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 CHRISTIAN POLITICS. 
 
ISg tl)r aamt ^utljov. 
 
 1. CHRISTIAN MORALS. 
 
 2. INTRODUCTION TO THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO. 
 
 3. POPULAR EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 4. SACRED THOUGHTS IN VERSE. 
 
 5. SERMONS ADDRESSED TO YOUNG MEN. 
 
 Edited by Hcv. W. Sewell. 
 
 1. AMY HERBERT, 2 vohs. 
 
 2. RODOLPH THE VOYAGER. 
 
CHRISTIAN POLITICS. 
 
 .NiJ^ 
 
 PBIHCETOIT ^ 
 ,htG. FEB 188! 
 THBQLOGICi^Ii 
 
 REV. WILLIAM SEWELL, B.D. 
 
 FELLOW AND SUBRECTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, 
 
 AND iATE 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JAMES BURNS, 17 PORTMAN STREET, 
 
 VORTMAN SQUARE. 
 
 MDCCCXLIV. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 I'lUNTEU BY ROBSON, LEVEY, ANO FHANKI.VN, 
 
 Great New Street, Ketter Lane. 
 
AMICIS 
 
 AMICO MELIORE DIGNIS 
 
 QUIBUSCUM H^C ET SIMILIA 
 
 UT COLLOQUIIS JUCUNDISSIMIS DISPUTATA 
 
 ITA IN OFFICIIS 
 
 PRO ECCLESIA ET PATRTA SUSCEPTIS 
 
 NON SINE SPE FRUCTUS TENTATA SUNT 
 
 GRATUS ERGA DEUM CLEMENTISSIMUM 
 
 QUI PLURIMAS VIT^ COMMODITATES 
 
 TAM SANCT^ NECESSITUDINIS CARITATE 
 
 CUMULAVERIT 
 
 G. S. 
 
PREFAC 
 
 There is one feature in the following pages 
 which requires explanation, lest it should seem 
 to exhibit and encourage the very errors against 
 which they are intended as a warning. It is, the 
 absence of reference, first, to the authority of 
 other writers in support of opinions ; and, se- 
 condly, to historical facts in illustration of prin- 
 ciples, which properly constitute the philosophy 
 of history. 
 
 The former deficiency has been caused by a 
 temporary separation from books, which has pre- 
 vented the fulfilment of an original intention to 
 arrange the same ideas, as might easily have been 
 done, in the very words of men whose names 
 would have commanded reverence — of Plato 
 and Aristotle, of Cicero and Seneca, of Hooker 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 and Bacon, of Butler and Burke, of our own 
 lawgivers and jurists, of the Fathers of ancient 
 Christendom, and especially of the great philo- 
 sophers and divines of our own Anglican Church. 
 The other deficiency is intentional. For rea- 
 sons elsewhere explained, historical facts cannot 
 safely be made the grounds of political science. 
 Induction is not the mode in which Christians 
 will search for principles, where Revelation has 
 provided them aheady. And even in their pro- 
 per place, as illustrations and confirmations of 
 principles, their evidence is often so suspected, 
 motives are so disputed, circumstances so con- 
 fused, causes and effects so hidden, and when 
 traced out so questionable, that by resting on 
 them we run the risk of diverting attention 
 from certain truth to doubtful arguments, and 
 of losing the demonstrable principle from its 
 connexion with the disputed fact. Theory, in- 
 deed, is valueless and mischievous as opposed to 
 facts. But truths, however general and abstract, 
 which have been conveyed to men by Christia- 
 nity, arc as much facts, and cire as much sup- 
 ported by the proper evidence of all historical 
 
IX 
 
 facts — the testimony of the senses— =■ as any oc- 
 currence in history. 
 
 It is idle to suppose that political theories 
 of any kind can be put forward without meeting 
 with condemnation. And even where truth is 
 maintained, it is hard to avoid all occasion for 
 just censure in the mode of stating it. A firm 
 belief will often seem to slide into dogmatism, 
 and the authority with which those are bound 
 to speak who would speak only under the autho- 
 rity of their Church must sound like arrogance. 
 We must seem, w^hile avoiding one extreme of 
 error, to be approaching its opposite, and to omit 
 one face of the whole truth, while occupied with 
 another. And there are real and just grounds 
 for anxiety in the present day, which may well 
 excuse more than ordinary distrust and suspi- 
 cion. 
 
 I have endeavoured, as much as possible, 
 to avoid occasions for misapprehensions even in 
 the use of words. And where the word ' Catho- 
 lic' has been used, it has been retained lest by 
 degrees a title so venerable, and so necessary 
 for the defence of the gospel of Christ, should 
 
FREFACJb;. 
 
 come to be appropriated, whether by Roman- 
 ists or others, in a peculiar sense not warranted 
 by genuine Christian antiquity. 
 
 If a deep and awful reverence for our blessed 
 Mother Church of England ; if a belief, con- 
 firmed by every inquiry, that her doctrines are 
 consonant with Scripture, with ApostoHcal teach- 
 ing, with true reason ; if an earnest desire to 
 abstain from every opinion which she would 
 condemn, to submit to her lawful rulers, and to 
 serve her only as she herself calls upon her min- 
 isters to serve her ; and if a painful but deep- 
 rooted conviction, drawn both from personal 
 observation and from reading, that, whatever be 
 the virtues of individual Romanists, the system 
 of the Papacy itself is essentially and radically 
 anti-christian, and can only be corrected by the 
 entire abandonment of its fundamental articles ; 
 — if these things, openly and consistently pro- 
 fessed and acted on, and at great sacrifices of per- 
 sonal interest and feeling, cannot save servants 
 of the Church from the charge of meditating its 
 corruption and inclining to its bitterest enemies, 
 little remains but boldly to maintain the truth 
 
in the sight of Him who sees the heart, and to 
 abandon all vain attempts to save it from the 
 obloquy of men who know not what they do. 
 
 It is often presumption to take into our own 
 lips the words of wise and holy men, whose lives 
 in so far, far greater degree than our own, rea- 
 lised what they professed ; and yet I would fain 
 send this little book into the world with the fol- 
 lowing prayer of one who was a great light and 
 ornament of our Church : — 
 
 " My hearty desire and prayer is to Almighty 
 God, the Father of mercy, that He would so bless 
 the ministry of the Church of England, that we 
 all being linked in love, as it were with chains 
 of adamant, might, with one heart and one hand, 
 religiously build the temple of the Lord, rever- 
 ently perform holy obedience to God and the 
 Prince, carefully keep ourselves unspotted and 
 unstained of this present world, and faithfully 
 feed the flock of Jesus Christ that depends upon 
 us. The comfortable accomplishment whereof, 
 whosoever shall maliciously hinder, let him take 
 heed lest a fearful curse from the God of Jacob 
 come like water into his bowels and like oil into 
 
XU PREFACE. 
 
 his bones ; but whosoever shall pray for the peace 
 of Jerusalem, peace be upon him, and mercy, 
 and upon the Israel of God. The furtherance 
 of which blessings, to the glory of Christ and 
 the good of the Church, men and brethren be- 
 loved in the Lord, is the mark I aim at, and the 
 scope I intend ; that we all, like obedient child- 
 ren, may keep the unity of the Spirit in the 
 bond of peace."^ 
 
 1 Sermon by Francis Mason, B.D., on the Authority of the 
 Church. 
 
OF 
 
 PK IT 
 
 CHRISTIAN POLITICS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 My dear Friend, — The following remarks are 
 the substance of a conversation which passed some 
 time since between us, when we were walking to- 
 gether on the cliffs at D . It was the evening 
 
 of an autumnal day, and the winter was approaching. 
 The morning had been grey, and overhung with 
 dense mists, which rolled in volumes along the sides 
 of the opposite coast, and left bare only a dim out- 
 line of headlands and precipices. At noon they had 
 swept away, and the broad expanse of ocean was 
 glittering under a brilliant sunshine, like a shield of 
 silver. But with the evening came cold and storm. 
 Dark heavy piles of clouds surged up from the 
 horizon, and towered round the sinking sun, as if 
 menacing it with tempest on the morrow. And 
 scattered vessels were hastening to take refuge from 
 the impending storm, in the bay which stretched be- 
 neath our feet. The conversation had been grave and 
 sad. It had turned upon the past history and coming 
 fortunes of the British empire : and I think it was 
 yourself who observed in the scene before us a touch- 
 ing and obvious analogy to the prospects which we 
 had been contemplating in the political revolutions 
 of the country. From these we passed on to the 
 
2 THK METHOD OF STUDYING 
 
 theory of political society in general. And I remem- 
 ber that several of the opinions, wliich were then 
 hazarded, rather as suggestions for inquiry, than as 
 dogmatic conclusions, appeared to you new and 
 even paradoxical. And even if true, you considered 
 that they would be practically useless, because it 
 would be impossible to bring them home to the 
 minds of statesmen. 
 
 And yet it was agreed that the science of politics 
 could no longer be reserved as an exclusive study 
 for philosophers, or for the few who take the lead 
 in the government of modern empires. The repre- 
 sentativ^e system has brought nearly the whole po- 
 pulation of this country, in some degree or other, 
 within the duties and the responsibilities of govern- 
 ment. Every individual who possesses or can in- 
 fluence a vote, if he would exercise his trust upon 
 the ordinary principles of integrity and prudence, is 
 bound to deliberate with the same caution, and to 
 act with the same wisdom, as if in his single person 
 he was responsible for the decision of every question 
 which is brought before the representative legis- 
 lature. A single vote in parliament must turn the 
 scale ; and the nature of that vote must depend 
 upon the constituent who decides the majority in 
 the election ; and, as each constituent may possibly 
 be that man, each is bound to act as if he certainly 
 would be ; since contingencies, in moral cases, carry 
 with them, nearly always, as much obligation as 
 absolute certainties. 
 
 This view, if you remember, of our political 
 condition, instead of satisfaction and triumph, filled 
 us both with considerable awe. In the eyes of 
 that Providence who portions out the measures of 
 retribution upon mankind, nations, no less than in- 
 dividuals, are responsible beings. They have their 
 virtues and their vices, their good deeds and their 
 
CH. I.] POLITICAL SCIENCE. 3 
 
 crimes, their punishments and rewards. And for 
 the most part tliey are punished and rewarded for 
 the sake, and in the persons, of their rulers. Even 
 if there should appear to be much less difference 
 externally than really exists Ijetween the fate of 
 democracies and tyrannies, yet to suffer innocently 
 by the misconduct of another, and guiltily by our 
 own, are very different things. And the thought, 
 that by the principle of popular representation the 
 guilt of misgovernment is spread over the Mhole 
 mass of the people — that where vast interests are at 
 stake, rashness, thoughtlessness, even ignorance be- 
 comes a heinous crime — and that rashness, thought- 
 lessness, and ignorance, are the almost necessary 
 accompaniments of popular acts — this thought was 
 full of alarm. 
 
 It seemed to involve the duty and necessity of 
 endeavouring to bring the theory of political society 
 more within the range of general education; of 
 familiarising even young minds with some of those 
 fundamental principles on which it ought to be con- 
 structed, and especially of Christianising it. For, 
 like many other studies, the Science of Politics 
 for some time past has been dealt with in a spirit 
 essentially Heathen. Whether from an affectation 
 of candour, or from a false confidence in powers of 
 reasoning, or from coldness of heart, or from real 
 practical infidelity disguised under the name of 
 liberality, we seem to have consented to wave the 
 very profession of Christianity in discussing the 
 constitution of Society ; and to treat it, as if we 
 were at liberty to adopt the same method of ar- 
 gument as Aristotle or Plato — we who possess a 
 Revelation, as they who had none. 
 
 In following up this reflection we were led to 
 state the conclusion at which we had arrived in 
 a form which at first startled and perplexed you. 
 
THE METHOD OF STUDYING 
 
 And as the same effect might be produced upon 
 others, it is necessary to guard against it. 
 
 There are occasions in which it may be both 
 safe and wise to exhibit truth in striiiing shapes, 
 even though they appear as paradoxes. When 
 thoughtless inattentive minds are to be roused to 
 inquire and think, — when conclusions are to be cast 
 into terse, portable, axiomatic forms, that they may 
 be retained in the memory, even before the process 
 of reasoning them out can be pursued — or, at times, 
 when a sudden check must be given to some popular 
 extravagance by suggesting its opposite principle — 
 it may be excusable, and even desirable, to risk 
 apparent paradoxes. But there is one subject, in 
 which they should scarcely ever be hazarded, — the 
 subject of religion. It is not only too sacred to bear 
 even the appearance of levity or rashness ; but to 
 familiarise the mind with the reception of novelties, 
 or of seeming novelties, — with curious speculation, 
 with the indulgence of logical ingenuity, with a 
 passion for discovery, and a distrust for simple 
 truths, is to unsettle the very foundation of Chris- 
 tian faith. Quietness and simplicity are the cha- 
 racteristics of a Christian understanding. And 
 excitement and curiosity are ill purchased by the 
 sacrifice of such a temper. For these reasons I 
 would not willingly hazard in any observations that 
 follow even the appearance of paradox. And there- 
 fore the suggestions which startled you in the ab- 
 ruptness of conversation may better be thrown into 
 another form. 
 
 We were inquiring, what was the proper mode 
 of studying the Science of Politics in a Christian 
 spirit and upon Christian principles. Let us con- 
 sider first, the mode in which it would be studied by 
 a Heathen, in the spirit and upon the principles of 
 Heathen philosophy. 
 
