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LECTURE XXV.

HAVING discussed, in the two preceding lectures, what relates to the concealment of scripture, and of all the publick offices of religion, by the use of an unknown tongue, and to the check given to the advancement of knowledge by the index expurgatorius, I intend, in this discourse, to consider the third grand expedient adopted by Rome for securing the implicit obedience of her votaries, namely persecution.

Nothing is clearer, from the New Testament, than that this method of promoting the faith is totally unwarranted, as well by the great author, as by the first propagators of our religion. His disciples were sent out as sheep amidst wolves, exposed to the most dreadful persecutions, but incapable of ever giving to their enemies a return in kind, in a consistency with this signature of Christ's servants; for in no change of circumstances will it suit the nature of the sheep to persecute the wolf. As it was not an earthly kingdom which our Lord came to establish, so it was not by carnal weapons that his spiritual warfare was to be conducted. The means must be adapted to the end. My kingdom, said he, is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight. Worldly weapons are suited to the conquest of worldly kingdoms. But nothing can be worse adapted to inform the understanding, and conquer the heart, than such coarse implements. Lactantius says with reason, Defendenda est religio non occidendo, sed moriendo, non sævitia sed patientia. To convince, and to persuade, both by teaching and by example, was the express commission given to the apostles. The only weapons which they were to employ, or which could be employed, for this purpose, were arguments and motives from reason

and scripture. Their only armour, faith and patience, prudence and innocence, the comforts arising from the consciousness of doing their duty, and the unshaken hope of the promised reward. By means of this panoply, however lightly it may be accounted of by those who cannot look beyond the present scene, they were, in the spiritual, that is, the most important sense, invulnerable; and by means of their faith, as the spring which set all their other virtues in motion, they obtained a victory over the world.

Beside the declared enemies from without, pagans and infidel Jews, whom christians had, from the beginning to contend with, there arose very early, in the bosom of the church, as had been foretold by the apostles, certain internal foes, first to the primitive simplicity of christian doctrine, and afterwards by a natural progress, to the unity, sympathy, and love, which, as members of the same society, having one common head, they were under the strongest obligations to observe inviolate. From the very commencement of the church, the tares of errour had, by divine permission, for the exercise and probation of the faithful, been sown among the good seed of the word. The only remedies which had been prescribed by the apostles against those who made divisions in the christian community, founding new sects, which commonly distinguish ed themselves by the profession of some erroneous doctrine, or at least some idle and unedifying speculation, were first, repeatedly to admonish them, and afterwards, when admonitions should prove ineffectual, to renounce their company, that is, to exclude them from their brotherhood, or excommunicate them; for the original import of these expressions is nearly On this footing matters remained till Constantine, in the beginning of the fourth century, embraced the faith, and gave the church a sort of political establishment in the empire.

the same.

From the apologies of the fathers before that period, (so the defences of our religion written by them are named) it is evident, that they universally considered persecution for any opinions, whether true or false, as the height of injustice and oppression. Nothing can be juster than the sentiment of Tertullian, which was, indeed, as far as appears, the sentiment of all the fathers of the first three centuries. "Non religionis est "cogere religionem, quæ sponte suscipi debeat, non vi." And to the same purpose Lactantius, "Quis imponat mihi necessi"tatem vel colendi quod nolim, vel quod velim non colendi? "Quid jam nobis ulterius relinquitur, si etiam hoc, quod vo "luntate fieri oportet, libido extorqueat aliena? Again, "Non est opus vi et injuria; quia religio cogi non potest, ver

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"bis potius quam verberibus res agenda est, ut sit voluntas." Once more, "Longe diversa sunt carnificina et pietas, nec potest aut veritas cum vi, aut justitia cum crudelitate con"jungi." Their notions in those days, in regard to civil government, seem also to have been much more correct than they became soon after. For all christians, in the ages of the martyrs, appear to have agreed in this, that the magistrate's only object ought to be the peace and temporal prosperity of the commonwealth.

But (such alas! is the depravity of human nature) when the church was put on a different footing, men began, not all at once, but gradually, to change their system in regard to those articles, and seemed strongly inclined to think, that there was no injustice in retaliating upon their enemies, by employing those unhallowed weapons in defence of the true religion, which had been so cruelly employed in support of a false not considering, that by this dangerous position, that one may justly persecute in support of the truth, the right of persecuting for any opinions will be effectually secured to him who holds them, provided he have the power. For what is every man's immediate standard of orthodoxy but his own opinions? And if he have a right to persecute in support of them, because of the ineffable importance of sound opinions to our eternal happiness, it must be even his duty to do it when he can. For if that interest, the interest of the soul and eternity, come at all within the magistrate's province, it is unquestionably the most important part of it. Now as it is impossible he can have any other immediate directory, in regard to what is orthodox, but his own opinions, and as the opinions of different 'men are totally different, it will be incumbent, by the strongest of all obligations, on one magistrate to persecute in support of a faith, which it is equally incumbent on another by persecution to destroy. Should you object, that the standard is not any thing so fleeting as opinion: it is the word of God, and right This, if you attend to it, will bring you back to the very same point which you seek to avoid. The dictates both of scripture and of reason, we see but too plainly, are differently interpreted by different persons, of whose sincerity we have no ground to doubt. Now to every individual, that only amongst all the varieties of sentiments can be his rule, which to the best of his judgment, that is, in his opinion, is the import of either. Nor is there a possibility of avoiding this But such is the intoxication of power, that men, blinded by it, will not allow themselves to look forward to those dreadful consequences. And such is the presumption of vain man, (of which bad quality the weakest judgments have commonly the greatest share) that it is with difficulty any

reason.

