasons which are really reasons, and Church, from the time when the Christians which have so much force, that they not only became strong enough to persecute down to a completely prove his exception, but completely very recent period. A dogma favourable to upset his general rule. His artillery on this toleration is certainly not a dogma "quod semoccasion is composed of two sets of pieces,-per, quod ubique, quod omnibus." Bossuet was pieces which will not go off at all, and pieces able to say, we fear with too much truth, that which go off with a vengeance, and recoil with on one point all Christians had long been most crushing effect upon himself. unanimous, the right of the civil magistrate to propagate truth by the sword; that even heretics had been orthodox as to this right, and that the Anabaptists and Socinians were the first who called it in question. We will not pretend to say what is the best explanation of the text under consideration; but we are sure According to Mr. Gladstone's is the worst. him, government ought to exclude Dissenters from office, but not to fine them, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world. We do not see why the line may not be drawn at a hundred other places as well as at that which he has chosen. We do not see why Lord Clarendon, in recommending the act of 1664 against conventicles, might not have said, "It hath been thought by some that this classis of men might with advantage be not only imprisoned, but pilloried. But methinks, my lords, we are inhibited from the punishment of the pillory by that scripture, 'My kingdom is not of this world." Archbishop Laud, when he sate on Burton in the Star-Chamber, might have said, "I pronounce for the pillory; and, indeed, I could wish that all such wretches were delivered to the fire, but that our Lord hath said that his kingdom is not of this world." And Gardiner might have written to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire, "See that execution be done without fail on Master Ridley and Master Latimer, as you will answer the same to the queen's grace at your peril. But if they shall desire to have some gunpowder for the shortening of their torment, I see not but that you grant it, as it is written, Regnum meum non is not of this world."" est de hoc mundo: that is to say, 'My kingdom "We, as fallible creatures," says Mr. Gladstone, “have no right, from any bare speculations of our own, to administer pains and penalties to our fellow-creatures, whether on social or religious grounds. We have the right to enforce the laws of the land by such pains and penalties, because it is expressly given by Him who has declared that the civil rulers are to bear the sword or the punishment of evildoers, and for the encouragement of them that do well. And so, in things spiritual, had it pleased God to give to the Church or to the State this power, to be permanently exercised over their members, or mankind at large, we should have the right to use it; but it does not appear to have been so received, and, consequently, it should not be exercised." We should be sorry to think that the security of our lives and property from persecution rested on no better ground than this. Is not a teacher of heresy an evildoer? Has not heresy been condemned in many countries, and in our own among them, by the laws of the land, which, as Mr. Gladstone says, it is justifiable to enforce by penal sanctions? If a heretic is not specially mentioned in the text to which Mr. Gladstone refers, neither is an assassin, a kidnapper, or a highwayman. And if the silence of the New Testament as to all interference of government to stop the progress of heresy be a reason for not fining or imprisoning heretics, it is surely just as good a reason for not excluding them from office. "God," says Mr. Gladstone, "has seen fit to authorize the employment of force in the one case and not in the other; for it was with regard to chastisement inflicted by the sword for an insult offered to himself, that the Redeemer declared his kingdom not to be of this world; meaning, apparently in an especial manner, that it should be otherwise than after this world's fashion, in respect to the sanctions by which its laws should be maintained." But Mr. Gladstone has other arguments against persecution,-arguments which are of so much weight, that they are decisive, not only against persecution, but against his whole theory. The government," he says, "is in competent to exercise minute and constant su pervision over religious opinion." And hence he infers, that a government exceeds its pro vince when it comes to adapt a scale of punish ments to variations in religious opinion, ac 66 Now here, Mr. Gladstone, quoting from meory, has fallen into an error. The very re-cording to their respective degrees of variation markable words which he cites do not appear from the established creed. To decline afford rule. To punish their professors, according to their several errors, even were there no other objection, is one for which the state may assume functions wholly ecclesiastical, and for which it is not intrinsically fitted." ing countenance to sects is a single and simple senters, are to be excluded from all power and honours. A great hostile fleet is on the sea: but Nelson is not to command in the Channel if in the mystery of the Trinity he confounds the persons! An invading army has landed in Kent; but the Duke of Wellington is not to This is, in our opinion, quite true, but how be at the head of our forces if he divides the does it agree with Mr. Gladstone's theory? substance! And, after all this, Mr. Gladstone What! The government incompetent to exer- tells us that it would be wrong