CH. I.] POLITICAL SCIENCE. 5 
 
 He would commence probably, as Aristotle has 
 led the way, by a careful collection and comparison 
 of the facts and phenomena of Society. He would 
 examine different forms of government, different law^s, 
 different habits, and trace their causes and results in 
 the history of nations. From these he would evolve 
 certain general principles; the adoption or exclusion 
 of which, in the formation of Society, he would re- 
 commend according to his own preconceived notions 
 of good or evil. He would find that a free govern- 
 ment was favourable to the accumulation of wealth ; 
 and if wealth was in his mind a good, he would advise 
 that which encouraged it. He would observe that 
 ])opular representation diffused a certain kind of in- 
 telligence ; and if this kind of intelligence seemed to 
 him conducive to happiness — that is, a good — he 
 would pronounce popular representation a good also. 
 He would in this manner decide upon the good and 
 evil of political society. And without such a deci- 
 sion, speculation on such subjects is idle. But having 
 advanced thus far, he must advance still farther. If 
 he believes at all in a Great Maker and Cause of 
 all tilings, he must know that nothing can be good 
 which is opposed to His nature, or estranged from 
 His being. He must desire to be assured that what 
 man has fancied to be good, is good in the eye of 
 God. And he cannot be satisfied with any know- 
 ledge of God's works, which does not lead him up to 
 God Himself. Even in the world of matter Science 
 cannot rest, without struggling to mount up from 
 earth to heaven. If wisdom be the knowledge of 
 causes, there can be no true wisdom short of the 
 knowledge of the One Great Cause. If happiness 
 is sought, as it must be, in some external object 
 greater and better than ourselves, there can be no 
 perfect happiness, and therefore no contentment, 
 until we have reached the throne of the All-Mighty 
 b2 
 
6 THE METHOD OF STUDYING 
 
 and All-Good. And so in Political Philosophy, in 
 the study of God's greatest earthly work, the consti- 
 tution of human society, the reason of man cannot 
 rest without ascending from the creature to the 
 Creator. And upon what axiom will he make this 
 ascent ? What great truth w ill he take as a funda- 
 mental postulate, in order to infer the nature of the 
 Creator from the nature of His works ? 
 
 He must assume that between an Intelligent 
 Being, and the product of his Intelligence, there 
 must be a close and essential relation. All reason 
 acts towards some end. Its movements are never 
 vague, capricious, or aimless. But that end is a 
 conception of its own. It foresees, imagines, plans 
 out in idea, before it executes in practice. A child 
 may take up a hammer and a chisel, and blindly hew 
 out a block of marble, without being able to give an 
 account, or explain the intention of any of his move- 
 ments. But a Phidias, w hile the marble is lying in 
 its rude and shapeless mass, has already visioned to 
 himself the form which it is hereafter to take ; and 
 to the production of this form he directs his energy. 
 This, as far as human experience extends, is the 
 universal law of reason. Nor, however Ave may be 
 perplexed by metaphysical difficulties arising from 
 the difference between a finite and an infinite nature, 
 can we proceed to reason upon the operations, even 
 of a Divine Intelligent Creator, without employing 
 this analogy. The idea of the work lies within the 
 mind of the worker before the work itself exists, 
 and the work is a copy of the idea. The invisible 
 things of God are seen by the visible. Upon 
 this principle rests the whole argument of Natural 
 Theology. From contrivances for producing hap- 
 piness even a child will infer that the contriver is 
 himself benevolent ; from distractions and blemishes 
 iji the creation he concludes that the Creator willed 
 
CH. I.] POLITICAL SCIENCE. 7 
 
 not this world to be our ultimate rest and Paradise; 
 from providential dispensations of justice even now, 
 he concludes the existence of a justice which will 
 one day render to every man according to his works. 
 These principles are obviously sound. And upon 
 them the Christian, like the Philosopher, must take 
 his stand. But they must be fairly and fully carried 
 out. The Christian will have a right to demand from 
 what source the Philosopher has obtained the collec- 
 tion of historical facts on which he builds his in- 
 duction. And the answer must be, from the testimony 
 of man. No individual experience can accumulate 
 enough to support an argument. Upon the validity, 
 therefore, of historical testimony rests his whole 
 superstructure. What, again, is the faculty by which 
 the Philosopher educes from these materials his gene- 
 ral principles ? It is the logical faculty of a single 
 individual. It is not the reason of human nature it- 
 self, or the intuition of those grand eternal principles 
 which God has implanted in all hearts, indissolubly, 
 indelibly, universally ; but the art of argument, which 
 varies, and fails, and errs ; and is as likely, when 
 uncontrolled by a superior power within the mind, to 
 evolve falsehood as truth. Whence does he obtain 
 his primary conceptions of the nature of good and 
 evil? If from his own sensibilities, these also are 
 capricious and wavering as a quicksand. If from 
 the eternal laws of all human affections, by which 
 we love virtue, and hate vice, these also can have 
 no firm foundation, except as built up by the Creator 
 of man in the depth of man's nature ; and thereby 
 assuring us that they possess a reality and a being 
 external to man himself, and permanent in the 
 nature of God. And on what principle does he 
 infer the attributes of the worker from the characters 
 stamped on the work ? Upon a principle, which 
 infers as cogently the nature of the work from the 
 
8 THE METHOD OF STUDYING 
 
 nature of the worker. If Natural Theology can as- 
 cend by such a ladder from earth to heaven, with 
 far greater facility can Revelation by the same lad- 
 der descend from heaven to earth. 
 
 It is not said, that a Christian will arrive by 
 this process at the method which he is bound to 
 pursue in studying Political Science, as perhaps all 
 other sciences ; for a Christian acts by faith prior 
 to reasoning. But it is said, that he will be enabled 
 by it to justify, even in the eye of Philosophy, a 
 conclusion which, without it, must take the form 
 of paradox. He will reverse the steps. He will 
 begin by placing before him the same end with 
 the heathen; the knowledge of God — the know- 
 ledge of God, whether considered as the highest 
 and ultimate subject of man's thoughts and affec- 
 tions, or as involving the knowledge of all laws, 
 the rule of all actions, the model of all creations, 
 and, therefore, of political creations. He will be 
 assured that, if he could once discover the essential 
 attributes of the Divine Being, he would find in 
 them a key to all the problems of the world ; and 
 that, whether he studied the constitution of society 
 as a speculation or in practice, simply to under- 
 stand its mysteries, or to assist in realising its per- 
 fections, in each case alike he could obtain no better 
 guide than a knowledge of the will and intention 
 and nature of Him who formed it. He will ask 
 where that knowledge is to be obtained. And 
 three offers will be made to supply it. There are 
 the physical works of God, in which the secrets of 
 His nature lie scrolled and blazoned in ten thou- 
 sand mysterious symbols; and before which Na- 
 tural Theology stands vainly endeavouring to peruse 
 them, as hieroglyphics of an unseen hand. There is 
 the voice of God within us, s])eaking in our con- 
 science and in our reason ; but it is deadened, and 
 
CH. I.] POLITICAL SCIENCE. 9 
 
 obscured, and blended with the cries of our own 
 passions, and with the wanderings of our own ima- 
 gination ; still it is the voice of God Himself, tell- 
 ing us His nature and His laws ; and telling them 
 to us far more intelligibly and distinctly than any 
 material symbols can, as the eye interprets better 
 than the hand. But there is a third interpreter re- 
 maining. The Church Catholic (is it necessary now 
 to repeat, that this is not identical with the Romish 
 Church?) offers to supply him the very knowledge 
 which he requires, cleared from indistinctness, 
 drawn from the first and highest source of all know- 
 ledge, from God Himself; not evolved by any hu- 
 man reasoning, or rendered doubtful by its falli- 
 bility, but conveyed unchanged and unmixed from 
 age to age ; and stamped and guaranteed in its 
 identity and perspicuity by being cast into the form 
 of words, and there permanently fixed, with the 
 same reference to a Divine sanction, under which 
 the truths themselves were first divulged to man. 
 She offers this knowledge to the Christian under 
 the very same guarantee, under which the Philo- 
 sopher is compelled to receive the facts which con- 
 stitute the materials of his reasoning — the historical 
 testimony of man — but a testimony as far supe- 
 rior to the witness which can be produced for 
 any considerable number of political phenomena, 
 as the evidence of a vast body of independent wit- 
 nesses, solemnly pledged on the most solemn of 
 subjects, given publicly and uniformly under every 
 temptation to suppress it, persevered in through 
 eighteen centuries, perpetuated through every re- 
 volution of society, maintained in every variety of 
 circumstances, countersigned and approved by the 
 greatest and most penetrating intellects, and con- 
 firmed by appeals to every other authoritative tri- 
 bunal, is superior to the casual capricious observa- 
 
10 METHOD OF STUDYING POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 tions of individuals, confused with their own fancies, 
 and recorded without any responsibility. 
 
 If the Christian accept this testimony ; if through 
 it he receives the declaration of the Church con- 
 cerning the nature of God — that is, her Creeds ; 
 if from their declarations he would infer the gene- 
 ral characteristics of God's Avorks as well as of His 
 being, and, most of all, the characteristics of that 
 work which is the greatest and noblest upon earth, 
 and to which all others seem subordinate, the 
 Political Society of man, what Philosophy can pre- 
 sume to censure him, without condemning the very 
 principles on which its own speculations are con- 
 ducted ? 
 
CH. II.] FORMULARY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, 11 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 Some such considerations as the above induced me 
 to hazard the remark, which struck you as fanciful 
 and paradoxical, that the commencement of all Poli- 
 tical Philosophy should be laid in the study of the 
 Creeds of the Church, and especially of the Atha- 
 nasian Creed. 
 
 This is not the place to argue for the validity 
 and- correctness of this formulary as a genuine and 
 faithful exposition of revealed doctrine on the sub- 
 ject of the Divine Nature. This lies in the pro- 
 vince of Theology. But a member of the Catholic 
 Church, as such accepts her testimony, and acqui- 
 esces in her authority. He cannot throw aside 
 her declarations in a research where, if true, they 
 must be vitally necessary to his success, without 
 tacitly impugning her veracity, and repudiating his 
 allegiance. To rationalise, — that is, to commence 
 his inquiry with no other light but his own logical 
 faculties, with no other materials but such as he 
 has collected himself, — is an idle and silly presump- 
 tion, except upon the supposition that no other 
 assistance is to be obtained. To reject such assist- 
 ance is to deny its existence, or its value. No 
 man will trust to nature only to cure a disease, 
 except he doubt the efficacy of medicine. No one 
 hazards himself in a battle without arms, except 
 he despises them. No judge decides a cause of 
 life and death without hearing a witness, unless 
 he believes that witness to be unworthy of credit. 
 It is sad to think what amount of real practical 
 infidelity has been nurtured in all classes of so- 
 
12 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 ciety by the cool and settled determination with 
 which Christians have lately been accustomed to 
 throw themselves in intellectual inquiries of all 
 kinds solely upon their own resources. And in 
 political studies, as in all others, a real practical 
 Christian and member of the Church will be dis- 
 tinguished from a practical Heathen by recurring 
 boldly to that knowledge and that aid which the 
 Christian Church supplies him. He will not en- 
 deavour to discover the nature of the Divine Being 
 from the hieroglyphics of His works, but to de- 
 cipher the hierogWphics of His works by the know- 
 ledge which he alread}' possesses of His nature; 
 and he will derive that knowledge not from his 
 own fancies and speculations, but from the decla- 
 rations of God Himself revealed to him historically 
 through His Church. 
 
 And his task will be infinitely more easy. Which 
 is the more difficult process — to discover the key 
 by the cipher, or to read the cipher by the key ; 
 to extract the general laws of physics, of botany, 
 geology, or chemistry, from a mass of undigested 
 phenomena, or to trace them when once esta- 
 blished in those phenomena? When a language is 
 placed in the hands of a child, do we compel him 
 to unravel its meaning by his own comparisons 
 and inductions, or supply him with the rules of 
 grammar, and require him only to prove and illus- 
 trate them? And so in the study of that science 
 which is next to Theology itself in dignity and 
 value, the science of Political Society, who will 
 plunge into its mysteries and labyrinths by himself, 
 to extricate himself by his own unaided efforts, when 
 it is in his power to explore them with a clue and 
 a guide, which at the least has probability in its 
 favour ? 
 
 I say, probability, because perhaps it may not 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 13 
 
 be demonstrable, that reasoning from the abstract 
 attributes of the Divine Being to the nature of 
 His works is in all cases equally just and cogent. 
 From His moral attributes, indeed, to His moral 
 creation there would seem to lie a necessary in- 
 ference. A Being of justice cannot be conceived 
 to dispense injustice ; nor an Author of benevolence 
 to frame a system of cruelty. But between the 
 intellectual nature of God and the intellect of man 
 there may seem to be an impassable gulf. And 
 between moral and intellectual attributes and a 
 material creation there may appear such essential 
 differences, as to preclude them from being ac- 
 cepted as types and copies one from the other. 
 And yet even here, practically, we acknowledge a 
 wonderful analogy. All the language in which we 
 describe the character and operations of mind is 
 taken from matter. We speak of a ' great' mind, 
 of ' elevated ' strength, of ' low ' desires, of a 
 'hardened' conscience, of a 'clear' understand- 
 ing, of a ' brilliant ' imagination, of a ' black ' 
 heart, of ' foul' passions. All these are meta- 
 phors — metaphors taken from the material world — 
 taken not by compact and convention, as words in- 
 trinsically inapplicable, and requiring to be stamped 
 by art with other new significations, but offering 
 themselves by an internal fitness and similitude to 
 express unseen and spiritual ideas. So also, not by 
 art but by instinct, we learn to read the movements 
 of mind in its action upon matter, and in the forms 
 which it impresses upon matter. In the outlines 
 of the face, in the tones of a voice, in the glance 
 of eyes, in gesture, in walk, in dress, in a thousand 
 nameless signs, we recognise passions and habits 
 buried deep in the secrets of the heart. 
 
