lawfully take up arms against their sovereign for the cause of religion, was compelled to retract". In 1609, a person was forced to recant some Popish errors. In 1622, many erroneous propositions were condemned '. In 1647, the solemn league and covenant was censured. At the end of the same century, Dr. Bury's Socinian writings were condemned by the university and publicly burnt, and he was himself expelled; and in 1836, Dr. Hampden was suspended from certain privileges in consequence of the theological errors advanced in his writings. Thus there cannot be any doubt that universities which possess a theological faculty, have a just and prescriptive right of censuring the writings, propositions, and persons of their members, and if needful, of enforcing their judgments, by demanding subscription to articles and declarations, or by exacting recantations, under the penalty of suspension, degradation, or expulsion. P Wood, Hist. Univ. Oxon. Vice-Cancellario in quæstionem p. 315. vocetur, secundum Tit. xvi. § 11: quum vero qui nunc professor est, scriptis quibusdam suis publici juris factis ita res theologicas tractaverit, ut in hac parte nullam ejus fiduciam habeat Universitas: statutum est, quod munerum prædictorum expers sit S. Theologiæ professor regius, donec aliter Universitati placuerit." A TREATISE ON THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. PART V. ON THE RELATIONS OF CHURCH AND STATE. INTRODUCTION. AMONGST the various questions connected with the church, few are of more intricacy than those which concern her relations with the civil magistrate, and few are of more importance, at least theoretically. In the present day we need scarcely prepare ourselves to combat the doctrine of Augustinus Triumphans, Alvarus Pelagius, Hostiensis, Panormitanus, Sylvester, Hugo S. Victor, Durandus, Turrecremata, Pighius, Stapleton, Bellarmine, and the modern Ultramontane party, that the pretended spiritual monarch of Rome is invested with a superiority in temporals above the kings and princes of the world; that he is entitled to judge, depose, create sovereigns, to exact homage from them, and to absolve subjects from their allegiance. This doctrine has been so completely refuted by Bossuet, and by all the great writers of the Gallican * In his great work, the Defensio Declarationis Cleri Gallicani. church, and is so little likely to come into controversy, that we may lay it aside. There is more danger in the present day from the principles of Hobbes, Tindal, and other enemies of christianity, who pretend, that religion may be dictated by the civil power, and that the church is the mere creature of the state. A learned bishop has observed, that "Infidelity in later times has been employed in endeavouring to subvert christianity, by first merging its authority in that of the state. Hobbes, in the seventeenth century, made this the foundation of his grand attack upon the christian religion; which he endeavoured to subvert, by inculcating that all religion depended on the civil power, and had no other claim to respect and obedience than as being sanctioned by the will of the magistrate. The deists of the last century almost all argue upon the same principle, though not so openly avowed. The French revolutionists effected their diabolical purpose by similar means: and to this day, scarcely any attack is made upon revealed religion, which does not proceed upon the implied principle that religion is purely a creature of the state, a political engine for keeping mankind in subjection, and which may be lawfully upholden or overthrown at pleasure, by the civil power b." Another principle equally dangerous and untrue, is that of Locke, Hoadly, and the modern dissenters, that the office of the christian magistrate has nothing whatever to do with religion: that he cannot, without interfering with the office of Christ himself, either support the church by law, or protect its doctrine and discipline that he ought to treat all religions with a just Van Mildert, Boyle Lectures, vol. i. p. 504. 3d ed. |