Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

to have had any reference to the wound inflicted by Peter on Malchus. They were addressed to Pilate, in answer to the question, "Art thou the King of the Jews?" We cannot help saying, that we are surprised that Mr. Gladstone should not have more accurately verified a quotation

Theodosius is equally bound to turn out every public servant whom his Arian predecessors have put in. But if Constantius lays on Athanasius a fine of a single aureus, if Theodosius imprisons an Arian presbyter for a week, his is most unjustifiable oppression." Our readers will be curious to know how this dis-on which, according to him, principally deinction is made out.

The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives against persecution affecting life, limb, and property, may be divided into two classes; first, reasons which can be called reasons only by extreme courtesy, and which nothing but the most deplorable necessity would ever have induced a man of his abilities to use; and, secondly, reasons which are really reasons, and which have so much force, that they not only completely prove his exception, but completely upset his general rule. His artillery on this occasion is composed of two sets of pieces, pieces which will not go off at all, and pieces which go off with a vengeance, and recoil with most crushing effect upon himself.

pends the right of a hundred millions of his fellow-subjects, idolaters and Dissenters, te their property, their liberty, and their lives.

Mr. Gladstone's interpretations of Scripture are lamentably destitute of one recommendation, which he considers as of the highest value:-they are by no means in accordance with the general precepts or practice of the Church, from the time when the Christians became strong enough to persecute down to a very recent period. A dogma favourable to toleration is certainly not a dogma “quod semper, quod ubique, quod omnibus." Bossuet was able to say, we fear with too much truth, that on one point all Christians had long been unanimous, the right of the civil magistrate “We, as fallible creatures," says Mr. Glad- to propagate truth by the sword; that even stone, "have no right, from any bare specula-heretics had been orthodox as to this right, and tions 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 Hin 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 condenined 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;

insaning, 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."

Now here, Mr. Gladstone, quoting from meory, has fallen into an error. The very remarkable words which he cites do not appear

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
Mr. Gladstone's is the worst. According to
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 Cla-
rendon, 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 im-
prisoned, 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

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 cording to their respective degrees of variation from the established creed. To decline afford

66

ing countenance to sects is a single and simple | senters, are to be excluded from all power and rule. To punish their professors, according to honours. A great hostile fleet is on the sea: their several errors, even were there no other but Nelson is not to command in the Channel objection, is one for which the state may assume if in the mystery of the Trinity he confounds functions wholly ecclesiastical, and for which the persons! An invading army has landed it is not intrinsically fit." 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 instance of inconsistency. When Mr. Gladstone wishes to prove that the government ought to establish and endow a religion, and to fence it with a test act,--government is

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, speaking generally, to coerce him. It is untrue, then, that the same considerations which bind choice of the people, would therefore justify a government to submit a religion to the free their enforcing its adoption."

Granted. But it is true that all the same considerations which would justify a government in propagating a religion by means of civil disabilities, would justify the propagating of 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 perthis 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 counthe 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 Jons of Catholics, millions of Protestant Dis-citizens, shall be to him, as they have been to

you, objects, not of hope and virtuous_emula- darkest ages would be a most happy event. It tion, but of hopeless, envious pining. Educate is not necessary that a man should be a Chrishim, if you wish him to feel his degradation. tian to wish for the propagation of Christianity Educate him, if you wish to stimulate his crav-in India. It is sufficient that he should be a ing for what he never must enjoy. Educate European not much below the ordinary Eurohim, if you would imitate the barbarity of that pean level of good sense and humanity. Competty Celtic tyrant who fed his prisoners on pared with the importance of the interests at salted food till they called eagerly for drink, stake, all those Scotch and Irish questions and then let down an empty cup into the dun- which occupy so large a portion of Mr. Gladgeon, and left them to die of thirst." Is this to so- stone's book sink into insignificance. In no licit, to persuade, to submit religion to the free part of the world, since the days of Theodosius, choice of man? Would a fine of a thousand has so large a heathen population been subject pounds-would imprisonment in Newgate for to a Christian government. In no part of the six months, under circumstances not disgrace-world is heathenism more cruel, more licenful-give Mr. Gladstone the pain which he would feel, if he were to be told that he was to be dealt with in the way in which he would himself deal with more than one-half of his Countrymen?

