Now from these and other similar passages, which might be cited, it is evident that M. Jules Simon, looks upon equality as an element of liberty. It is admitted that the principle of establishments utterly excludes the idea of equality, and therefore, according to our author, of liberty too. We have seen, however, that "to lay down as a principle"-as the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the 21st of August, 1789 did lay it down,* "that all men are by nature equal as to their rights, would be, by a chain of necessary consequences, to render all legislation impossible."+ We have seen, in fact, that equality is impracticable, is as impossible in practice as it is chimerical in theory. We have seen, as in the case of the Great French Revolution, that any attempt made towards its realization ends—and ends inevitably in the total subversion both of church and state,-ends in brief in state anarchy, civil chaos,-in the total disruption and dismemberment of the whole fabric of human society.

Consequently, therefore, since political equality enters neither into the essence nor the conditionnel of the public good, it is manifest that from the fact, which we readily admit that state-churchism creates inequalities, no objection to such state-churchism can legitimately be derived.

M. Jules Simon's argument, therefore, is at once nugatory and inapposite.

* La Declaration des droits de l'homme, art 1., ran thus ;-"Tous les hommes naissent et demeurent égaux en droits."

Jeremy Bentham, Traités de Legislat. Tom. I. p. 173.

Another objection, however, made to the principle of state-religions, is, that the state is profoundly incompetent to the authorization of religion. The state we are told, is "neither metaphysician, nor theologian-ni métaphysicen ni théologien; and we are directed for proof to the contests between the empire and the papacy, and between the French parliament and the Sorbonne. We are pointed to these facts as illustrative of the confusion. which it is supposed is necessarily consequent upon political interference in religious causes. But, as it appears to us, the facts adduced fall far short of a demonstration of the doctrine here propounded.

Upon the other hand cases are numerous in history, where the state has exercised over the decisions of the church a most valuable corrective influence. If the secular power is fallible, the church is not infallible. When in the VIIIth century the Papal church lent itself to iconolatry, may it not be taken as a testimony to the capacity of state politicians even in religious matters, that a Philippicus, a Leo the Isaurian, and a Charlemagne opposed their influence to the progress of this wretched superstition. The popes were the iconolaters; but the emperors the iconoclasts! Was it not to the honour of William the Conqueror that he resisted the assumptions of the ambitious Hildebrande? Was it not to the honour of Henry II. that he sought to correct the abuses of the clergy? Are not the Constitutions of Clarendon proof that the state is not altogether incompetent to know the right from the wrong, and the good from the evil even in matters of

M

ecclesiastical discipline? And do not the names of the emperor Lewis of Bavaria, of Philip the Fair of France, of the Edwards I. and III., of Richard II., of the Electors of Saxony, of Gustavus Vasa and many others suggest that reforms-ecclesiastical and religious reformsmay originate as frequently on the side as much of the state as of the church? That parliaments may legislate very unwisely, none will deny. But the incompetence in such cases is per accidens. In states as such there is no inherent and necessary unfitness for ecclesiastical legislalation. If politicians are not theologians it is their own fault. They are possessed of all the faculties necessary to theologic study, and have free access to the same sources of information as lie open to him whose vocation is exclusively spiritual. If they fail to avail themselves of these advantages they are not surely by virtue of such neglect, exonerated. Failure in one duty cannot possibly be pleaded as valid reason for failure in another.

But again, M. Simon further avers that he spurns the system of state-religions as a proscription of liberty of thought "la proscription de la liberté de penser." We are told that a state church is a persecuting church. It is said that Constantine declared himself for unlimited toleration immediately upon his victory over Maxentius ; * but that, from the day that the bishops became a power in the state, the church became intolerant. The same judges it

* Edict of Constantine and Licinius, in Lactantius,-La Liberté de Conscience, pp. 112, 115.

is averred who, as it were the evening before, condemned the christians in the name of the deities of the empire, were now condemning the Donatists in the name of the Councils and of the Catholic and Apostolic faith;-the old pagan intolerance thus re-appearing, but this time in the service of another creed. We are further told that when the ecclesiastics forgot to be apostles, it became necessary that sooner or later they should resign themselves to become executioners. We are referred to the misfortunes of an Abélard, of a Wycliffe, a Husse, a Jean Le Clerc, a Jean Châtelain, a Bernard Palissy, a Louis Berquin, an Anne du Bourg, a Galileo, and a Giordano Bruno ! We are told of the martyrology of thought"martyrologe de la pensée. We are reminded of the persecuting canon of the IVth Council of Lateran,*-a canon which Gregory IXth inserted among his 'Decretals' and of how Aquinas in his Summa Theologiæ taught that heretics deserved not only to be separated from the church by excommunication, but also from the world by death.-"Meruerunt non solùm ab Ecclesiâ per excommunicationem separari, sed etiam per mortem à mundo excludi." these facts we readily admit. We admit that state-churches have been intolerant, and above all the church of the Papacy! We admit that the Council of Constance was a persecuting Council.+ We admit that the Hussite war

And

* At the 44th session of this Council it was determined"Tangriam hæretici relapsi, lapsi puniantur ad ignem,”—Art. 23.

Husse and Jerome of Prague were its victims.

made “Bohemia and a part of Germany,” to cite a Roman Catholic historian's own words, "a desert deluged with human blood." We admit that the Sorbonne was an enemy to liberty of conscience, when in condemning the proposition of Luther-"Hereticos comburi esse contra voluntatem spiritûs sancti," it added—“ hæc propositio est falsa et errori Waldensium et Catharorum consona." We admit that the Baron D'Oppede, De Monfort, Guise, Louvois and many others were monsters of intolerance and fanaticism. We admit all this. We have not a word of apology for the "missions bottées,” the Dragonnades, the Holy Inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, or the persecution of Port Royal. We have no defence for a Francis I., a Charles IX., or a Louis XIV.

We admit, we repeat, that state-churches have been, and in some cases still are intolerant, and that this is true par excellence of the church of the Papacy. And correctly viewed, this admission is for us at least a safe one. It can in no wise prejudice our argument. And why? Because it is not in the power of M. Simon, or Neander, or Mosheim, or in fact of any other historian to prove that because a church is a state-church it will become by consequence an intolerant-a persecuting church. Perhaps it is true that every state-religion in Europe has at one time or another drawn the sword in its own behalf. But what of it? It only proves that in ages by-past the doctrine of toleration was not practiced,—and for good reason, because not understood. We are not to judge the great