 We not only read but create them by means of 
 the same material symbols. The painter, the sculp- 
 c 
 
14 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 tor, the architect, the musician, are all shapers and 
 moulders of the material world. But their whole 
 scope and aim is to reach and affect the mind. 
 They cannot reach it except through the body ; 
 through the eye, and the ear, and the touch, which 
 receive immediately nothing but corporeal impres- 
 sions, and yet are the channels to the soul. But 
 even when these avenues to the soul are opened, 
 they would be as far removed from it as ever, 
 as wholly excluded from any commerce and com- 
 munication with it, as the inhabitants of another 
 planet are from this earth, unless they had within 
 their reach signs, symbols, analogies, resemblances 
 of spiritual things, stamped by the hand of Nature 
 herself upon the external creatures of sense, and 
 which they could present to the mind ; as savages 
 learn to offer for barter only objects which the civi- 
 lised eye can understand and appreciate. 
 
 The further we pursue this observation, the 
 more we are compelled to acknowledge the fact of 
 a wonderful similitude, analogy, and correlation be- 
 tween the material and the spiritual world — the 
 more we find it practically asserted and acted on 
 even by the child and the peasant, who yet never 
 heard of the doctrine ' of ideas,' nor could com- 
 prehend the abstract theory, that of all created 
 things the primary archetypal forms lie hidden in 
 the being of their Creator. 
 
 But let us now contend not for a hasty assump- 
 tion of such a fact, however strongly it may be 
 supported, but for a cautious and reverent appli- 
 cation of it to the theory of Political Society — the 
 application of it as an hypothesis — as a question 
 still to be solved — with the same reservations and 
 willingness to abandon it, with which any experi- 
 mental Piiilosopher proceeds to test the general 
 law which has l)ecn suggested to him by a casual 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 15 
 
 phenomenon, and holds it in his mind suspended 
 and undetermined until it has been confirmed by 
 experiment. Let us claim for it as yet no further 
 weight, than that which is given by every Political 
 Philosopher to his first hasty induction, before he 
 has matured and established it. For a Christian, 
 while he gives to Revelation the reverence, the 
 awful reverence, and value, which is due to the 
 Word of God, will beware also how he employs it 
 to purposes for which it was not designed. We 
 may be bound to go before the ark and consult it 
 in trials and emergencies. But we may not be per- 
 mitted to carry it out to battle as a charm against 
 the enemy. It may be our highest wisdom to ac- 
 cept in all fulness the declaration of the Church 
 Catholic respecting the Divine Nature ; but there 
 may be hidden and unalterable reasons, which would 
 render it presumptuous to apply them to the expla- 
 nation of created phenomena. 
 
 But with this sober and reasonable caution, a 
 Christian may safely proceed to try his experiment. 
 
 He will observe, then, that in the Athanasian 
 Creed, as sanctioned by the Church, there is con- 
 tained the most formal, abstract, generalised, and 
 technical statement of the Divine Nature. It is 
 the metaphysical formula of all revelation. All the 
 other parts and facts of Christianity fall and range 
 themselves under this grand doctrine of a Trinity in 
 Unity, and an Unity in Trinity. And the power of 
 abstraction can proceed no farther. He here reaches 
 the cause of causes — the highest and parent source 
 of all other truths — that point in the ascending scale 
 of knowledge, short of Mhich human reason will 
 never be contented to stop ; and beyond which it 
 cannot pass. As a Christian, he has been placed, 
 as by the hand of Angels, upon that pinnacle of the 
 temple of truth, which Philosophy, with stumbling, 
 wandering footsteps, is vainly endeavouring to reach 
 
16 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 by a path of its own discovery; and from this he will 
 endeavour to look down and discern its reflection 
 imaged in all the forms that lie before him in the 
 mirror of the created world. 
 
 He will not be startled with the fact, that this 
 parent truth is a stumbling-block to the human un- 
 derstanding ; one which the mere logical faculty of 
 man could not reach, and in which it cannot ac- 
 quiesce, except under the wing of faith. He re- 
 ceives it upon the authority of God, by the voice of 
 His Minister and Prophet — the Catholic Church. 
 And he is not surprised to find that the highest 
 generalised formula of a world of mystery and 
 problems should itself be a mystery and problem. 
 But while all human speculations on the subject 
 divide themselves into two classes; one, the most in- 
 tellectual, contending for the Unity of the Creator, 
 and the other, the voice of the populace, proclaim- 
 ing Plurality ; he will be struck with the deliberate 
 firmness with which Christianity asserts a doctrine 
 embracing both, without attempting to reconcile 
 them by reasoning. When he considers the firm, 
 solemn, uncompromising, peremptory voice in which 
 both these truths are enunciated, and the warnings 
 with which they are accompanied, it will impress on 
 him the necessity of fixing them steadily before his 
 mind in all his inquiries, and of maintaining them 
 combined in the same form and relation in which 
 revelation presents them. They are antagonist doc- 
 trines, set as barriers against the extravagances of 
 human intellect on the one side, and of human 
 passion on the other. To the vulgar sensualised 
 mind, distracted and divided by its appetites, the 
 doctrine of the Unity is most strange, and there- 
 fore most necessary to be enforced. To the Phi- 
 losopher, whose law of thought is order, system, 
 perspicuity, demonstration, in one word unity, under 
 some form or other, the doctrine of Plurality pre- 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 17 
 
 sents a barrier, which must be maintained inviolabh'. 
 And as it is the Philosophical Study of Political 
 Science on which we are now supposing the Chris- 
 tian to be entering, he must fix most prominently and 
 primarily before his eyes the doctrine of Plurality. 
 He will then ask himself if these two doctrines, both 
 rigidly guarded and combined, do not constitute the 
 type and model upon which creation has been con- 
 structed, the law under which all other laws are 
 ranged, the key to all the phenomena of the world, 
 the highest ultimate expression of all beauty, and all 
 goodness, and all truth, as they are the highest 
 ultimate expression of the Mystery of the Divine 
 Nature. 
 
 And a single glance at the constitution of the 
 world in general will reveal a multitude of facts 
 tending to confirm this hypothesis. When he looks 
 at the material world, at any department of natural 
 science, he will see that the whole business of phi- 
 losophy is to trace some one general law — some one 
 pervading form through an infinite variety of com- 
 binations. Every leaf, and every flower, and plant, 
 and tree, and all the classes of animal life, from the 
 zoophyte to the elephant, are constructed upon prin- 
 ciples of organisation, which the farther we trace 
 them, resolve themselves more easily into certain 
 grand comprehensive formularies, which themselves, 
 we are instinctively assured, are reduceable under 
 some one head, though we endeavour to discover 
 it in vain. The streams of being branch out into 
 myriads of currents, but we believe — we cannot 
 but believe — that there is some one fountain-head. 
 They exhibit a plurality in unity, and an unity in 
 plurality. 
 
 We look to the mind of man, and we trace it 
 passing from infancy to boyhood, from boyhood to 
 manhood, from manhood to age, from age to death, 
 c2 
 
18 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 through innumerablfi changes and affections ; eacli 
 moment colouring it with some new feeling, or im- 
 pressing on it a different idea, and still its very- 
 being consists in its identity and permanence. It is 
 a fixed point amidst a whirl of external vicissitudes, 
 with which it combines at every moment, and yet 
 is identified with none, preserving its own distinct- 
 ness while it enters into all their forms ; until man 
 arrives at his maturity and perfection, an unity in 
 plurality, and a plurality in unity. 
 
 We examine the laws of morals; and there also 
 perfection consists in affections which unite minds 
 without destroying their individual distinctness ; in 
 obedience, which harmonises actions without con- 
 verting subjects into slaves; in firmness and con- 
 sistency of conduct, which reduces the vacillations 
 of human thoughts and feelings into order and per- 
 manence, while still they are permitted to exist ; in 
 energy, which masters and subdues opposing wills 
 and forces ; in quietude, which maintains an unity 
 of being amidst all the vicissitudes of the w^orld ; in 
 faith, by which a multitude of intellects (vary as 
 they may in power, in situation, or in age,) are yet 
 capable of receiving and preserving one eternal, im- 
 mutable body of truth ; in reason, of which the one 
 object and paramount law is, to extract from a chaos 
 of phenomena one pervading universal truth, while 
 the phenomena themselves are permitted to retain 
 their distinctness and reality. 
 
 So it is with the world of imagination. Every 
 theory of beauty embraces two elements at once. 
 One colour will not constitute a picture; and yet over 
 a variety of colours there must be thrown one tint 
 and tone. One line will not form a statue; and yet, 
 from a multiplicity of lines, the sculptor must place 
 before the eye some one consistent image. A build- 
 ing is a crystallisation of forms ; yet towers and pin- 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 19 
 
 nacles, arches and vaults, aisles and niches, fretted 
 roofs and sculptured corbels, windows fianiing with 
 all the colours of the rainbow, and carvings wrought 
 into a labyrinth of net-work — all these, when brougiit 
 together by the hand of a master, are framed and 
 dovetailed into one grand plan, realising one idea, 
 permeated with one spirit. The Poet brings upon 
 the stage not one, but a multitude, of characters; he 
 represents life in all its forms, the human mind in all 
 its phases ; his very excellence consists in the com- 
 prehensiveness and versatility of his conceptions. 
 But if he understand his art, he will link together 
 not only his acts and events by their relation to 
 some one end, but even the most sudden changes 
 and incongruities by some main key-note. When 
 Shakespeare passes at once from the awfulness of 
 Macbeth's thoughts after the murder of Duncan, to 
 the vulgar ribaldry of the Porter at the gate, he 
 makes that ribaldry turn upon the thought of Hell. 
 So it is in music — so it is in oratory — so it is in 
 every production of human fancy : simplicity and 
 variety ; intricacy and regularity ; order amidst 
 seeming confusion, and multiplicity in apparent 
 identity ; discords harmonised ; contrasts reconciled ; 
 deficiencies supplied ; irregularities corrected — these 
 are the triumphs of art. But the triumph is achieved 
 only when both elements are preserved together — 
 distinct but not separate — combined but not con- 
 fused. The law of beauty, like the law of morals, 
 is unity in plurality, and plurality in unity. 
 
 And the Christian will think it possible that it 
 may be the same in the construction of Political 
 Society. And the greatest of Heathen philosophers 
 will at once confirm the supposition. When they cri- 
 ticise or speculate on the theory of a state, their first 
 thoughts are directed to its unity. Unity is its be- 
 ing, its essence, without which it perishes. And yet 
 
20 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 110 theory of society was ever framed, even in the 
 most elevated abstractions of philosojDhy, which did 
 not provide in it for the element of plurality. It 
 must establish relations between the governors and 
 the governed ; between the divers, varying, uncer- 
 tain multitude of passions, affections, and opinions 
 contained in the popular will, and the one uniform 
 permanent principle of justice, w^hich constitutes law, 
 and which is embodied in the lawgiver. But when 
 the people are merged in the King, society is lost in 
 despotism ; and when the King is merged in the 
 people, it is broken up and scattered to the winds in 
 anarchy. The whole history of nations is a struggle 
 between these two principles — between liberty and 
 law. Now one has triumphed, and run into ex- 
 travagance, and now the other. Perhaps, by some 
 happy accident, the equilibrium has been preserved 
 for a moment, but the slightest disturbance will de- 
 stroy it, and the oscillations will again commence : 
 and then always they have been most fearful, when 
 no attempt has been made to hold fast both seeming 
 oppositions ; and some theory, either of an arrogant 
 philosophy, or of a still more arrogant licentious- 
 ness, beautiful to the human eye from its absolute 
 simplicity, and, for this very cause, still Jiiore fear- 
 ful than beautiful, has taken possession of the mind ; 
 and in the attempt to follow headlong one dominant 
 unbalanced principle, a nation has precipitated it- 
 self into the very contradictory extreme ; and again, 
 from that, has plunged back into the former, "until, 
 wearied and exhausted, like sailors with the rolling 
 of the waves, when all hope of steering is lost, they 
 give themselves up to despair, and sink down under 
 the first strong arm which is able to throw them into 
 chains. 
 
