political opinions may be safely inferred from the religion he has chosen to profess." *

On the supposition, then, that in a Protestant country there existed a numerous and influential sect or congeries of sects, whose religious principles were invariably identified with a form of polity inconsistent with that established in the state-is it possible that the government can with any due regard for the stability of the commonwealth, refrain from legislative measures calculated, in effect at least, to counterpoise the agency which is operating with such slow but otherwise irresistible fatality? It may not persecute the religions which operate thus injuriously, but it must establish a clerisy of its own,-introduce a new force which shall hold the other in equilibrio. If, as it is impossible to deny, it is the duty of the governing body to secure the permanence of the civil polity, over which it is called to preside,—if too it must tolerate sects and ecclesiasticoid communities, the idea and tendency of which are in real although covert antagonism, it must surely be its duty to legislate in view of the facts, which, however it may be effected, is ipso facto the intervention of political authority in matters of religion.

To modify the laws in view of the facts, as Montesquieu advises, is, to the extent of the alteration effected, a persecution.

*"On peut même," is the sagacious observation of Bentham, "en certains cas, préjuger les lumières, la force ou la faiblesse d'esprit, et les inclinations d'un individu, d'après la secte à laquelle il appartient.Traités de Législation, vol. i., p. 77.

One of three lines of policy it must pursue. It must either modify the civil law so as to create political disabilities or create a privileged religious order having its own views and aims-or thirdly, be content to perish. To do the first is to persecute-to do the last is political suicide. What, then? The duty is clear. If it were merely a choice of evils-the lesser is not to be mistaken. It must establish a national clerisy, if it would secure the rights of individuals, in the first instance, by securing liberty of conscience-and if in the next it would secure the rights of the community in general by securing the permanence of the political and social fabric.

CHAPTER 1V.

THE VOLUNTARY SYSTEM.

But here the Dissenter is studious to introduce in extreme antithesis with this political patronage of religion what he is pleased to term the Voluntary principle. Of its adequacy to all the wants alike of the church in itself, and of the church in its aggressive relations with the world, no eulogy has been thought too exorbitant. He has all but identified it with the essence of the Gospel; and is prepared to stigmatize all distrust to it as a want of faith in the inherent energies of Christianity. "The principle of Voluntarism," it is said, "enters essentially into all Christian duties ; and whatever interferes with their voluntary character, interferes with all in them that is Christian, and acceptable to God." And it is addedBy every state-religion, then, where there is a dominant sect supported in part by exactions from other sects, what

an amount of unwelcome offering-offering in which the first principle of all acceptable service has been violated,

-has been presented to the God of truth!"* It is asserted and maintained that "everything compulsory is opposed to " what Doctor Wardlaw terms "the genius of Christianity.

But that such reasoning is fallacious appears upon the very surface. It involves a gross misapprehension of what enters into the nature of true Evangelism. It interprets the gospel into a sanction for libertinism. It deprives it of its coercive, canonical, or regulative character. It reduces Christianity to a mere system of speculative opinions -which has no authority to compel belief--and the acceptance or rejection of which is left to the determination of an arbitrary and uncontrolled voluntaryism. Whether in giving or believing it makes man's will the measure of his duty. No, it will be said, not so! Man is not at liberty to give or withhold, to believe or disbelieve, according to his own volitions, only in the sense that he may select, and does select between a right and a wrong. if this is the voluntaryism, in respect of which such clangor and tumult have been excited, it is a mere chimera! It is just the voluntaryism which all law, whether divine or human, sets before the subject, that, namely, of a choice between obedience and disobedience under pains and penalties. The very existence of sanctions implies a liberty of choice,-but a liberty, by the way, in no sense

* Dr. Wardlaw-On National Establishment, p. 238.

But

incompatible with the most absolute and arbitrary despotism.

M. Jules Simon discriminates more accurately. "There are other differences between religion and philosophy; but the following is the principal. Philosophy aims at truth by the employment of reason; religion believes itself in possession of a body of truth, which it has received from God, and which it imposes upon reason itself. The principle of philosophy is liberty: the principle of religion is authority. It is necessary that this authority should be irrefragable, for if its doctrine is open to discussion, it enters afresh into the domain of philosophy;-it appertains to science, and not to faith."* The principle of religion is that of authority. It is coercive. It makes laws, It creates sanctions. It imposes limits on liberty. It binds the conscience. It compels conformity of belief. It leaves nothing to voluntaryism, correctly so called. The only willing-hood which it recognises is the willing-hood of obedience. It approves of the "willing mind." But there its voluntaryism ends. Men are not at liberty to be unwilling. Their duty stands prescribed. Do it they must,—or else take the solemn sequence of their

* "Il y a d'autres différances entre la religion et la philosophie, mais celle-là est la principale. La philosophie tend à la vérité par l'usage de la raison; la religion se croit en possession d'une vérité qu'elle a reçue de Dieu, et qu'elle impose à la raison elle-même. Le principe de la philosophie est la liberté ; le principe de la religion est l'autorité. Il faut, que cette autorité soit irréfragable, car si le dogme se discute, il rentre dans le domaine de la philosophie; il appartient à la science, et non à la foi."—La Liberté de Conscience, p. 106.