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.

that we would use a power for the defence of the one which we decline to employ for the propagation of the other; although too often some such vicious inference is drawn by persons reasoning ill or not at all, from such a conduct on the part of the State. But it is because God has seen fit to authorise that employment of force in the one case, and not in the other; and because we, as creatures under conditions of fallibility essentially kindred in rulers and in subjects, have no right to administer pains and penalties, either on social or religious pretexts, to our brethren, upon any circuitous inference or conjectural speculation of our

own.

53. We have now arrived at the second question proposed. If, then, the State may not persecute for matter of religion, may it notwithstanding disqualify? And first, what is political disqualification? It is not exclusion from all social power, for the unenfranchised multitude has power. The bodiless apprehension of violence, the hold of consumers over those who supply them, the ability to derange the whole industrial operations of a country and its physical life by suspending the action of the strong arm of labour, the mere voice of human solicitation-these are all indirect, yet real and weighty, elements of social power. But disqualification is exclusion from social power in

those determinate and current forms which the constitution of a country recognises, and to which it gives legal effect. Social power, reduced under such forms, we may denominate political power. May a State,

VOL. I.

Y

then, disqualify for religious opinions not immediately adverse to social order?

54. Now I first observe, that the five first of the arguments* which have been deemed available against persecution, are also arguments, in their degree, against disqualification. For civil function and office is in the nature of a benefit as well as a duty; and to this benefit all members of the body politic have, in equity, a presumable inchoate right, according to their several capacities. Something therefore, namely, that presumable or inchoate right, that fair and equal chance of an actual privilege, is taken from them by civil disabilities. Accordingly disqualification is capable of being represented as, relatively to the individual, in the nature of a penalty, not often perhaps considerable, yet equal in amount to the difference betwen the burden and the benefit of civil office, with possibly the addition of whatever may, under particular circumstances, be lost by the incapacity suffered in point of general repute. Disqualification is open therefore, in a less degree, to the more general objections against coercion on the other hand, it does not derive the full advantage of such arguments as tell in favour of the other. It often galls far more than it curbs. It may induce men to dissemble their faith when it has not stringency enough to make them abandon it; but conscience fares worse, perhaps, at least scarcely better, in the former case than in the latter. Persecution commonly will produce a crisis which may result in the * § 41, 42, 44, 46, 48.

triumph of one of the contending principles, and then the establishment of an equilibrium. But disqualification alienates and embitters by a more tardy process, and, gradually deepening the seat of social discord, engenders contentions, which, if less passionate while they continue, are likewise less powerfully and rapidly borne towards their issue, and consume the heart of society by a slow and wasting fever.

55. And yet, upon the principles of this work, dissent from the national faith is in the nature of a disadvantage for the performance of public functions; for if the State be intrusted with the administration of a Divine authority, its maxims must be determined and its laws moulded according to the revealed will of God: now that revealed will, in the view of the State, is represented by the Church; how, then, should it be a matter of indifference whether those who are to conduct the action of the State, are or are not imbued with the spirit of the Church? And again, yet more specifically, the disqualification of dissidents is in its nature, and so long as it can be maintained with security to the State, in the nature of a bulwark to the direct profession and active support of the national religion; and few will deny that, under some circumstances, it may be lawful for the State to discourage diversities of creed.* It is better, cæteris paribus, for the pre

* "Voici donc le principe fundamental des loix politiques en fait de religion. Quand on est maître de recevoir dans un état une nouvelle religion, ou de ne la pas recevoir, il ne faut pas l'y établir; quand elle y est établie, il faut la tolérer."-Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, xxv. 10.