According to him, Government ought to exclude Dissenters from office, but not to fine them, because Christ's kingdom is not of this world.We do not see why the line may not be drawn at a hundred other places as well as that which he has chosen.We do not see why Lord Clarendon, in recommending the act of 1664against conventicles, might not have said, "It hath been thought by some that this classis of men might with advantage be not only imprisoned but pilloried.But methinks, my Lords, we are inhibited from the punishment of the pillory by that Scripture, 'My kingdom is not of this world."' Archbishop Laud, when he sate on Burton in the Star-Chamber, might have said, "I pronounce for the pillory; and, indeed, I could wish that all such wretches were delivered to the fire, but that our Lord hath said that His kingdom is not of this world." And Gardiner might have written to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire "See that execution be done without fall on Master Ridley and Master Latimer, as you will answer the same to the Queen's grace at your peril.But if they shall desire to have some gunpowder for the shortening of their torment, I see not but you may grant it, as it is written, Regnum meum non est de hoc mundo; that is to say, My kingdom is not of this world."But Mr.Gladstone has other arguments against persecution, arguments which are of so much weight, that they are decisive not only against persecution but against his whole theory."The Government," he says, "is incompetent to exercise minute and constant supervision over religious opinion." And hence he infers, that "a Government exceeds its province when it comes to adapt a scale of punishments to variations in religious opinion, according to their respective degrees of variation from the established creed.To decline affording countenance to sects is a single and simple rule.To punish their professors, according to their several errors, even were there no other objection, is one for which the State must assume functions wholly ecclesiastical, and for which it is not intrinsically fitted."This is, in our opinion, quite true.But how does it agree with Mr.Gladstone's theory? What! the Government incompetent to exercise even such a degree of supervision over religious opinion as is implied by the punishment of the most deadly heresy! The Government incompetent to measure even the grossest deviations from the standard of truth! The Government not intrinsically qualified to judge of the comparative enormity of any theological errors! The Government so ignorant on these subjects that it is compelled to leave, not merely subtle heresies, discernible only by the eye of a Cyril or a Bucer, but Socinianism, Deism, Mahometanism, Idolatry, Atheism, unpunished! To whom does Mr.
Gladstone assign the office of selecting a religion for the State, from among hundreds of religions, every one of which lays claim to truth? Even to this same Government, which is now pronounced to be so unfit for theological investigations that it cannot venture to punish a man for worshipping a lump of stone with a score of heads and hands.We do not remember ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary instance of inconsistency.
When Mr.Gladstone wishes to prove that the Government ought to establish and endow a religion, and to fence it with a Test Act, Government is _to pan_ in the moral world.Those who would confine it to secular ends take a low view of its nature.A religion must be attached to its agency; and this religion must be that of the conscience of the governor, or none.It is for the Governor to decide between Papists and Protestants, Jansenists and Molinists, Arminians and Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Sabellians and Tritheists, Homoousians and Homoiousians, Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelites and Monophysites, Paedobaptists and Anabaptists.It is for him to rejudge the Acts of Nice and Rimini, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, of Constantinople and St.John Lateran, of Trent and Dort.It is for him to arbitrate between the Greek and the Latin procession, and to determine whether that mysterious filioque shall or shall not have a place in the national creed.When he has made up his mind, he is to tax the whole community in order to pay people to teach his opinion, what ever it may be.He is to rely on his own judgment, though it may be opposed to that of nine-tenths of the society.He is to act on his own judgment, at the risk of exciting the most formidable discontents.He is to inflict, perhaps on a great majority of the population, what, whether we choose to call it persecution or not, will always be felt as persecution by those who suffer it.He is, on account of differences often too slight for vulgar comprehension, to deprive the State of the services of the ablest men.He is to debase and enfeeble the community which he governs, from a nation into a sect.In our own country, for example, millions of Catholics, millions of Protestant Dissenters, are to be excluded from all power and honours.A great hostile fleet is on the sea; but Nelson is not to command in the Channel if in the mystery of the Trinity he confounds the persons.An invading army has landed in Kent; but the Duke of Wellington is not to be at the head of our forces if he divides the substance.And after all this, Mr.
Gladstone tells us, that it would be wrong to imprison a Jew, a Mussulman, or a Buddhist, for a day; because really a Government cannot understand these matters, and ought not to meddle with questions which belong to the Church.A singular theologian, indeed, this Government! So learned, that it is competent to exclude Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, so unlearned that it is incompetent to fine a Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pilgrimage to Juggernaut.