 And if such is the history of civil society, and 
 such apparently tiie law of its perfection, the same 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 21 
 
 law and the same history are still more palpably 
 presented on the face of tliat spiritual society, which 
 is, in even a more especial manner, the creation 
 of God. " Neither pray I for these alone," were 
 the words of our blessed Lord, " but for them also 
 which sliall believe on me through their word ; that 
 they all may be one: as Thou, Father, art in me, 
 and I in Thee, that they also maybe one in us : that 
 the world may believe that Thou hast sent me. And 
 the glory which Thou hast given me I have given 
 unto them ; that they may be one, even as we are 
 one : I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be 
 made perfect in one " (John xvii. 20). And St. 
 Paul, still more distinctly : " There are diiferences of 
 gifts, but the same Spirit ; and there are differences 
 of ministrations, but the same Lord ; and there are 
 differences of workings, but it is the same God who 
 
 worketh all in all For as tHe body is one, 
 
 and hath many members, and all the members of 
 that one body, being many, are one body, so also is 
 Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptised into 
 
 one body For the body is not one member, 
 
 but many If the whole body were an eye, 
 
 where were the hearing ; or if the whole were hear- 
 ting, where were the smelling ? But now God hath 
 set the members each one of them in the body, as 
 He willed. And if all the members were one mem- 
 ber, where were the body ? But now are there 
 
 many members, but one body And whether 
 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; 
 or one member is honoured, all the members rejoice 
 with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and mem- 
 bers in particular" (1 Cor. xii. 4-27). In the same 
 manner it is said, " This is the mystery of the will of 
 God, according to His good pleasure Avhich He hath 
 purposed in Himself; that in the dispensation of the 
 fulness of times He might gather together in one 
 
22 THE FUNDAMENTAL FORMULARY 
 
 all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and 
 which are on earth, even in Him " (Ephes. i. 9). This 
 is the consummation of all things, " that when all 
 things are subdued unto Christ, then may the Son 
 also Himself be subject unto Him that put all things 
 under Him, that God may be all in all" (1 Cor. 
 XV. 28). This is the law of that assembly of the 
 tirst born, which was " chosen and ordained before 
 the foundation of the world " (Ephes. i. 4) ; " for the 
 manifestation of which the earnest expectation of 
 the whole creation waiteth " (Rom. viii. 19); in the 
 hope of which " it was made subject to vanity ;" into 
 whose " glorious liberty it shall hereafter be deli- 
 vered from the bondage of corruption," in which it 
 " now groaneth and travaileth in pain " (Rom. viii. 
 21). "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye 
 are called in one hope of your calling ; one Lord, one 
 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who 
 is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephes. 
 iv. 3). So union, the closest union, with Christ its 
 head, is the essence of its life. " So ought men to 
 love their wives as their own bodies ; he that loveth 
 his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated 
 his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even 
 as the Lord the Church. For we are members 
 of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. For 
 this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, 
 and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall 
 be one flesh. This is a great mystery ; but I speak 
 concerning Christ and the Church" (Ephes. v. 28). 
 Li the same union we are commanded to "grow 
 up to Him in all things, which is the head, even 
 Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined toge- 
 ther and compacted by that which every joint sup- 
 plieth, according to the effectual working in the 
 measure of every part, maketh increase of the body 
 unto the edifying of itself in love" (Ephes. iv. 15). 
 
CH. II.] OF POLITICAL SCIENCK. 23 
 
 And to the same blessed end the finger of Pro- 
 phecy is perpetually pointing — to a time when all 
 nations and all languages shall be united in one 
 faith, " fearing the name of the [o?ze] Lord from 
 the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun " 
 (Isa. lix. 19); when one city shall be as the centre 
 of the whole world, " its gates open continually, that 
 men may bring unto it the forces of the Gentiles, 
 and that their kings may be brought" (Isa. Ix. 11) ; 
 when friends and foes shall be joined in one service; 
 " the sons of strangers building up its walls, and 
 their kings ministering unto it ;" when all that dis- 
 turbs and deranges shall be removed from the world, 
 " and every valley be exalted, and every mountain 
 and hill be made low, and the crooked be made 
 straight, and the rough places plain " (Isa. xl. 4). 
 And in that blessed kingdom all is to be peace and 
 concord. " The wolf wdll dwell with the lamb, and 
 the leopard lie down with the kid" (Isa. xi. 6) ; and 
 nought shall either hurt or destroy in the holy moun- 
 tain of the Lord. Beauty shall be without defect, 
 and glory without dimness : " the stones shall belaid 
 with fair colours, and the foundations with sapphires, 
 and the windows made of agate, and the gates of 
 carbuncles, and all the borders of precious stones" 
 (Isa. liv. 11). Wisdom will be boundless, " for the 
 earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as 
 the waters cover the sea " (Isa. xi. 9). Life be end- 
 less; " for there shall be no more an infant of days, 
 nor an old man that hath not filled his days" (Isa. 
 Ixv. 20). Happiness will be pure ; " for all tears shall 
 be wiped away from the eyes, and there shall be 
 no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither 
 shall there be any more pain :" and goodness be un- 
 alloyed ; for into that "city of God there shall not 
 enter in any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever 
 worketh abomination, or makcth a lie" (Rev. xxi.27). 
 
24 FORMULARY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Unity shall be fulfilled throughout, yet unity con- 
 sistent with variety, and with the distinctions which 
 constitute the relations on which the virtue and 
 happiness of man are framed. 
 
 Such is the character and perfection of that 
 Polity to which all Revelation points as the object 
 of this creation, and the consummation of all things. 
 And when we turn to the first establishment of the 
 Church upon earth, which is its womb and germ, 
 still the same type recurs of infinite diversity com- 
 bined with one paramount law of unity. Diversity 
 of gifts, diversity of offices, diversity of tongues, 
 diversity of local congregations, diversity of forms, 
 diversity of services, diversity of subordinate opi- 
 nions, diversity even in the outward shape of the 
 one universal creed; diversity in the fortunes and 
 the character of churches; diversity and collisions 
 between the powers of the world and the State, 
 and the powers of the priesthood and the Spirit ; 
 and still one Spirit working all in all, one faith, one 
 Head, closest intercommunion, inviolate attachment 
 to one Apostolical authority ; perseverance in one 
 path of tradition, adherence to one rule of faith, 
 asserted as the primary condition of its existence. 
 And the history of the Church, like that of civil 
 states, is but a lapse from this state of perfection 
 in which it was first placed, when both the princi- 
 ples were maintained, of plurality as well as of" unity 
 — a lapse first into exclusive unity, which took 
 the form of Popery, and then of exclusive ])lurality, 
 which engendered all the schisms and dissensions 
 of these latter days. 
 
CH. III.] SOCIETY AN END, NOT A MEANS. 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 One important effect will follow from viewing Po- 
 litical Society in this light, as a realisation upon 
 earth of the Divine Image and Perfection in heaven. 
 It will bring the Christian to look on it with far 
 more reverence, more humility, more dread of tam- 
 pering with or disturbing it, than the present age en- 
 courages us to feel. We have been taught by a mo- 
 dern Philosophy to regard it as a means, not an end 
 — as a machinery for obtaining some other good, 
 not as a good in itself; and consequently we have 
 learned to despise it. We have made it a police for 
 the preservation of life, a joint-stock company for 
 the accumulation of wealth, a warehouse and mart 
 for luxuries and comforts, a resting-place and for- 
 tress where we may be secured from the attack of 
 enemies, a discipline for the development of civili- 
 sation, or, at the best, a school for checking and 
 controlling our vices. It is, indeed, all this; but it 
 is much more. And to forget that it is more, is to 
 place it on a level with other conventional contriv- 
 ances of man, which, having man and man's in- 
 terests for their object, possess no dignity beyond 
 humanity; and which man thinks himself entitled 
 to alter or dispense with according to his own cal- 
 culations of expediency. Hence the doctrine so 
 commonly received, that the state was made for 
 individuals, not individuals for the state; hence 
 the direction of public policy, not by high views 
 of right and wrong, but by considerations of per- 
 
 D 
 
26 SOCIETY AN END, 
 
 sonal interests ; hence appeals to the popular voice, 
 not as a valuable and necessary witness, which, 
 in many things, it is, but as an adviser and a 
 judge ; hence the decision oF the most solemn ques- 
 tions, in which, by the corruption of our nature, 
 the many must be on the side of wrong, by the will 
 of the many ; hence the contemplation of a nation 
 as composed of so many parties, not capable of 
 being combined in one body and harmonised to 
 one end, but severed by conflicting interests, in 
 which the strong must triumph to the destruction 
 of the weak ; and hence the presumption and rash- 
 ness with which the fabric of an existing constitu- 
 tion, and the principles of an ancient legislation, are 
 mocked at, and torn down, and replaced from day 
 to day by some new speculation or experiment, until 
 the whole system, if system it can be called, becomes 
 a mass of incongruities and contradictions ; and in 
 the very multiplicity of legislation, law itself loses 
 all its obligation. These evils, and many like them, 
 have arisen from the simple fact, that Philosophers, 
 in studying society, have pursued their inquiries by 
 Induction instead of Deduction. They have dis- 
 carded the light of Revelation, and with it the 
 thought of God. Then has fallen upon them that 
 thick darkness in which nothing is discernible but 
 earth and things of earth. Then man and the con- 
 cerns of man became their only object. And as indi- 
 vidual man is too little in his nature, too feeble in his 
 powers, too short-lived in his existence, too narrow 
 in his views, to comprehend the whole magnitude of 
 Civil Society ; as he is, and ever must be, only a ])art 
 of the machine, a cog in the great wheel of political 
 events. Society, considered in itself, could not be to 
 Jiini an end. He could not grasp it, realise, attain to 
 it. There have, indeed, been jiatriots to whom the 
 well-being of their country was their chief good. 
 
CII. III.] NOT A MEANS. 27 
 
 their ha])piness, and their glory. But sucii an eleva- 
 tion of character is very rare, and too often is mixed 
 with much that is chimerical and fantastic. The 
 great mass of mankind can know nothing of it ; and 
 even in the wisest and best it too often becomes 
 enthusiasm, which aims at what is not witiiin its 
 reach. For our own happiness may be attainable, 
 under God, by our own properly exerted energies ; 
 tiie good of our country is at the mercy of others 
 besides ourselves. And thus, as the existence of 
 society could not be an end to man, and yet was 
 viewed only in relation to man, it could only be con- 
 sidered as a means. But a means to what? Only 
 one end was left — the good of individuals. Then 
 came the happiness of the greater number to be 
 regarded as the object of society. And with every 
 new theory of happiness came a new theory of 
 Society — plans for new constitutions and new go- 
 vernments ; of which the greater number professed 
 only to regard the lowest and most vulgar of worldly 
 interests, because minds which, in any speculation, 
 have not liked to retain God in their thoughts, must 
 sink into debasement and sensualism. 
 
 From all this melancholy aberration, which has 
 degraded and perplexed nearly all the political phi- 
 losophy of modern days, as it has disturbed and en- 
 dangered our political practice, a Christian may be 
 saved by considering Political Society as a creation 
 of God, as intended to represent His image upon 
 earth, as standing in relation rather to God than to 
 man, as being an end to God, if, indeed, any thing 
 can be an end to a Being in whose infinite sight 
 means and ends must be the same ; but, at least, as 
 partaking in the dignity and nature of the whole 
 created universe, which itself, and not any part of 
 it, was contemplated in the designs of Providence, 
 and the whole of it pronounced good. The heavens 
 
28 SOCIETY AN END, 
 
 do, indeed, embrace the earth in their compass, and 
 minister to its wants. The stars give it light, the 
 sun warms it into tVuitfulness, the moon sways the 
 tides of its ocean, the orbits of the planets act as 
 guides and warnings, and mark out times and sea- 
 sons. Yet the earth was made for the heavens, not 
 the heavens for the earth ; and Society was not made 
 for man, but man for Society, and Society for God. 
 And he who regards it in this light will reverence it 
 as an awful and holy thing, which he may not lightly 
 tamper with, or break up, or think to improve by 
 some fanciful experiment, or degrade to an unworthy 
 purpose, or speculate upon as if it were capable of 
 maintaining its existence, except in that form in which 
 its Creator framed it. He will be patient under any 
 trials to which he may be exposed as a part of it. He 
 will trust its well-being and its issue to the Hand 
 which made it, and for whose glory and pleasure it 
 was designed. He will expand his view of its desti- 
 nation and its vicissitudes, to embrace, not his own 
 short life alone, nor any series of human generations, 
 but the whole history of man. Every nation, and 
 every fortune of every nation, will form a link in the 
 great chain of human society, all leading on to some 
 great end, not to be accomplished fully till the work 
 of creation is completed, and time enters into eter- 
 nity. He will not permit the interests of individuals, 
 or of days, to affect acts which, bearing on society, 
 bear thus upon all futurity, and not on the universe 
 alone, but even on its Maker and its Head. And 
 he will beware lest any act of his should mar or 
 should hinder the development of that Divine 
 Image which He, who cannot brhold any thing 
 greater or better- than Himself, must delight to con- 
 template in every part, as in the whole compass of 
 His creation, whether it be formed at once out of the 
 dust of the earth, and perfected by a word, or evolved 
 
Cll. II u] NOT A MEANS. 29 
 
 slowly and indistinctly, and in the midst of conflict- 
 ing disturbances, through the agency of man. For 
 man is employed in creating it. He works together 
 with God. It is his highest privilege, his noblest 
 occupation. And in this great art of divine sculp- 
 ture he must not think of pandering to the tastes of 
 vulgar eyes, of consulting the caprices of the many, of 
 cliiselling away lineaments or adding features at the 
 suggestion of each new comer, to obtain applause or 
 gain money. This, which is the political quackery 
 of the day, can produce nothing but a monster. 
 Neither will he be satisfied with working after some 
 pattern in his own imagination, for wdiich he has no 
 sanction but his own desires ; knowing that those 
 desires are delusions, and will change with every 
 change of circumstances, and other forms rise up to 
 tem})t him, until work after work is thrown aside in 
 disappointment and disgust. This is the folly of 
 speculators who theorise on speculation only. But 
 he will act as the great sculptor of Greece, or as the 
 painters of a better age when they ventured to em- 
 body their conceptions of their Divine Lord in the 
 form of man. Phidias, before he presumed to sculp- 
 ture his statue of Jupiter, gave up his whole mind 
 to the contemplation of the Jupiter of Homer. And 
 while Art was still regarded as the handmaid of 
 Religion, and subjected to the control of the Church, 
 it seems to have bound itself to one fixed represen- 
 tation of our Lord, and that a copy from a model 
 which, at least, was supposed to be true. This is the 
 Political Science and Political Art of Christianity. 
 It will endeavour to realise upon earth what it knows 
 to be reality in heaven. It will measure good and 
 evil, beauty and deformity, by an externally re- 
 vealed standard of the Divine Nature. Its work 
 will be a work of religion, touched with the same 
 awe, finished with the same care, contemplated with 
 d2 
 
30 SOCIETY AN END, NOT A MEANS. 
 
 the same devotional thoughts; witli the same ab- 
 straction from sellish and mercenary calculations ; 
 with the same insensibility to the censure or applause 
 of a mob, with which, in cells and cloisters, painters, 
 though most erring yet devout, absorbed themselves 
 in the creation of forms which were to stand, however 
 wrongly, in temples and on altars, and to fill genera- 
 tions of worshippers with the spirit of Holiness and 
 Love. And this was wisdom and goodness in art, 
 M'hich yet created nothing but shapes of wood and 
 stone. How much more in that art which, in 
 forming or in modifying Society, is dealing with a 
 living creature, a creature which is but a human 
 being magnified and made all but immortal, — which 
 has the same feelings, the same brute instincts, the 
 same blindness of thought ; but with far more ease 
 becomes a prey to passion, and when it acts in pas- 
 sion, acts with the force of a giant and the ferocity 
 of a demon, even as when it is subjected to truth 
 and law it becomes the very image of God. 
 