to imprison a cise even such a degree of supervision over Jew, a Mussulman, or a Budhist, for a day; religious opinion as is implied by the punish- because really a government cannot underment of the most deadly heresy! The govern- stand these matters, and ought not to meddle ment incompetent to measure even the grossest with questions which belong to the Church. deviations from the standard of truth! The A singular theologian, indeed, this government! government not intrinsically qualified to judge -so learned that it is competent to exclude of the comparative enormity of any theological Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, errors! The government so ignorant on these so unlearned that it is incompetent to fine a subjects, that it is compelled to leave, not Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pilmerely subtle heresies,--discernible only by grimage to Juggernaut! the eye of a Cyril or a Bucer,--but Socinianism, Deism, Mohammedanism, Idolatry, Atheism, unpunished! To whom does Mr. Gladstone assign the office of selecting a religion for the state, from among hundreds of religions, every one of which lays claim to truth? Even to this same government, which he now pronounces to be so unfit for theological investigations, that it cannot venture to condemn a man for worshipping a lump of stone with a score of heads and hands! We do not remember ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary Granted. But it is true that all the same instance of inconsistency. When Mr. Glad- considerations which would justify a govern stone wishes to prove that the government ment in propagating a religion by means of ought to establish and endow a religion, and to civil disabilities, would justify the propagating fence it with a test act,--government is Toof that religion by penal laws. To solicit! Is in the moral world. Those who would confine it solicitation to tell a Catholic duke, that he it to secular ends take a low view of its nature. must abjure his religion or walk out of the A religion must be attached to its agency; and House of Lords? To persuade! Is it per this religion must be that of the conscience of suasion to tell a barrister of distinguished elothe governor, or none. It is for him to decide quence and learning, that he shall grow old in between Papists and Protestants, Jansenists his stuff gown while his pupils are seated above and Molinists, Arminians and Calvinists, him in ermine, because he cannot digest the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Sabellians damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed! and Tritheists, Homoosians and Homoiousians, Would Mr. Gladstone think, that a religious Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelites and system which he considers as false--SocinianMonophysites, Pædobaptists and Anabaptists. ism, for example--was submitted to his free It is for him to rejudge the Acts of Nice and choice, if it were submitted in these terms. Rimini, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, of Con- "If you obstinately adhere to the faith of the stantinople and St. John Lateran, of Trent and Nicene fathers, you shall not be burned in Dort. It is for him to arbitrate betweeen the Smithfield--you shall not be sent to Dorchester Greek and the Latin procession, and to deter-jail—you shall not even pay double land tax. mine whether that mysterious filioque shall or But you shall be shut out from all situations shall not have a place in the national creed. in which you might exercise your talents with When he has made up his mind, he is to tax honour to yourself and advantage to the coun the whole community, in order to pay people try. The House of Commons, the bench of to teach his opinion, whatever it may be. He magistracy, are not for such as you. You shall is to rely on his own judgment, though it may see younger men, your inferiors in station and be opposed to that of nine-tenths of the society. talents, rise to the highest dignities and attract He is to act on his own judgment, at the risk the gaze of nations, while you are doomed to of exciting the most formidable discontents. neglect and obscurity. If you have a son of He is to inflict, perhaps on a great majority the highest promise--a son such as other fa of the population, what, whether Mr. Gladstone thers would contemplate with delight-the deve nay choose to call it persecution or not, will lopement of his fine talents and of his generous always be felt as persecution by those who ambition shall be a torture to you. You shall suffer it. He is on account of differences, look on him as a being doomed to lead, as you often too slight for vulgar comprehension, to have led, the abject life of a Roman, or a Neadeprive the state of the services of the ablest politan, in the midst of the great English people men. He is to depase and enfeeble the com- All those high honours, so much more precious munity which he governs, from an empire into than the most costly gifts of despots, with a sect. In our own country, for example, mil- which a free country decorates its illustrious ions of Catholics, millions of Protestant Dis-citizens, shall be to him, as they have been in Mr. Gladstone, "are privileges which belong "To solicit and persuade one another," says to us all; and the wiser and better man is bound to advise the less wise and good: but he is not only not bound, he is not allowed, then, that the same considerations which bind speaking generally, to coerce him. It is untrue, a government to submit a religion to the free choice of the people, would therefore justify their enforcing its adoption.” |
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