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tages. The members of the unprivileged sects naturally view with an evil eye the government which treats them with disfavour; and they naturally lay much stress on their character as members of a certain religious society, when in virtue of that character they are made by the state the subjects of a species of negative persecution.

Those rulers who have persecuted part of their subjects for professing a form of religion different from their own, or who have given exclusive civil privileges to the clergy of a particular denomination, have probably in most cases been actuated by a combination of the civil and religious motives just mentioned. They have felt it their duty to encourage the diffusion of their own faith; they have also conceived that those who are members of the same church as themselves, are likely to be more attached to them in temporal matters; and they have thought that by persecution, positive or negative, they were striking at once the heterodox believer and the disaffected subject *. But although these motives have probably in most cases been mixed in practice, it is most important to distinguish them in argument, and to press the advocates of an exclusive ecclesiastical system, to state on which ground they rely; whether they connect the state with one particular church, excluding all other churches from this alliance, because it is the duty of a ruler to

* This mixture of motives for religious persecution is well illustrated by a remark of Sir J. Mackintosh in a character of Louis XIV. "His chivalrous feelings (he says) combined with apparent policy to urge him to the extermination of those who were the enemies of religion, as well as royal authority. Persecution seemed to him the office of a knight, the duty of a magistrate, and the policy of a king."-Life of Mackintosh, vol. ii., p. 210.

promote the true faith, to legislate (as Paley says) for the furtherance of human salvation *;" or whether the members of the unprivileged churches are shut out, because they are bad subjects, and because their creed leads to evil consequences in this life. In general, the defender of religious inequality finds it convenient to shift from one set of topics to the other; now to insist on the paramount and sacred duty of governors to diffuse true religion; then to enlarge on the constant loyalty, peaceableness, and good conduct of the favoured persuasion, and on the turbulence, disaffection, and immorality of all others. Thus, in the numerous discussions on the Catholic Question, we were sometimes told that the Catholics ought to be disfavoured, because they owed a divided allegiance to the king, because they were opposed to the Protestant succession, because they were rebellious, because they nourished designs of retaliation and future aggrandizement, because they were swayed by the influence of their priests all of which arguments relate to the mischievous effects of Catholicism in this state of existence.

* "It will be remembered that the terms of our proposition are these, That it is lawful for the magistrate to interfere in the affairs of religion, whenever his interference appears to him to conduce by its general tendency to the public happiness.' The clause of 'general tendency,' when this rule comes to be applied, will be found a very significant part of the direction. It obliges the magistrate to reflect not only whether the religion which he wishes to propagate amongst his subjects be that which will best secure their eternal welfare; not only whether the method he employs be likely to effectuate the establishment of that religion; but also upon this further question: whether the kind of interference which he is about to exercise, if it were adopted as a common maxim amongst states and princes, or received as a general rule for the conduct of government in matters of religion, would upon the whole, and in the mass of instances in which his example might be imitated, conduce to the furtherance of human salvation."-Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy, book vi., ch. 10.

But in discussions on the question of Church Reform in Ireland, and of the grant to Maynooth, we are told that the state ought not to abandon the cause of Protestantism, that true religion will be extinguished in Ireland without the assistance of the government, that no conscientious man can lend himself to the diffusion of a false creed: which arguments refer to the effects of Catholicism, not in this, but in the next world. Now it is much to be desired that the advocates of civil distinctions in ecclesiastical matters would distinctly state on which of these two grounds they proceed*: for if a person thinks that the members of a certain church are dangerous as subjects, it is unnecessary for civil governors to enter into the religious question; while if he thinks that it is his duty as a ruler to promote by all means in his power the diffusion of his own faith, it is obviously in free governments a mere question of preponderance of numbers in the legislature, and all argument on the subject is nugatory and superfluous.

It is difficult to determine whether, upon the whole, the connexion between church and state is the more mischievous to the church or to the state; but it seems that, except on few and extraordinary occasions, this confusion of powers is extremely mischievous to both.

That it is mischievous to the state is obvious on many grounds. By deciding that one creed is true, it necessary entails on itself the ill-will and suspicion of those of its members whose creed it thus pronounces to be false; by selecting one persuasion as the object of

* Warburton, in his celebrated work on the Alliance of Church and State, distinctly adopts the civil ground: saying, that “the true end for which religion is established is not to provide for the true faith, but for civil utility."-See Parliamentary Talk, p. 47.

its exclusive favour, it creates a discord and jealousy among its subjects, which otherwise would not exist, at least to the same degree. It gratuitously inflicts on itself the evils of disunion and dissension, which otherwise might be altogether absent. So far, therefore, as dissension is created for the purpose of discountenancing a creed of which the moral effects in this world are not on the whole pernicious, the present and temporal are sacrificed to what are assumed to be the spiritual and post-mortem interests of the community; the advantages of peace and concord in the civil union are foregone in order to afford a part of its members that which another part consider as a better chance of salvation. How far it may be right for a civil government to sacrifice the temporal happiness of its subjects in order to save their souls, we shall presently seek to determine : for the present we only wish it to be observed, that so far as men's worldly interests are sacrificed in order to promote their spiritual welfare, the connexion of the church and state is injurious, and manifestly and avowedly injurious, to the latter.

It is true that the mere abstinence of the state from pronouncing on the comparative merits of creeds will not put an end to religious discord. Under a system of the most entire equality, Protestants and Roman Catholics would still dispute about introducing the Bible into schools, and opening it without reserve to the laity *. The love of power, the love of truth, the

* The reason why Roman Catholics object to the reading of the Bible is very obvious, and it may be stated without giving them just cause of offence. They believe, it is true, everything which is in the Bible; but they also believe other things which are not in the Bible. Give an intelligent Chinese or Hindoo the Bible, and it is conceivable that he should form from it a creed identical with the Thirty-nine Articles, or the West

hatred of superstition, the wish to promote the eternal happiness of others, the love of propagating one's own opinions-these, and other motives, will always prevent the weapons of religious controversy from becoming blunt or rusty. But it is very questionable whether simple theological hatred, not sharpened on the whetstone of temporal and worldly motives, ever prompts men to the active measures which we see caused by religious feelings in countries where the state undertakes to decide on the truth of creeds. It may be doubted whether large bodies of men have ever been animated by genuine religious animosity, as they have been by fear, by patriotism, by the love of revenge or plunder, or even by a sense of religious duty. Bigotry is not diffusive; it does not pervade masses of people; its head-quarters are the prominent leaders and instigators of the multitude, and to them it is for the most part confined. A man may be taught that persons of a different creed-Heretics, Dissenters, Infidels, Pagans, or whatever they may be called-are dangerous and unfit for association: but whenever he may be thrown in contact with any of the denounced class in the ordinary relations of life, as buyer or seller, fellowworkman, fellow-passenger or traveller, neighbour, &c., he begins to find that they are affected in the same way

minster Confession of Faith. But it is inconceivable that he should form it a creed identical with the Roman Catholic creed, inasmuch as that Church follows tradition as well as Scripture. If, therefore, the Bible is put in a child's hands without explanation; if it is unaccompanied with other religious instruction,-unless the child is told that he is to pray to the Virgin Mary, to believe in the good offices of saints, the sacrifice of the mass, confession, &c., it is clear that he can never be a Roman Catholic. Hobbes long ago said, that when reason is against a man, he is against reason. It is equally natural, that when the Bible is against a man, he should be against the Bible.

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