cannot be conserved except through their spiritual, and that therefore statesmanship is, after all, somewhat more than a matter of mere police. Again it is said that,—“ he jumbles heaven and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these societies," that is, church and state. And all we have to say in reply is, that, even granting, which we do not, the accuracy of the statement, the world would perhaps be none the worse for having, as Mr. Locke says, a little of heaven "jumbled" into it. We are further told that "political society is instituted for no other end but only to secure every man's possession of the things of this life." As it seems to us a most erroneous and pernicious doctrine! Has legislation, we demand, no relation, and that directly, to the honour and glory of God? This is surely not the view of St. Paul, whose inspired injunction is,-whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do-(language universally comprehensive), do all to the glory of God." Nor is it that of the Psalmist who commands "the Kings" and "judges of the earth" to "serve the Lord with fear, to rejoice with trembling," and to "kiss the Son," that is, to embrace in their kingly and judicial capacity the faith of Christ, "lest he be angry, and they perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little.*

And as related to this general question of the laws and limits of toleration we may consider as decisively

* Psalm ii, 10—11. Compare Psalm lxxxii; Isaiah xlix, 7; lx, 3; Daniel iv, 25-37.

against the view of Mr. Locke, the doctrine propounded by the patriarch Job. The passage in chapter xxxi,* to which reference is here made, is what would in the language of logic be termed an universal affirmative; and is, as it appears to us, conclusive on the right of the magistrate to punish, or to at least restrain idolatry. And it was only in accordance with this inspired dictum that the legislation of the Hebrew nation made idolatry a capital offence.

The fact is that truth is essentially intolerant of error: right of wrong good of evil: light of darkness. The oriental mind came nearer the real state of the case when it represented the good and the evil as two active and mutually antagonistic powers. Truths are powers for good. Errors are also powers, but for evil. And as such they are in essential and natural oppugnancy the one to the other. Truth is intolerant of error: and error is intolerant of truth. Virtue is intolerant of vice; and vice is intolerant of virtue. Orthodoxy is intolerant of heterodoxy, and heterodoxy of orthodoxy. "Ye are not of the world," saith our saviour, "therefore the world hates you." And this hating is to be reciprocal, as the command of St. John clearly shows, when he says:-"Love not the world,

* Job xxxi, 26-28, inclusive. "If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand. This also were an iniquity to be punished by the judge; for I should have denied the God that is above."

neither the things that are in the world.

If any man love

It may be observed that the worship here referred to, is that of the heavenly bodies. Comp. Ezek. viii. 16.

"If I beheld the

Sun:"-Heb. Or-in Latin lux, i.e. lux solis, sol, Cf. xxxvii. 21. Isaiah xviii. 4., Hab. iii. 4. Homer similarly speaks of the sun as pάos, light.—Odyss. iii. 355. This worship of the heavenly bodies called Sabaism, from Heb. tsábhá, a host.

"Or the moon walking, &c:"-Comp. Herodotus lib. IV., Julius Cæsar De Bello Gallic. lib. VI. Tacitus Annal. lib. XV. That our Saxon forefathers worshipped the Sun and Moon, appears conclusively from the names given respectively to the first and second days of the week, viz., Sunday and Monday or Moon-day.

them.

"And my heart hath been secretly enticed:"-i.e. to worship

"And my mouth etc.:-On the kissing of the hand, by which idols were wont to be worshipped, Comp. 1 Kings, xix. 18., Hos. xiii. 2., Min. Felix ii. 5., Pliny H. N. xxviii. 2., Tac. Hist. iii. 24., Winer R. W. I. p. 812, and Lucian in the book Teρi ἀρχήσεως.

"This were an iniquity, etc. :"-It was, as one commentator expresses it, a "crimen grave a judicibus publicis puniendum." By the judge here is evidently meant the civil magistrate. Compare Deut. xvii. 2, 7., and Exek. viii. 14, 18. Another expositor, and a Dissenter too, admits that "Job regarded" idolatry "as a heinous offence, and one of which the magistrates ought to take cognizance," -an admission by the way, fatal to the theory that the civil ruler has no authority in matters of faith.

"The very designation of a civil magistrate," says Dr. Wardlaw, "ought to be understood as defining his official functions, and limiting them to the civil department." But if so, the patriarch Job, who wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, must have been labouring under some tyrannical illusion, since he certainly did not understand the "designation of a civil magistrate," as Dr. Wardlaw says, "it ought to be understood."

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the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

The fact is, that in these days of a finical, sickly, and maudlin sentimentalism, when error has, if possible, more apologists than truth, it need occasion us no surprise that there should be claimed for the whole monster brood, the slimy reptilia of superstition, an unrestricted licence to crawl about in the land, such as, if granted, cannot but prove obnoxious both to the security of the commonwealth, and to the honour and glory of God.

But a

"If any man err from the right way," wrote Locke, "it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee." principle fraught with more danger to society could not possibly have been uttered. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that "the error from the right way," here spoken of, should happen, as it might, to take the form of offences against the person, as assault or abduction :-of offences against property, as arson, larceny, or forgery :-of offences against the government, as treason, the selling of public offices, or the administration of unlawful oaths:-of offences against religion:-of offences against the law of nations:against public justice :—against public peace-against public trade or against the public health, police or economy-what comfortable consolation would it not be to society to check the hand that would arrest the offender with the balmy philosophy of a Locke, and say, "it is his own misfortune, no injury to thee-nor therefore art thou to punish."

But it is frequently said, that the spirit of the gospel

is opposed to the employment of force.* But we are prepared to demonstrate that even Christianity itself does not itself extend to heretics all that M. Simon declares to be elemental to liberty of conscience. Both Locke and Simon affirm that no man ought to suffer prejudice on account of his creed. And the disciplinary acts of the earlier councils are upon this account stigmatized as tyrannical. But were they more so than those damnatory sentences and canons which are to be found in the writings of the New Testament? When certain Judaizing teachers had sought to pervert the gospel of Christ, what was the treatment which they received at the hands of the great apostle? Was it that of unlimited toleration? Let his solemn anathemas, be our only answer. "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be

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* So Wardlaw, Locke, Simon, Pascal, and others. The last named author has the following passage in his Pensées :conduite de Dieu est de mettre la religion dans l'esprit par les raisons, et dans le cœur par la grâce. Mais de la vouloir mettre dans l'esprit et dans le cœur par la force, et par les menaces, ce n'est pas y mettre la religion, mais la terreur, terrorem potius quam religionem."-Art. xxiv. 3.

"Where coercion begins, religion ends. All compulsion here is impiety."-DR. WARDLAW,-Lectures on Estab. p. 29.

"The end of religious society,......is the public worship of God, and by means hereof the acquisition of eternal life. No force is here to be made use of upon any occasion whatsoever. For force belongs wholly to the civil magistrate."-Locke, on Toleration, p. 23.