CH. IV.] PLURALITY IN SOCIKTY. 31 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It was mentioned before that the doctrine of plu- 
 rality is far more opposed to the conceptions and 
 expectations of human reason than that of unity. 
 Unity, indeed, is the very law of reason, its object 
 and its good. The work appointed to the Logical 
 faculty in man is to reduce many facts under one 
 law — to throw a chaos of materials into form and 
 order, of which order unity is the constituent ele- 
 ment — to penetrate through a mist of future con- 
 tingencies, in which all is shifting and indeterminate, 
 and to trace out some course of events, fixed, definite, 
 certain, and uniform. It follows up a chain of effects 
 and consequences, from cause to cause, until it 
 reaches One First Great Cause. It analyses till it 
 arrives at atoms. It unravels till all perplexities 
 and complications are laid out in single threads. It 
 supplies defects and restores decay, till shapes im- 
 perfect, abrupt, or mutilated, acquire the unity of 
 wholeness and completion. And then it has dis- 
 charged its function. But till then it is restless, 
 uneasy, and dissatisfied. And when Christianity 
 commands it to receive as an ultimate fact, beyond 
 which it must not and cannot penetrate, a doctrine 
 in which plurality is an essential element, it revolts, 
 and rejects it. It has but one hand. It cannot 
 hold two truths unless it borrows the arm of faith ; 
 and by throwing itself entirely upon some one au- 
 thority, and submitting to this unreservedly, it is 
 enai)lcd to gra.>p all which this authority enjoins, 
 however apparently incongruous, and to hold fast a 
 
32 THE ELEMENT OF PLURALITY 
 
 multiplicity of principles by means of an unity of 
 testimony. 
 
 This temptation to obliterate all appearance of 
 plurality, wherever philosophy is admitted, will 
 make a Christian peculiarly careful to maintain it. 
 He must guard against his own weakness. And in 
 examining the constitution of Society he will be 
 prepared to recognise and preserve it, even before 
 its antagonist principle of unity. 
 
 For instance, it has been the dream not only of 
 ambition, whether in despots or democracies, but of 
 a speculative benevolence in cloisters and closets, 
 to merge all national distinctions upon earth, and 
 to throw the whole race of mankind into one vast 
 empire, held together by the bond of an indiscrimi- 
 nating Philanthropy, and concentrated round one 
 head. It is a grand and elevating conception. But 
 a Christian will detect in it the absence of the 
 essential element of plurality, and be prepared to 
 reject it. He will rather expect to find mankind 
 cast into nations as into shapes and moulds of various 
 forms, properties, and uses ; some in one stage of 
 development, some in another; passing severally 
 through various revolutions ; maintaining a national 
 independence ; linked indeed together by many 
 bonds, and as their spheres of influence spread 
 like circles in the water, breaking in upon and 
 disturbing each other, but still formed round sepa- 
 rate centres, and exercising distinct functions. He 
 will search for some principle of unity by which 
 they may be held together, and formed into one 
 system ; but it must be a principle which does not 
 exclude the distinctness and individuality of na- 
 tions. And what he might anticipate from reason- 
 ing, he finds confirmed by revelation. The earth 
 was divided (Genesis x. 25), and languages con- 
 founded, and families scattered (ibid. xi. 7), and 
 
CH. IV.] IN SOCIETY. 33 
 
 bounds set to the nations, by the same Hand which 
 framed mankind. And the very globe itself, frac- 
 tured, and ridged, and partitioned as it is ; here 
 walled up with mountains, here insulated in seas, 
 here trenched off with rivers, and here barred and 
 blockaded as it were by wildernesses and deserts, 
 is constructed, not as one great hall in which all 
 mankind may rest together, but as a house with 
 many mansions, a hive with many cells. 
 
 So also, when a Christian contemplates a par- 
 ticular state, he will insist on maintaining in its 
 constitution the two elements out of which it must 
 be framed — a governor and a governed. Not only 
 in the popular will, but in the visions of theorists, 
 tliat often appears the best form of Society in which 
 all should be governors alike. The very thought 
 of weakness, of imperfection, of counteracting ten- 
 dencies, of the surrender of inclination, of the ne- 
 cessity of obedience, of the want of protection, mars 
 in philosophical speculation that logical unity and 
 completeness which it desires to realise in all that 
 it sees. To attain this, it does not hesitate to over- 
 look the fundamental conditions of human nature, 
 and to destroy, if it were possible, the very relations 
 upon which Society itself is constructed, and which 
 generate the duties and virtues that constitute its 
 happiness and perfection. But a Christian, even 
 were it possible that in any combination of men all 
 should be equally wise, equally powerful, equally 
 wealthy, even equally good — a Christian would miss 
 in such a state elements which, mysterious as the fact 
 is, exist even in the Being of the Almighty — de- 
 pendence and obedience, inferiority and superiority; 
 from which flow love and faith, self-sacrifice and 
 self-government, and all the highest virtues of our 
 nature. He would require to find the weak as well as 
 strong, the bad as well as good, the ignorant as well 
 
34 THE ELEMENT OF PLURALITY 
 
 as wise, the subject as well as ruler. And he would 
 maintain the principle of unity, not by excluding 
 either element, but by harmonising them together, 
 according to some paramount law. 
 
 In the same manner, when he directed his at- 
 tention to the inferior member of this fundamental 
 relation, he would guard against any theory which 
 would level ranks, equalise property, or obliterate 
 the natural distinctions of age, sex, talent, or power. 
 With him not equality, but inequality, would be 
 the primary condition of a people in whom the per- 
 fect form of Society was to be realised. Instead 
 of reducing all classes to some one type and oc- 
 cupation, instead of converting them, for instance, 
 into a wholly manufacturing, wholly commercial, 
 wholly military, wholly agricultural, or wholly eccle- 
 siastical population, he would divide their functions, 
 and vary their character, so as to comprise all arts, 
 and all faculties, which may be developed without 
 injury to , higher interests than the external conve- 
 niences of life. " If the whole body were an eye, 
 where were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, 
 where were the smelling ?" And reverently pur- 
 suing this analogy, so repeatedly sanctioned in 
 Scripture, he would endeavour to frame a body 
 politic on the model of the individual body of man, 
 with feet to move, with eyes to see, with ears to hear, 
 with hands to guide the plough or wield the sword, 
 with fingers framed together by some exquisitely or- 
 ganised incorporation to execute every work which 
 the ingenuity of the reason might devise. He would 
 establish plurality among the people; and then 
 proceed by another law to infuse into them that 
 spirit whicli should bind them together in the unity 
 of the Spirit and in the bond of peace. 
 
 So also with the governing body. In any well- 
 combined and consistent organisation every part 
 
CH. IV.] IN SOCIETY. 35 
 
 repeats and preserves the tj'pe and outline of the 
 whole. The branch is framed upon the same model 
 with the tree, the twig with the branch, the leaf with 
 the twig. In the highest productions of architec- 
 ture the same principle of beauty which regulates 
 the grand outline enters into every detail, and the 
 smallest leaf, which creeps along the canopy of a 
 Gothic niche, is moulded upon the same great law 
 which hangs the vault of the temple upon empty 
 space, and throws up the spire into the clouds. A 
 Christian Philosopher, therefore, will be little per- 
 plexed, if he finds in practice, what he might an- 
 ticipate in theory, that in a Christian State the 
 principle of plurality must enter into the constitu- 
 tion of the government itself. However necessary 
 it is that the Head of a State should be one, that it 
 should act with one will, concentrate the affections 
 of the people round one point, diffuse its blessings 
 from one source ; though Unity be so essential to 
 it, that without it, the State ceases to exist ; still it 
 must be an unity which does not exclude a certain 
 plurality. In what manner the two are to be recon- 
 ciled is a separate question. But if the primary 
 type of the whole body politic is to be preserved 
 in each distinct member, even in the government 
 itself they must co-exist. It will, therefore, be no 
 surprise to the Christian to find in a Christian State 
 two ultimate supreme Authorities — one Civil, and 
 the other Spiritual ; each claiming its authority from 
 the same Divine Source ; each independent of the 
 other, each ministering its peculiar function ; por- 
 tioning out their respective power, exercising their 
 respective jurisdiction, as in distinct societies — clash- 
 ing frequently with each other's claims, arfd tres- 
 passing on each other's rights when human passions 
 obtain the mastery over divine laws; claiming both 
 of them the respect, the affection, and the allegiance 
 
36 THE ELEMENT OF PLURALITY 
 
 of the subject, upon the very ground that neither is 
 dependent upon the other ; and both equally divine ; 
 and yet by their very counteraction and distinctness 
 maintaining the Supreme Power of Government, and 
 the Unity of Society. A Christian — a Catholic 
 Christian — (not one corrupted by the dreams and 
 the avarice of Romanism) — will recognise the in- 
 dependent authority both of Church and of State. 
 He will regard them both as one government, though 
 he may be unable logically to separate their several 
 provinces, or to guard against occasional collisions. 
 He hears the voice of revelation confirming the 
 rights of each ; and he will have no preconceived 
 theory of exclusive unity tempting him to merge 
 either, with Popery, the State in the Church, or, 
 with Erastianism, the Church in the State. Such a 
 binary principle in the construction of Government 
 may be a problem and a mystery, but so also is the 
 Essence of the Divine Nature, and the law of the 
 constitution of the world. 
 
 Once more. It is essential for the unity of the 
 State, that its personality should be exhibited, and 
 its executive power wielded by some one individual. 
 This is not merely a Christian theory. It is the 
 practical result of all political experience; and the 
 reasons may be shewn hereafter. But a single in- 
 dividual is powerless. Neither his eyes, nor ears, 
 nor arms, can spread over a whole nation, or grasp 
 all the complexities of its interests. The Head, 
 whether he be a King, or a President, or a Protec- 
 tor, or a First Consul, or a Dictator, or a Tribune, 
 must assume to himself instruments and auxiliaries. 
 Rut these are men; as such they possess independent 
 wills, and those wills swayed often by selfish passions 
 and personal opinions. Hence, the more the machi- 
 nery of Government is extended, the more it is ex- 
 posed to thwartings, embarrassments, inconsistencies, 
 
CH. IV.] IN SOCIETY. 37 
 
 oppositions, and rebellions. For the ministers of 
 power must themselves possess power; and the irre- 
 sponsible Head of a vast body cannot guide it, with- 
 out at times imparting to his agents irresponsible 
 power like his own. To escape from this difficulty 
 many opposite theories have been adopted. Some 
 rulers have confined the office of government to as 
 fcAv hands as possible, and excluded the great mass 
 of the people from any knowledge of, or interference 
 with, its operations. Others have selected the minis- 
 ters of their will only from the lowest class — men 
 precluded by their original position from aspiring to 
 power, and bound by gratitude, and still more by 
 interest, to the master on whose breath every thing 
 they value must depend. Others, like the Despotisms 
 of the East, have permitted to their subordinate agents 
 almost absolute power, reserving to themselves the 
 prerogative of crushing them by an arbitrary act 
 the moment any danger is apprehended from them. 
 Others have endeavoured to reduce the influence of 
 their ministers so low, either by sowing jealousies 
 between tliem, or by prohibiting all independent ac- 
 tion, that with the power to rebel they lose also the 
 power to serve ; as if a workman should blunt the 
 edge of his hatchet, fearing lest it should cut his 
 own hand. And others have promulgated a theory 
 of absolute submission, in which all moral responsi- 
 bility is lost, and he becomes the most loyal subject, 
 and most devoted Christian, who abandons himself 
 to the will of his master, as the most abject slave. 
 And all these contrivances have proceeded from an 
 unwillingness to bear patiently with those delays, 
 obstructions, and counteractions, which must be the 
 lot of every power that cannot be exercised without 
 instruments, and in employing instruments creates 
 also barriers to its own omnipotence ; as the waves 
 throw up banks by wliich their own fury is restrained, 
 
 E 
 
3S THE ELEMKNT OF rLTRALITY 
 
 But a Christian, pivpannl for tlu^ in-iiuMplo of plura- 
 lity in ovory part of society, uill consiiior the uuilti- 
 plication of intVrior officers iu a goveninient, even 
 couplet! with this condition, not only as necessary, 
 but as in itself a ijood. He will promote it to the 
 utmost possible extent, consistent with that ilejjree 
 of unity of will, anil simplicity of action, which are 
 essential to government itself. The supreme power 
 of the state, according to his theory, will throNv itself 
 out on every side, penetrating, as it were, with its 
 roots and fibres, the whole mass of society, absorb- 
 ing into itself all the healthy and congenial particles 
 which it can find ; organising from the materials, 
 thus accumulated, new channels for its own vivify- 
 ing influence to diffuse itself, and new mouths by 
 w hich to imbibe its nutriment ; and deriving strength 
 and vigour from every fresh access to its machinery. 
 And he will think that no better criterion can be 
 nanu^tl of the strength and health of society than 
 the amount of organised agency safely employed in 
 its subordinate ministrations. 
 