recurrence at last.

one person can be brought to think, that any other person has, or can have, as strong conviction of a different set of opinions, as he has of his.

But to return to our narrative. When the secular powers had changed sides, and were now come to be on the side of christianity, this was the manner, on the subject of religion, in which some men among the clergy began to argue. Princes ought to be considered in a twofold capacity; one is, that of christians, the other, that of princes, in both which characters they are bound to serve God: as christians, by observing the divine commandments, like every other disciple of Christ: as princes, by purging the church of all schisms, heresies, and blasphemies, punishing all transgressors of the divine precepts, but more especially those who, by the transgressions abovementioned, violate the first table of the decalogue: for as those sins are committed more immediately against God, they are much more heinous than theft, adultery, murder, or any sins committed against our neighbour. Now under the general denomination of sins of the first table, every sect (were their verdicts to be severally taken) would comprehend almost all the distinguishing tenets of every other sect. And though, in support of their plea, they might have many specious things to advance, they would all be found to lean on a false hypothesis.

First, it is false, that the concerns of the soul and eternity fall under the cognizance and jurisdiction of the magistrate. To say that they do, is to blend the very different and hardly compatible characters of magistrate and pastor in the same person; or, which is worse, to graft the latter upon the former, the sure method of producing a most absurd and cruel despotism, such as obtains in all Mahometan countries: nor is that much better which prevails more or less in popish countries, especially in the ecclesiastical state, and in Spain and Portugal, where the magistrate is grafted on the pastor, or rather on the priest.

Secondly, it is false, that spiritual concerns, if they did fall under the cognizance of the magistrate, are capable of being regulated by such expedients as are proper for restraining the injuries of violence and fraud, and preserving tranquillity and good order in society. Though, by coercion, crimes, which are outward and overts acts, may effectually be restrained, it is not by coercion that those inward effects can be produced, conviction in the understanding, or conversion in the heart. Now these in religion are all in all. By racks and gibbets, fire and faggot, we may as rationally propose to mend the sight of a man who squints, or is purblind, as by these means to enlighten the infidel's or the

heretick's understanding, confute his errours, and bring him to the belief of what he disbelieved before. That by such methods he may be constrained to profess what he disbelieves still, nobody can deny, or even doubt. But to extort a hypocritical profession, is so far from being to promote the cause of God and religion, that nothing, by the acknowledgment of men of all parties, can stand more directly in opposition to it. Nihil est tam voluntarium quam religio, says Lactantius, in qua, si animus sacrificantis aversus est, jam sublata, jam nulla est.

Thirdly, it is a false, though a very common notion, that errours concerning the divine nature and perfections ought to be denominated blasphemies, or considered as civil crimes. Blasphemy, in regard to God, corresponds to calumny in regard to man. The original name for both is the same. As the latter always implies what, in the language of the law, is called malus animus, a disposition to calumniate, so does the former. Mere mistake, in regard to character, especially when the mistake is not conceived by him who entertains it to derogate from the character, constitutes neither of those crimes. That no imputation, however, is commoner, can be ascribed solely to that malevolence, which bigotry and contention never fail to produce. Thus the arminian and the calvinist, the protestant and the papist, the jesuit and the jansenist, throw and retort on each other the unchristian reproach of blasphemy. Yet each is so far from intending to lessen, in the opinion of others, the honour of the divine majesty, that he is fully convinced that his own principles are better adapted to raise it than those of his antagonist, and for that very reason he is so strenuous in maintaining them. But to blacken, as much as possible, the designs of an antagonist, in order the more easily to bring odium on his opinions, is the too common, though detestable, resource of theological controvertists*.

I proceed to show the advances which, from time to time, were made, till that system of persecution which, in a great part of the world, still obtains, was brought to maturity and established. For ages after the opinion first took place among christians, that it was the magistrate's duty to restrain hereticks by the infliction of civil penalties, they retained so much moderation, as not to think that the punishment could justly extend to death, or mutilation, or even to the effusion of blood. But now that the empire was become christian, there gradually arose in it diverse laws against this new crime heresy, which are still extant in the codes of Theodosian and Justinian, imposing on the delinquents fines, banishments, or

For the scripture import of blasphemy, and the nature of that crime, see" Preliminary Dissertations to a Version of the four Gospels," by the Author, vol. 1, p. 395, &c.

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