employed it? I am brought, then, to the conclusion that it is an instrument which the Almighty has reserved to His own exclusive control. 47. There are parallel cases: for example, can any thing be more specious than the arguments which may be framed for the ordeal of battle as the arbiter of disputes? for the drama, as a school of morals? for the confessional, as a guarantee of religious purity? And yet I fear it is too clear that all these have, upon the whole, operated unfavourably for the vital reception of Divine truth. The hazard of bringing the lower and animal passions of mankind into immediate contact with an excitement seemingly directed to unselfish and spiritual objects is far too great. The ostensible design is so good that it forms a perfect and impenetrable shelter to the workings of self-deceit, and the passions of demons, covertly insinuated in their sheep's clothing, sit upon the throne of our hearts and are worshipped as God. Let us leave to Him that which is His. Demens! qui nimbos et non imitabile fulmen 48. There are other topics of great importance connected with this branch of the argument. For example, in periods of intellectual inactivity, men of indolent and worldly minds are ever ready to trust to * Æn. vi. 585. coercion, provided it be within their reach, for the maintenance of the truth. The sure effect of this is, that they become by degrees indifferent to the purely spiritual weapons of the Church. Then comes an age of mental excitement, when men will not endure the servitude of their fathers; and the class I have described, who usually form the great majority of persecutors, finding that under the altered circumstances the mechanical instrument of coercion has failed them, and never having learned the use of any other, are apt to abandon persecution and all maintenance of determinate belief together. The very motives and dispositions which predispose many to laxity in the present day, and thus endanger the creed of the Church, would have induced the very same persons, had their lot been cast in the twelfth, the fifteenth, or the sixteenth centuries, to concur in the most savage proceedings against innovators in religion. Thus do coercion and the reliance upon it tend to undermine the true moral foundations of the Church of Christ. 49. I apprehend, however, that the determinate and conclusive reason against persecution is this—that the authority to inflict it has not been expressly given to man, and that it is an authority which, except by explicit commission from God, he cannot have. Undoubtedly there are many things uncommanded which are lawful; but there are also some which would not be sufficiently warranted by the general laws of duty, and which are only allowable under express injunction. It appears to me that when we dispassionately re gard the whole subject of persecution, both in its speculative and in its historical forms, we find it to be one in which any contingencies of good are so closely and inextricably mixed up with those of evil, and in which there is so much doubt (on the best supposition) as to the balance between them, that the human understanding can find no warrant for action in the general rules under which we are placed. If indeed there be a direct command of God applying to these entangled problems, such command of itself becomes a guarantee of solution, and supplies us with a chart in a province otherwise trackless and impassable. But if there be no such express injunction, the case falls back into the category of those where to refrain is a duty, and to act a breach of obligation. Affliction is, as we know, independently of a penal character, an instrument of our most salutary discipline in the hand of our Heavenly Father. Yet men are not allowed to take in hand the scourge for this cause; and if a parent were asked why he had deprived an unoffending son of his livelihood, it would be no sufficient vindication to reply, that he had reduced him to beggary in order that he might learn to trust the more fervently in God. Saul was condemned for sparing anything in his conquest of the Amalekites; yet, but for the explicit Divine command, would he not have been guilty had he destroyed "Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs?" We take away the lives of harmless animals, and con sume their flesh; but it is by the direct permission of God.* Except for this, it would be sinful; and under this it may still be proved sinful to destroy those which are neither noxious when living, nor available for our support when dead. 50. Once more. We have the right to enforce the civil laws of the land, in suitable subject-matter, by pains and penalties, because it is expressly given by Him who has declared that the civil rulers are tot bear the sword for the punishment of evil doers, as well as 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. As we have seen, the Church appears to have afforded a very general attestation to this truth so far as regards herself, by referring to the civil power, under almost all circumstances, the office of executing the most sanguinary decrees of punishment for offences ecclesiastical. Now the principle of toleration simply affirms for the State what the Church has in practice generally affirmed for herself an exemption from that painful office, by disclaiming the right to punish in loss of goods, liberty, or life, for error or heresy in religion. 51. I would almost go so far as to say that religious coercion is actually forbidden by the declaration of our Saviour" My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered unto the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence."* In this passage our Lord explains why He did not allow force to be employed by His disciples for His defence. On which it is to be observed, first, that the reason given is not one connected with time and circumstance alone, but is laid in the essence of the Christian dispensation; secondly, that if it accounted for the nonemployment of defensive weapons, it seems à fortiori to preclude their use for offensive purposes. Were the words to be interpreted without reference to the occasion on which they were spoken, they might be, as they have often been, arbitrarily assumed to mean that none of the instruments which this world supplies could lawfully be used for the extension of the kingdom of Christ; but this interpretation is alike opposed to the ordinary tenor of Scripture and to the rudimental rules of common sense; and on general principles also, the occasion of an indeterminate allegation is its best expositor. A similar argument might perhaps be raised from other passages. But we need not rely upon controvertible senses of particular texts. It is quite enough to occupy the purely negative ground that the prerogative of persecution has not been given us, and therefore is not ours. 52. It is not, therefore, because we believe civil rights to be more important than religious doctrines, *John xviii. 36. |