 Once more. It is indeed necessary for the unity 
 of the State that its supreme authority should be 
 vested in the hands of an individual. But by this 
 very disposition it becomes liable to all the abuses 
 of indiviilual will and frailty, by which the peace, 
 stability, honour, power, and integrity, of a nation 
 are destroyed. All acts which thus injure a people, 
 or rather all vice, and injustice, anil detriment, are 
 in themselves violations of the principle of unity in 
 some form or other. And to preserve it from such 
 violation, a variety of contrivances have been in- 
 venteil. The ingenuity, indeed, of politicians has 
 been chiefly employed in this direction. For this 
 purpose the kingly ])ower has, in some States, as in 
 ancient Egypt, and generally in tlu^ F.ast, been over- 
 awed, and placed in a nu)ral subject ion to the hier- 
 
< U. IV.] IN aOCAKTY. 39 
 
 arr;hy. In fathers it hm Vjeen cncumberod and con- 
 trolled by th<i assistance of an aristocracy of coun- 
 s(dlors. In others the people have secured to them- 
 selves the command of the public purse. In others 
 certain great functions of the executive government 
 are perpetuated in officers not amenable to the crown. 
 Iti othiMs tlie j)araniount authority of law is main- 
 taincid as distinct from the power of the lawgiver, 
 and subjects and king alike are sworn to maintain a 
 written constitution, instead of binding the subject 
 to allegiance to a personal sovereign. In States which 
 have thrown oH'the monarchical principle (seemingly, 
 — i'i>r, as we shall see hereafter, it cannot be done in 
 reality), the same jealousy and distrust is shewn, by 
 dividing the supreme power among many hands ; or 
 by distributing it in rotation ; or by making magis- 
 trates responsible to the people ; or by abridging 
 their t(;nure of office ; or by so hamperirjg the ex- 
 ercise of power with restrictions and counterchecks 
 of supervision, that it can scarcely be exercised at 
 all. And these devices, many of thern futile, and 
 many mischievous, proceed alike from a desire to 
 maintain a society in exclusive unity, without any 
 toleration whatever for those frailties in man, and 
 for those sins and calamities which How from them, 
 whi(;h are all exhibitions of the principle of plurality; 
 that is, of discord, dissension, disturbance, disap- 
 pointment, disorder, and all the other miserable con- 
 comitants of falsehood and lawlessness, hatred and 
 wrong. But a Christian, who in the very mystery 
 of the Divine nature, as revealed to him by the 
 Church and in the Scriptures, reads of a provision 
 for the final extirpation of evil, which implies its 
 temporary permission, and even its occasional tri- 
 umph in this world, will not be less patient, less long- 
 suffering, than the Author of all good Himself. Me 
 will indulge no dreams of the perfectibility of the 
 
40 THE ELEMENT OF PLURALITY 
 
 world, or of the possibility of excluding either vice 
 from the heart of man, or abuse from the exercise of 
 power, or evil from the condition of society. He 
 will endeavour to provide all such checks, and pre- 
 ventives, and remedies, as are compatible with his 
 primary obligations. But he will neither so mul- 
 tiply the restraints from evil as to shackle the mo- 
 tions of goodness ; nor will he vainly think of pre- 
 venting the abuse of authority by destroying au- 
 thority itself, and fly, as so many have done, from 
 the temporary injustice of a monarchy, to the per- 
 manent tyranny of a democracy. 
 
 And what is true of the excesses of rulers will 
 apply also to the excesses of subjects. It is indeed 
 one great office — not the only, but a principal office 
 of government, to prevent and correct wrong. And, 
 in impatience of its existence at all, legislators have 
 exhausted their ingenuity in devising regulations of 
 police. They would realise in the present world, 
 peace, order, virtue, happiness, and harmony, in one 
 word, perfect unity ; and drive from it all their op- 
 })osites. And, in this vain attempt have originated 
 theories of absolute despotism, — laws steeped in 
 blood, menaces of physical force, systems of espial 
 and interference with the privacy of life, subversion 
 of domestic relations, and the substitution of the State 
 for the parent, even in the work of education. From 
 the same source have proceeded the idle attempts to 
 check differences of religious opinion by persecution, 
 and the prohibition of free thought; and the far more 
 wicked policy to suppress them, as at present in Eng- 
 land, by supi)ressing the distinctions themselves of 
 truth and falsehood. Under this fruitful head fall the 
 history of penal laws, the theory of national education, 
 the administration of justice, the ex(!rcise of spiritual 
 discipline, the economical regulations which regard 
 the morals of a people, the supervision of the press, 
 
CH. IV.] IN SOCIETY. 41 
 
 and, in one word, the greater part of tliose questions 
 which relate to the suppression of vice and the en- 
 couragement of virtue by the State. And in all of 
 them a Christian will observe the same patience and 
 long-suffering, under the existence of moral evil, as 
 is exhibited in the Divine Being. He will not ex- 
 pect to destroy it in this world, for this is impossible. 
 He will not hastily root out the tares of society, lest 
 he pull up the wheat also. He will not seek to make 
 the perfect distinction between the good fish and the 
 bad, while the net is at the bottom of the sea; but wait 
 till it is drawn to land, at the last great Day. And, 
 while stern and inexorable when absolute necessity 
 requires it, he will be as gentle, as forgiving, as will- 
 ing to overlook, as equitable in judging, as reluctant 
 in condemning, as the Master whose minister he is. 
 He will deal with vice and moral disorder as one who 
 lives in a system from which the plurality of evil, 
 with all its consequences, cannot be wholly excluded. 
 And he will wait for its final reconcilement with the 
 unity of goodness, in patience and faith, knowing 
 that the system is progressive, and that its perfection 
 must be accomplished only in the whole course of 
 time, and not in any separate portion. 
 
 Lastly, the Christian, like the Heathen, will 
 struggle to maintain the principle of unity in the 
 permanent duration of the State. He will desire to 
 frame a society, which, if it were possible, should 
 last for ever. But here also he will make allowance 
 for the principle of plurality, — that is, of change, 
 development, decay, vicissitude, perhaps destruc- 
 tion. A state may continue to exist, though under 
 very different forms ; as the identity of the individual 
 is not lost, though every particle of his bodily frame 
 fluctuates and evaporates. While others would vainly 
 endeavour to fix and petrify society in some one 
 stage of advancement, or under some one form of 
 E 2 
 
42 THE ELEMENT OF PLURALITY 
 
 constitution ; to throw up impenetrable barriers as 
 divisions between castes and classes ; to prohibit 
 foreign intercourse, and internal occupations, which 
 mav tjenerate new wants and desires, and with them 
 introduce new elements and results into the composi- 
 tion of the state ; to confine and limit education ; to 
 discourage the natural evolution of wealth and art ; 
 and to admit no modification or extension of an ori- 
 ginal legislation ; the Christian, wisely indeed afraid 
 of change, and eschewing innovation, will yet re- 
 member that time is an essential element in the con- 
 dition of all earthly things, and that time implies 
 change and succession, and succession is the princi- 
 ple of plurality. He has before him in the mystery 
 of the Divine Nature — of that Nature to which, 
 strictly speaking, there can be no time, whose Being 
 is an eternal now — provision, nevertheless, for a cre- 
 ation which has a beginning, a middle, and an end ; 
 which has to pass through a variety of conditions ; 
 in which the Almighty reveals Himself " at sundry 
 times, and in divers manners;" in which the "tree 
 springs up from the grain, which is the least of all 
 seeds ;" and " the earth bringeth forth fruit, first 
 the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in 
 the ear ;" and the Lord, who comes to seek for fruit 
 in His vineyard, comes seeking it " three years." 
 Every thing is gradual, progressive, in movement, 
 tending to some great end, but that end not to be 
 developed till the fulness of time is come. Light, 
 heaven, earth, herb and tree, lights in the firma- 
 ment, moving creatures to fill the waters, and fowl 
 to fiy in the air, cattle and creeping things, and 
 beasts of the earth, — man, lastly, the image of God, 
 and woman, to be his helpmate, — such was the six 
 days' work of an Almighty Being, who could, if He 
 had so willed, have called all things out of nothing 
 at one word, as He said, "Let there be light, and there 
 
CH. IV.] ]N SOCIETY. 43 
 
 was light." And the servant, who is employed in 
 his work of framing or tending a political society, 
 will not think to be wiser or more powerful than his 
 Master. He will pray and labour for its continued 
 existence, but not strive to secure it by contrivances, 
 which would imply that its being was not in time, or 
 subject to change — change both within and without. 
 He will provide room for its expansion, elasticity 
 for its movements, freedom for the play of its mem- 
 bers, a power of adaptation to circumstances, an 
 antiseptic principle against a variety of corruptions, 
 strength to withstand a succession of shocks, a spirit 
 to discharge all duties and attain all virtues, a healthi- 
 ness and power of growth which may enable it to 
 live in any climate of external circumstances; and a 
 hopefulness and faith for his own mind, which may 
 look forward, and backward, and on every side, in 
 tracing its gradual advancement ; enjoying the con- 
 templation of its life as an existence of successive 
 generations, and patiently submitting to its death as 
 a dispensation of that good Providence, in whom all 
 things have their issues and fulfilment in some in- 
 scrutable good. 
 
44 PLURALITY 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Such are some of the instances in which a Chris- 
 tian, examining the constitution of Political Society, 
 will acquiesce in, or rather will bind himself to 
 maintain, the element of Plurality, while Philoso- 
 phy in general will contend for its total exclusion. 
 He will recognise it as a shadow, a reflection of one 
 of the great doctrines involved in the first articles 
 of his Creed, and in the mysterious Being of God 
 Himself, the Author and Lord of society ; and as 
 such he will not dare to disturb it. 
 
 But accepting it upon faith, he may and must 
 proceed to confirm it by reason. And here it is no 
 slight proof, to observe the depth and tenacity, with 
 which this element is engrained in the whole tex- 
 ture of human affairs, so that no ingenuity or force 
 can obliterate or destroy it ; and the very attempt 
 to destroy only gives to it fresh life and vigour. 
 Empire after empire has arisen in the struggle to 
 bring the whole globe under one dominion ; but 
 the band has burst as soon as it has been rivetted, 
 and the unwieldy masses have split and fallen into 
 fragments. Nearly all the internal history of states 
 is a record of conflicts between rulers and subjects, 
 in which su])jects would emancipate themselves from 
 rulers, and rulers reduce subjects to slaves, and each 
 party destroy the relation of two distinct beings by 
 anniliilating its antagonist. And yet every attempt 
 to establish a tyranny only calls a democracy into 
 more vigorous life, and every triumjjh of democracy 
 ends in more complete subjection to external rule. 
 
Ca. v.] WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 45 
 
 The present age has seen a whole kingdom, with all 
 its ancient forms, established laws, deep-rooted pre- 
 judices, privileges, prerogatives, prescriptions, ranks, 
 and propert)^, swallowed up in one wild earthquake, 
 that upon the levelled ground and rased tablet of a 
 new theory there might be erected a perfect struc- 
 ture of " equality and unity." The structure has 
 fallen to pieces in the very act of erecting it, and 
 disclosed the old frame of society almost unhurt 
 within it. The State at one time has endeavoured 
 to extirpate the Church, and the Church at another 
 to absorb the State within itself; but when Chris- 
 tianity has been abolished, it has been succeeded by 
 a hierarchy of philosophers and a worship of Reason ; 
 and when the Temporal Power has been rendered 
 impotent by Ecclesiastical aggression, it has risen up 
 within the bosom of the Church itself in another 
 shape, the shape of vast monastic bodies and orga- 
 nised societies, nominally spiritual, but in reality 
 secular, wielding a secular power, and standing to 
 Popery in the same relation as Kings and Princes of 
 old, alternately overawing and supporting it. So 
 the attempt to concentrate power in very few hands 
 is the hrst step to its passing into the hands of 
 many, either by the neglect and powerlessness of the 
 ruler, or by the indignant extortion of it by the 
 subject. So an impatience under existing evils leads 
 to theories of imaginary perfection, and these theories 
 to rash innovations, and these innovations to the 
 very evils from which we were flying, only multi- 
 plied and magnified a hundred fold. And so an 
 obstinate adherence to antiquity begets a passion- 
 ate demand for change ; and a denial of necessary 
 reform, as we ourselves have seen, is followed by all 
 but revolution. 
 
 " Naturani expellas furca, taineti usque recurret." 
 
46 PLURALITY 
 
 That which is an essential condition of Society can- 
 not be eradicated from it by any force or any ar- 
 tifice. 
 