tious, more fruitful of absurd rites and pernicious laws. Surely, if it be the duty of government to use its power and its revenue in order to bring seven millions of Irish Catholics over to the Protestant Church, it is a We are not at all surprised to find such in- fortiori the duty of the government to use its consistency even in a man of Mr. Gladstone's power and its revenue in order to make setalents. The truth is, that every man is, to a venty millions of idolaters Christians. If it be great extent, the creature of the age. It is to a sin to suffer John Howard or William Penn no purpose that he resists the influence which to hold any office in England, because they are the vast mass, in which he is but an atom, not in communion with the Established Church, must exercise on him. He may try to be a surely it must be a crying sin indeed to admit man of the tenth century: but he cannot to high situations men who bow down, in temWhether he will or no, he must be a man of ples covered with emblems of vice, to the the nineteenth century. He shares in the mo- hideous images of sensual or malevolent gods tion of the moral as well as in that of the phy- But no. Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shocksical world. He can no more be as intoleranted by the priests of Rome than by the priests as he would have been in the days of the Tu- of Kalee. The plain red brick buildingdors, than he can stand in the evening exactly Adullam's Cave, or Ebenezer Chapel-where where he stood in the morning. The globe uneducated men hear a half educated man talk goes round from west to east; and he must go of the Christian law of love, and the Christian round with it. When he says that he is where hope of glory, is unworthy of the indulgence he was, he means only that he has moved at which is reserved for the shrine where the the same rate with all around him. When he Thug suspends a portion of the spoils of mursays that he has gone a good way to the west-dered travellers; and for the car which grinds ward, he means only that he has not gone to its way through the bones of self-immolated the eastward quite so rapidly as his neigh pilgrims. "It would be," says Mr. Gladstone, bours. Mr. Gladstone's book is, in this re-"an absurd exaggeration to maintain it as the spect, a very gratifying performance. It is the part of such a government as that of the Brimeasure of what a man can do to be left be-tish in India to bring home to the door of every hind by the world. It is the strenuous effort of a very vigorous mind to keep as far in the rear of the general progress as possible. And yet, with the most intense exertion, Mr. Gladstone cannot help being, on some important points, greatly in advance of Locke himself; and with whatever admiration he may regard Laud, it is well for him, we can tell him, that he did not write in the days of that zealous primate, who would certainly have refuted the expositions of Scripture which we have quoted by one of the keenest arguments that can be addressed to human ears.

This is not the only instance in which Mr. Gladstone has shrunk in a very remarkable manner from the consequences of his own theory. If there be in the whole world a state to which this theory is applicable, that state is the British Empire in India. Even we, who detest paternal governments in general, shall admit that the duties of the governments of India are, to a considerable extent, paternal. There the superiority of the governors to the governed in moral science is unquestionable. The conversion of the whole people to the worst form that Christianity ever wore in the

subject at once the ministrations of a new and totally unknown religion." The government ought indeed to desire to propagate Christianity. But the extent to which they must do so must be "limited by the degree in which the people are found willing to receive it." He proposes no such limitation in the case of Ireland. He would give the Irish a Protestant Church whether they like it or not. "We believe," says he, "that that which we place before them is, whether they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial to them; and that, if they know it not now, they will know it when it is presented to them fairly. Shall we, then, purchase their applause at the expense of their substantial, nay, their spiritual interests?"

And why does Mr. Gladstone allow to the Hindoo a privilege which he denies to the Irishman? Why does he reserve his greatest liberality for the most monstrous errors? Why does he pay most respect to the opinion of the least enlightened people? Why does he with hold the right to exercise paternal authority from that one government which is fitter to ex ercise paternal authority than any government

hat ever existed in the world? We will give which his system would produce if tried in the reason in his own words.

India, but that he did not like to say so lest he
should lay himself open to the charge of sacri-
ficing principle to expediency, a word which is
held in the utmost abhorrence by all his school.
Accordingly he caught at the notion of a treaty
a notion which must, we think, have origi
nated in some rhetorical expression which he
has imperfectly understood. There is one ex-
cellent way of avoiding the drawing of a false
conclusion from a false major, and that is by
having a false minor. Inaccurate history is an
And thus it is in the present case.
admirable corrective of unreasonable theory.
A bad ge

"In British India," he says, "a small number of persons advanced to a higher grade of civilization, exercise the powers of government over an immensely greater number of less cultivated persons, not by coercion, but under free stipulation with the governed. Now, the rights of a government, in circumstances thus peculiar, obviously depend neither upon the unrestricted theory of paternal principles, nor upon any primordial or fictitious contract of indefinite powers, but upon an express and known treaty, matter of posi-neral rule is laid down and obstinately maintive agreement, not of natural ordinance."

tained, wherever the consequences are not too monstrous for human bigotry. But when they become so horrible that even Christchurch shrinks-that even Oriel stands aghast—the rule is evaded by means of a fictitious contract. One imaginary obligation is set up against another. Mr. Gladstone first preaches to governments the duty of undertaking an enterprise just as rational as the Crusades-and then dispenses them from it on the ground of a treaty which is just as authentic as the donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester. His system resembles nothing so much as a forged bond with a forged release endorsed on the back of it.

Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty we cannot guess; for, though he calls it a “known treaty," we will stake our credit that it is quite unknown both at Calcutta and Madras, both in Leadenhall Street and Cannon Row-that it is not to be found in any of the enormous folios of papers relating to India which fill the book-cases of members of Parliament-that it has utterly escaped the researches of all the historians of our Eastern empire-that, in the long and interesting debates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries to India, debates of which the most valuable part has been excellently preserved by the care of the speakers, no allusion to this im- With more show of reason he rests the portant instrument is to be found. The truth claims of the Scotch Church on a contract. is, that this treaty is a nonentity. It is by co- He considers that contract, however, as most ercion, it is by the sword, and not by free su- unjustifiable, and speaks of the setting up of pulation with the governed, that England rules the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the reign of India; nor is England bound by any contract William the Third. Surely it would be amus whatever not to deal with Bengal as she deals ing, if it were not melancholy, to see a man with Ireland. She may set up a Bishop of of virtue and abilities unsatisĝed with the caPatna and a Dean of Hoogley-she may grant lamities which one church, constituted on false away the public revenue for the maintenance principles, has brought upon the empire, and of prebendaries of Benares and canons of repining that Scotland is not in the same state Moorshedabad--she may divide the country with Ireland-that no Scottish agitator is raisinto parishes, and place a rector with a stipending rent and putting county members in and in every one of them, without infringing any positive agreement. If there be such a treaty, Mr. Gladstone can have no difficulty in making known its date, its terms, and, above all, the precise extent of the territory within which we have sinfully bound ourselves to be guilty of practical atheism. The last point is of great importance. For as the provinces of our Indian empire were acquired at different times, and in very different ways, no single treaty, indeed no ten treaties, will justify the system pursued by our government there.

The plain state of the case is this: No man in his senses would dream of applying Mr. Gladstone's theory to India, because, if so applied, it would inevitably destroy our empire, and, with our empire, the best chance of spreading Christianity among the natives. This Mr. Gladstone felt. In some way or other his theory was to be saved, and the monstrous consequences avoided. Of intentional misrepresentation we are quite sure that he is incapable. But we cannot acquit him of that unconscious disingenuousness from which the most upright man, when strongly attached to an opinion, is seldom wholly free. We believe that he recoiled from the ruinous consequences

out-that no Presbyterian association is divid ing supreme power with the government-that no meetings of precursors and repealers are covering the side of the Calton Hill-that twenty-five thousand troops are not required to maintain order on the north of the Tweed-that the anniversary of the battle of Bothwell Bridge is not regularly celebrated by insult, riot, and murder. We could hardly find a stronger argument against Mr. Gladstone's system than that which Scotland furnishes. The policy which has been followed in that country has been directly opposed to the policy which he recommends. And the consequence is that Scotland, having been one of the rudest, one of the poor est, one of the most turbulent countries in Europe, has become one of the most highly civilized, one of the most flourishing, one of the most tranquil. The atrocities which were of common occurrence while an unpopular church was dominant are unknown. In spite of a mutual aversion as bitter as ever separated one people from another, the two kingdoms which compose our island have been indissolubly joined together. Of the ancient national feeling there remains just enough to be ornamental and useful; just enough to inspire the poet and

to kindle a generous and friendly emulation in the bosom of the soldier. But for all the ends of government the nations are one. And why are they so? The answer is simple. The nations are one for all the ends of government, because in their union the true ends of government alone were kept in sight. The nations are one because the churches are two.

Such is the union of England with Scotland, a union which resembles the union of the limbs of one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by one will, all co-operating for common ends. The system of Mr. Gladstone would have produced a union which can be compared only to that which is the subject of a wild Persian fable. King Zohak-we tell the story as Mr. Southey tells it to us-gave the devil leave to kiss his shoulders. Instantly two serpents sprang out, who, in the fury of hunger, attacked his head, and attempted to get at his brain. Zohak pulled them away, and tore them with his nails. But he found that they were inseparable parts of himself, and that what he was lacerating was his own flesh. Perhaps we might be able to find, if we looked round the world, some political union like this-some hideous monster of a state, cursed with one principle of sensation and two principles of volition-self-loathing and self-torturing-made up of parts which are driven by a frantic impulse to inflict muqual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they inflict-which are divided by an irreconcilable hatred, yet are blended in an indissoluble identity. Mr. Gladstone, from his tender concern for Zohak, is unsatisfied because the devil has as yet kissed only one shoulder-because there is not a snake mangling and mangled on the left to keep in countenance his brother on the right.

But we must proceed in our examination of his theory.

Having, as he conceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, he then comes to the question what religion a government ought to prefer, and he decides this question in favour of the form of Christianity established in England. The Church of England is, according to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of Bossuet demands for the Pope, and scarcely short of what the most bigoted Catholic would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her communion is schism. To reject her traditions of interpretations of Scripture is sinful presumption.

Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of private judgment after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, a right to judge all the doctrines

of the Church of England to be sound, but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions; on the contrary, he thinks it highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to diversity of opinion;—which is as much as if he were to recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible for men to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them. "The activity of private judg ment," he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument. Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not every free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition that King Charles wrote Icon Basilike is as true as that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr. Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle greater than the third side and yet differ about the genuineness of the Icon Basilike? The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr. Gladstone, that, as respects religion, "the association of these two ideas, activity of inquiry and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious one." We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer, from the variety of religious opinions, that there must necessarily be hostile mathematical sects, some affirming and some denying that the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value. Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open our eyes and look at the world in which we live, and there we see that free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly be less discrepancy if inquirers were more diligent and candid. But discre pancy there will be among the most diligent and candid as long as the constitution of the human mind and the nature of moral evidence continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a very sad thing, and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just as likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in religion that discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters which depend on moral evidencewith judicial questions, for example, and with political questions. All the judges may work a sum in the rule of three on the same princi ple, and bring out the same conclusion. But

« AnteriorContinuar »