 And a Christian philosopher may then inquire 
 why it is essential. That in the abstract nature of 
 things there is a reason and a cause for the existence 
 of plurality in the world he knows, because it is 
 found in the Nature of God Himself. But he will 
 search also in the Nature of man, and not hesitate 
 to search deeply. For Christianity has its Philoso- 
 phy as well as its Faith. And it will no more con- 
 sent than mere reason will consent, to stop short of 
 any depths which it may safely and legitimately 
 explore. It is dwelling in a palace of truth, into 
 which it has been brought by the great Author of 
 the structure, not forced or stolen an entrance un- 
 invited, in a presumptuous and rash curiosity. Where 
 it is prohibited from penetrating farther, it will 
 pause reverently and contentedly. But into all the 
 open halls and chambers we may advance boldly 
 and gladly ; more boldly because the key to their 
 locks and the clue to their labyrinths has been 
 placed in our hands by God, in giving us the truths 
 of Revelation through the ministration of His Church. 
 
 And indeed, in the present day, it is necessary 
 to insist that the Science of Politics, if studied at 
 all, should be studied deeply. We have become 
 " practical men ;" that is, men who, either from 
 indolence or ignorance, have discarded from our 
 thoughts all high generalisations, all abstract princi- 
 ples, and with them all necessary truths. We have 
 plunged ourselves into the business of the world, in 
 which every thing is fluctuating and uncertain, till 
 life to us becomes a medley of accidents, and our 
 M'hoh; thoughts are confined to calculations of con- 
 tingencies, and the balancing of probabilities. In 
 modern views there is neither stability for institutions 
 
CH. v.] WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 4-7 
 
 nor permanence for doctrines. We sec the great 
 tide of popular will swelling and raging round us, 
 tossed about with every wind, and threatening to 
 swallow up whatever it attacks. And having no 
 firm footing for our own belief, no eye which can 
 roach into a higher and purer atmosphere, whence 
 we might look down serene and still upon all this 
 stir and tumult, we become ourselves dizzy with 
 the giddy whirl, and dare not hope or strive for 
 more than to sink down at last in the torrent our- 
 selves, decently, without violence, and as late as we 
 can protract our fate. We have no knowledge of 
 immutable truth, and therefore no confidence in its 
 power and its permanence. We feel left to our- 
 selves, to our own aim and our own eye. And 
 we seize upon the first prop which offers, follow 
 the first path which opens, with all the desperation 
 of ignorance ; yet dare not advance boldly in any 
 track, but look back at each step with trembling 
 and vacillation, and never hazard a movement in ad- 
 vance without securing a loop-hole for retreat. Our 
 whole policy is full of apologies, compromises, con- 
 cessions, conciliations, doubts, expediency, and ex- 
 periment. And to make experiments with the fabric 
 of society, is as if a besieged garrison should amuse 
 themselves with trying the strength of their fortress 
 by blowing up its walls. The very fact of experi- 
 mentalising upon such a subject shakes and under- 
 mines those principles of faith and certainty on 
 which the peace of society rests. No physician 
 experimentalises on a patient, or permits the patient 
 to know that he does so, till the case is pronounced 
 hopeless, and the remedy unknown. 
 
 From this miserable political quackery, and its 
 still more miserable effects, we can only be saved 
 by recurring to a higher Political Philosophy. We 
 must be tossed about on the civil convulsions of the 
 
48 PLURALITY 
 
 day. But, instead of trying hopelessly to fly from 
 them, or abandoning all that we value, to be swal- 
 lowed up without a struggle, it is in the power of 
 man, with the assistance of Revelation, to frame to- 
 gether some system of imperishable truth, which no 
 popular violence can crush or overwhelm, and which 
 may save, at least, the life-germ of society, as in 
 an ark. 
 
 These truths, primarily conveyed to us by the 
 Church, — by the historical testimony, let us re- 
 member, not by the self-invented dogmatism of the 
 Church, — are to be sought for also and traced out 
 in the constitution of human nature ; not as if they 
 wanted confirmation, but to justify us in applying to 
 man what is originally asserted of God. And though 
 they are truths of society, they are to be sought for 
 in the nature of individual man ; because society is 
 only the expansion of that nature, and all the essen- 
 tial characteristics of the adult frame are M-rapped 
 up as lineaments in the embryo. 
 
 And if one truth more than another requires to 
 be thus established, it is the doctrine of plurality. 
 Our legislation at this day, as in all similar stages of 
 society, is labouring under an excess of contrivances 
 to simplify, systematise, centralise, equalise, and 
 harmonise ; to level distinctions, to reconcile oppo- 
 sitions, to smooth obstacles, to facilitate communi- 
 cation, to explain difficulties, to settle doubts, and to 
 remove discontent by conceding whatever is deman- 
 ded. It is the same spirit, though under a different 
 form, which begets a tyranny ; and its essence is 
 a rationalising thirst for exclusive unity. It is ex- 
 hibited in a willingness to abandon our national self- 
 sufficiency, and to throw us in dependence for life 
 itself upon the harvests of another country ; and in 
 some idle dream of uniting nations by that principle 
 of nnitual extortion whicii is the law of commerce. 
 
CH. v.] WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 49 
 
 It appears in the indiscriminate removal of all ex- 
 clusive privileges, under the odious name of mono- 
 polies ; in the multiplication of laws to meet every 
 imaginary case; in the project of united education, 
 in which Christian charity is to be cherished by the 
 joint sacrifice of Christian truth; in the denial of 
 all religious distinctions, as if such distinctions could 
 be destroyed by affecting not to perceive them ; in 
 the proposal to absorb the wdiole population in ma- 
 nufactures, exclusive of agriculture ; in the quarrel 
 with all dogmatic statements which do not approve 
 themselves, by their simplicity, to the reason ; in the 
 breaking up of local jurisdictions and provincial re- 
 lations, that all the movements of government may 
 issue from one centre in the metropolis; in applying 
 to different states of society, in different parts of the 
 empire, the same laws and the same policy, without 
 regard to essential differences of character and cir- 
 cumstances; in endeavours to neutralise opposition 
 by surrendering whatever is demanded ; in the impa- 
 tience and perplexity which have been engendered 
 in tlie State by the revived power of the Church, and 
 in the Church by the prerogatives of the State, as 
 if we were incapable of comprehending the joint 
 action of two co-ordinate authorities. And even in 
 minds which would seem to be contending against 
 it, it breaks forth in vain dreams of rallying the 
 Catholic Church round some one visible centre ; of 
 erecting a spiritual empire upon the one base of 
 spiritual authority ; of defining all doubts in religion 
 by the expansion of a dogmatic theology ; and of 
 restoring obedience in the Church by annihilating 
 freedom of thought and action. 
 
 These are the reasons why I have dwelt so long 
 upon the doctrine of Plurality. And now we may 
 proceed to examine its adaptation to the nature 
 of man. In the first place, it is inseparably en- 
 
50 PLURALITY 
 
 twined, even in our metaphysical conceptions, with 
 Unity itself. Unity itself is a negative idea. It is 
 that in which there is no break, no difference, no 
 discordance, no opposition. But without the pre- 
 vious conception of these ideas, that is, of Plurality, 
 we cannot arrive at the notion of Unity ; just as 
 Unity itself is essential to the conception of Plu- 
 rality. They spring into the mind simultaneously ; 
 together they form the first idea from which all 
 others are evolved ; as the world of matter is deve- 
 loped, not from single atoms, but from groups and 
 combinations of them. They form together the 
 primary crystal of the human reason, and no force 
 can fracture it. 
 
 Secondly, when combined with Unity, it consti- 
 tutes the law and essence of all beauty, intellectual, 
 physical, or moral. Without Unity it becomes de- 
 formity ; but without Plurality, Unity has no charm. 
 It is the beauty of the intellect to trace out order, 
 but it must be from disorder ; to detect resem- 
 blances, but it must be among differences ; to attain 
 clearness of vision, but it must be as one passing 
 out of a cloud. There is no rest without previous 
 labour ; no satisfaction without previous craving ; 
 no enjoyment but of that which we doubted to at- 
 tain ; no triumph except over difficulties; no per- 
 fect pleasure till pain has gone before it ; no percep- 
 tion of light except in contrast with darkness ; no 
 admiration without greatness; and no greatness 
 where there is no conflict. 
 
 Thirdly, Plurality is an essential condition of 
 all man's affections and duties, and therefore of his 
 virtues. For affections and duties are the results of 
 relations; and relations imply a plurality of terms, 
 and differences in their nature. " It is not good for 
 man to be alone." He cannot exist in solitude, and 
 if condemned to it, peoples it with other beings by 
 
CH. v.] WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 51 
 
 the force of his imagination and the necessity of his 
 nature. He must have objects external to himself 
 on which to throw his thoughts and attachments. 
 He must have many such objects, because his heart 
 has many avenues to it, and his own affections are 
 many and various; and his chief excellence and 
 perfection, to attain which he is placed upon earth, 
 is to practise a moral disci])line over them all ; as a 
 gladiator would try his skill by fighting against a 
 multitude of assailants. He is to be prevented also 
 from throwing and exhausting his affections upon 
 any object but one Being who is remote and unseen ; 
 and yet his whole tendency is towards such an ex- 
 clusive absorption, against which there is no remedy 
 but in a multiplicity of attractions ; as they who 
 tread on rocks and quags are compelled to rest and 
 leap on many points, lest they should sink or fall 
 upon one. Again, all earthly objects are imperfect, 
 and must be imperfect; and therefore he must be 
 surrounded with many, that when one is discarded, 
 another may be at hand for him to embrace. He 
 palls and satiates Avith any thing finite, and must be 
 roused and amused with change. He lives wholly 
 in the past and the future, never in the present, of 
 which he cannot even be conscious ; and his whole 
 being consists in movement to some distant end, 
 which, the moment he reaches it, ceases to occupy 
 his mind. And for this reason it is necessary to 
 place him in a moving and progressive system, 
 amidst changes, and uncertainties, and contingen- 
 cies, among which he may be constantly employed, 
 either in searching out and anticipating something 
 to come, or in contemplating something which has 
 passed. And he has energies to be roused, and 
 habits of self-government, and of hardihood, and re- 
 flection, and |)atience, to be formed and exercised ; 
 and none of these can find scope except in a scene 
 
52 PLURALITY 
 
 of conflicts, doubts, difficulties, and defects, which 
 are the development of the principle of Plurality. 
 
 Fourthly, an individual cannot reach perfection 
 in himself. He has only shared in the gifts of Provi- 
 dence, and these are "divided severally to every man 
 according as He will." This principle of distribution, 
 which constitutes the foundation of a system, from 
 which system emanate the relations, communications, 
 reciprocities, and proportions of life, possesses perhaps 
 a beauty and excellence in itself to the Creator who 
 has established it. But to man it is enough that He 
 has established it. And by it man, when left alone, is 
 like the spring or the wheel of a watch separated 
 from the rest of the mechanism. He is born naked, 
 blind, helpless, ignorant, in suffering and Avant, that 
 he may be dependent upon others. His physical 
 being can at no time be sustained without acts and 
 labours in which he must be assisted by his fellows. 
 His moral nature, even in a state of innocence, is 
 composed of particular affections, that is, of a num- 
 ber of inclinations, among wdiich, if any one obtains 
 an exclusive mastery of him, the whole fabric of his 
 moral constitution is disordered, it may be beyond 
 repair. And until he can acquire a command over 
 them by experience and practice, he must be con- 
 trolled by others. How much more when he is cor- 
 rupted, and his inclinations by indulgence have 
 grown into passions ! So his intellect by itself is 
 powerless. He requires to receive from others even 
 truths which are written in his own heart and mind, 
 but which cannot become the subject of conscious- 
 ness, till they are presented to him from without. 
 He cannot command experience sufficient to war- 
 rant an induction. He has no knowledge of the 
 past or the distant, except through the testimony of 
 others. He has no clieck against the errors of his 
 own logical calculations, and no means of realising 
 
CH. v.] WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 53 
 
 the visions which form in his imagination, except 
 the aid of" others. He is but the fragment of a man. 
 His faculties must be unexercised, his affections 
 waste without an object, his whole being pine and 
 die, as one who has been shorn of his limbs, except 
 he be associated with others. 
 
 And yet, fifthly, in this state of weakness, and 
 incompleteness, and corruption, man is placed upon 
 earth to be the minister of the Most High. He is en- 
 trusted with a share in the government of the creation. 
 All things upon earth are destined to be put under 
 his feet. Great and glorious truths are entrusted 
 to his keeping. The discipline of creatures born to 
 be higher than the angels is placed in his hands. 
 Souls which, having once been born, can never die, 
 take their colour and their fate from him. The very 
 end and consummation of all things is made appa- 
 rently dependent upon his will and conduct. Con- 
 sider well this awful responsibility, this glorious but 
 most perilous work; and then think if united aims 
 and united counsels are not needed for those who 
 undertake it. Think, for instance, if there is not 
 palpable folly in a theory of religion from which 
 the social principle is excluded, in which Christians 
 are left to act, and feel, and think as individuals, 
 and the notion of an external visible incorporation 
 is exploded as a fiction of priestcraft. 
 
 Such are some of the reasons which render it 
 necessary that, in any system in which man is called 
 to act. Plurality should be an essential element, and a 
 constituent part of goodness and beauty. x\nd even 
 more than this, even when it is found apart from 
 Unity, in the shape only of disorder, deformity, and 
 evil, we know that its existence is necessary, be- 
 cause it does exist in the world of an all-perfect 
 Creator. It is necessary, to exercise our virtues ; 
 faith in doul)t, fortitude in danger, patience in suf- 
 F 2 
 
54- PLURALITY WHY ESSENTIAL TO SOCIETY. 
 
 f'eriiig, self-command in temptation, thoughtfulness 
 in difficulties, energy in mastering opposition, mo- 
 deration in the midst of excesses, consistency when 
 surrounded by vicissitudes. Without evil in the 
 world there could be no free deliberate exercise of 
 the will, without which there is no virtue. It is to 
 be resisted, to be denounced, to be controlled, to be 
 reduced into subjection to good. But for a time it 
 must still be permitted to walk upon the earth. Man's 
 nature is infected with a taint, and an element of poi- 
 son is a necessary ingredient in the atmosphere which 
 he breathes. So it has been willed and permitted by 
 the great Author of all society. And the Christian, 
 who acts as His minister, in regulating any portion 
 of society, must act upon His model, and combat 
 evil with the same weapons as the Almighty Him- 
 self, and none others; with the same endurance, 
 as with the same firmness ; and not think to ex- 
 clude from his little province of authority that 
 Avhich God has not excluded from the creation of 
 Omnipotence. 
 
DOMESTIC SOCIETY TYPIFIES POLITICAL. 55 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 But the great problem of Political Society, or rather 
 of all i3ractice, and art, and science, is now to be 
 solved. Given the unavoidable existence of Plurality, 
 and the necessity of Unity also, how are they to be 
 reconciled and combined? Take a multitude of hu- 
 man beings, each with a separate will and power of 
 action, swayed by a variety of passions, and those 
 passions shifting every moment ; surround them with 
 circumstances and influences of which no one com- 
 bination can be to any two minds alike ; let them be 
 divided by self-love, and hidden from each other by 
 the veil of the body, through which the mind can 
 only be discerned dimly and by guesses ; distribute 
 to them different occupations and tastes ; fill them 
 with fears, suspicions, and doubts of each other's 
 power, and with malice, and avarice, and all other 
 unsocial vices ; scatter them over a wide extent of 
 country intersected with barriers and obstacles to 
 nmtual communication ; cut short the term of their 
 life, so that, in the attempt to bind generations to- 
 gether, the atoms should crumble off, as in twisting 
 a rope of sand; and then think in wdiat manner this 
 incongruous, conflicting, scattered, severed, fluctu- 
 ating quicksand of individual minds is to be reduced 
 into one system, and consolidated into one durable 
 mass, without destroying their individual vitality. 
 This is the problem of Political Science. 
 
 And a Christian, when he proposes to solve 
 it, will again inquire if he can find in any part of 
 the Divine Nature, or of the Divine Works, a model 
 and type of such a process, conducted by the All- 
 
56 DOMESTIC SOCIETY THE TYPE 
 
 Wise Himself. He will do this before he frames a 
 theory of his own from speculations on the human 
 mind, or observations of history. These will follow 
 after, to justify him in applying such a model to his 
 own particular operations. 
 
 And he might perhaps find much to assist him 
 by a careful and deep study of the same great doc- 
 trinal mystery which he takes as his fundamental 
 fact. In the various relations and functions which 
 Revelation distinguishes in the Triune Being of the 
 Almighty Himself lie hid, we may reverently sup- 
 pose, the laws of all other forms of personal com- 
 munion and society. But a Christian will not pre- 
 sume to approach for the purpose of speculation 
 such an awful mystery, in which the slightest mis- 
 understanding becomes blasphemy, and all that man 
 can do, is to guard against extremes of error, with- 
 out reaching any distinct comjirehension of truth, 
 and in which he dares not use any language but 
 the very words of the Church, lest even in tlie most 
 carefully weighed expressions there should lurk some 
 secret profanation. 
 
 He might also draw many inferences from the 
 practical rules of social life which he receives from 
 Revelation, and still more from the model of natio- 
 nal life which was framed by God Himself in the 
 Jewish Polity. But the former, like all the moral 
 commands of Christianity, are general and wide — 
 rather set as sea-marks on each side, to warn us 
 against rocks and (|uicksands, than intended to de- 
 line the precise line of our actions. And the Jewish 
 Polity, created as it was for an especial purpose, 
 and i)laced in a peculiar relation to the Divine 
 Being, apart from all other nations, may contain in 
 it elements not to be found in ordinary political so- 
 cieties. It is to l)e studied carefully and profoundly, 
 but with caution in emj)loying it as a model. 
 
CH. VI.] OF POLITICAL SOCIETY. 57 
 
 But there is another form of society directly- 
 established by God Himself; a form essential to 
 the very being of man ; within which every hu- 
 man being is cast who enters into existence ; which 
 is the germ and primary element of all Political So- 
 ciety ; and of which the Christian has the assurance 
 of Revelation that it is framed by the hand, and 
 after the analogy and likeness, of God. Husband 
 and wife, father and son, brother and brother, mas- 
 ter and servant, are the relations by which man is 
 raised in Christianity to communion with his Maker. 
 The Church itself appears chiefly as a development 
 of home ; and domestic society is the peculiar privi- 
 lege and province of the Christian. It is the first 
 cast, if the figure may be reverently used, from the 
 Divine Image ; and as such it may be examined 
 even curiously and minutely, although the Image 
 itself we dare not approach. 
 
 In this examination the first element to be ob- 
 served is a Power, supreme, absolute, irresponsible 
 except to Heaven, unlimited except by the neces- 
 sary conditions of all humanity, comprehending in 
 itself all functions, prerogatives, and excellences, 
 established by the Almighty Himself, and by Him 
 intrusted with dominion over His creatures, as His 
 Representative and Vicegerent, in the person of man, 
 Man is the head, the embryo, the pu7ic.tum, saliens 
 of domestic society. 
 
 But, secondly, " it is not good for man to be 
 alone." He requires the element of Plurality. From 
 him therefore, out of his substance, are taken the 
 materials of another being framed after the same 
 image with himself, similar in all essential charac- 
 teristics, but shaped, independently of him, by the 
 hand of the same Being, who raised man himself 
 from the dust of the eartli, and filled, independently 
 also of man, with the breath of life by the separate 
 
58 DOMESTIC SOCIETY THE TYPE 
 
 inspiration of the same Creator. This being, so 
 formed, is given to man to be his helpmate, — is 
 joined to him that she may become one with him, — 
 " bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh," preserving 
 her own individual being, nature, duties, and re- 
 sponsibilities, but still so completely identified with 
 him, that no earthly power is permitted to put them 
 asunder. She bears his name, shares his fortunes, 
 is bound by his acts, devotes herself almost to be 
 his servant, " to obey him and serve him, love, 
 honour, and keep him in sickness and in health ; and 
 forsaking all other, to keep her only unto him so 
 long as they both shall live." She is a part of his 
 body, and they are united in one Lord. 
 
 Thirdly, in this close union there is still observed 
 a remarkable distribution of faculties, qualities, and 
 offices. It is obvious that the characteristics of 
 strength, energy, activity, command, and courage, 
 are assigned especially to the man ; and to the 
 woman those of delicacy, gentleness, obedience, 
 faith, patience, and all the softer virtues. But it is 
 also to be noticed, that this division is conformable 
 to the distinction which the best moralists and phi- 
 losophers have established in the moral attributes of 
 human nature itself. In the human heart there is 
 a similar division of feelings and aff'ections ; there 
 is the irascible principle, Ov/ioc, comprehending all 
 the emotions of a more elevated and masculine 
 character, and the principle of appetite, tVt^y^a'a, 
 which embraces the more gentle affections. So also 
 in the very position assigned to man upon earth, and 
 in all his oj)erations, we recognise two elements, one 
 of activity, and the other of passiveness. He must 
 act, but he must also suffer ; govern, but also obey ; 
 think, but also feel ; resist impressions, but also re- 
 ceive them ; contend, but also be vanquished ; prove 
 by reason, but also believe by faith ; look down 
 
CH. VI.] OF POLITICAL SOCIETY. 59 
 
 upon a world beneath him, but upward also to 
 a world above him. To attain his perfection he 
 must realise in his own being the union of all those 
 qualities which are distributed, in an especial man- 
 ner, between two distinct sexes. Women must be- 
 come firm as heroes, and heroes gentle as women. 
 
 Fourthly, the first effect of this division in the 
 husband and wife, is to produce reciprocal command 
 and obedience, and in this waj" a balance of power 
 and an union of mind, preserving the independence 
 and individuality of each. For without this there 
 could be no moral relation established ; and the wife, 
 by sinking into a slave, would become the property 
 of her husband, and the binary or bicipital forma- 
 tion of this the root of society would be destroyed. 
 
 This reciprocity cannot be more strongly ex- 
 pressed than by the seeming paradox of the Apos- 
 tle : " The wife hath not power of her own body, 
 but the husband ; and likewise also the husband 
 hath not power of his own body, but the wife;"^ 
 or, to use the words of our own Marriage Ser- 
 vice, the woman vows to " obey and serve, love 
 and honour," and the man worships the wife with 
 his body, and endows her with all his worldly 
 goods. And yet, how is this possible? How can 
 the same person be both greater and less, master 
 and subject, in relation to another? It is possible, 
 because there are two distinct elements of moral au- 
 thority in the human mind, — one, power, and force, 
 and energy ; the other, weakness. Weakness, help- 
 lessness, fragility, suffering, misery, and want, have 
 a dignity of their own. They command reverence, 
 interest the affections, rouse us to ol^ey their wishes 
 and supply their wants. We uncover the head to a 
 funeral as to a king. It is an ultimate fact of our 
 
 ' 1 Cor. vii. 4. 
 
60 DOMESTIC SOCIETY THE TYPE 
 
 nature. And hence the reciprocal empire of man 
 over woman, and of woman over man. In one it 
 is founded on power, in the other on the want of 
 power; in the one obedience is necessary, in the 
 other it is voluntary; in the one it may be enforced, 
 in the other it cannot be ; in the one it partakes of a 
 physical and material nature, in the other it is moral 
 and spiritual ; in the one there is a pride in protect- 
 ing, in the other in being protected ; one gives, and 
 the other receives, but receiving creates as much 
 gratitude as giving ; and one is called to action and 
 dominion, while the other is framed to suffer ; but 
 patient sufferance extorts no less respect and admi- 
 ration than the achievements of a hero. 
 
 All this is to be borne in mind, that it may be 
 applied to elucidate one of the most remarkable 
 analogies and phenomena in the construction of 
 Political Society. 
 
 Fifthly. As from this biune source (if such a 
 word may be invented without pedantry) liows the 
 whole stream of domestic life. New beings are 
 called into existence, with independent wills and 
 powers of action ; and these also are to be retained 
 in perfect union with the head from which they 
 spring ; at the very time that it is the first duty and 
 effort of the parents to augment the strength and 
 perfect the faculties of their children, so as to make 
 them capable of ultimately existing in separation 
 from them. And how has nature, or rather the 
 Author of nature, provided for this end ? He has 
 concentrated originally all power, rights, privileges, 
 possessions, authority, and advantages, even life and 
 being itself, in the persons of the parents. From 
 them they are deprived (so far as man can be the 
 source of any thing,) to their offspring. The power 
 of withholding or annulling is retained in the hand 
 of the giver. Those hands are consecrated. They 
 
CH. VI.] OF POLITICAL SOCIETY. 61 
 
 act by commission from the Most High. They are 
 armed not merely with earthly influences, but with 
 mysterious and supernatural command over bless- 
 ings and curses, which are ratified in heaven. 
 
 The new members of the little society are 
 brought into it in a state of entire helplessness and 
 want. They cannot move without the hand of the 
 parents; can scarcely live out of their sight; draw 
 their nutriment not merely from the labour, but 
 from the very breast of their mother ; are clasped 
 in her arms, hang upon her neck, are fostered on 
 her knee, continue still almost as if they were united 
 with her frame. Thus spring in infancy the in- 
 stinctive attachments which are the beginning of 
 filial love. Once more the element of weakness 
 exerts its power of attraction and command, and 
 binds the parent to the child, as the child is bound 
 to the parent by the opposite attraction of power. 
 And when both father and mother are drawn to con- 
 centrate their affections on their offspring, they are 
 drawn themselves more close, as lines approach 
 each other by converging to one point. 
 
 But it is when the faculties of the children 
 strengthen, and their eyes open, that the chief diffi- 
 culty commences. The relation between them and 
 the parent is gradually changing. They approach 
 nearer to an equality, — equality in physical power, 
 equality in intellect, equality in goodness ; and soon 
 that equality itself alters, and the parent becomes 
 once more a child, while the child rises into a man. 
 But the union is still to be preserved. It will be 
 lost the moment there arises in the strong child any 
 force or action antagonistic to the weak parent; and 
 how can tliis be prevented, when nature itself seems 
 to be daily calling it into play? This is the history 
 of States, no less than of families ; and the laws to be 
 observed in this crisis are well deserving attention. 
 
 G 
 
62 DOMESTIC SOCIETY THE TYPE 
 
 In proportion, tlien, as the physical inequality di- 
 minishes, the moral inequality must be more strictly 
 maintained ; not by depressing the child, but by 
 elevating the parent. And the problem then arises, 
 how to throw over the natural frailties, vices, and 
 infirmities of men, which, in the parental character, 
 are not obliterated, but rather are rendered more glar- 
 ing and repulsing, a sanctity and dignity, which may 
 maintain the parental authority in all its power over, 
 it may be, the comparatively wise and comparatively 
 innocent offspring. And one plan nature herself 
 has devised in framing that binary arrangement of 
 character which results from the union of the sexes. 
 It gives the parent a double hold upon the affections 
 and respect of the child. It presents to the child a 
 far more perfect exhibition of humanity, and there- 
 fore a far nobler object for his love, than could be 
 realised in any individual. Whichever element pre- 
 dominates in his own character, whether the irascible 
 or the appetitive principle, the Bvi^og or e7r1dv1.ua, there 
 is a being standing to him in the relation of a parent, 
 in whom it can find its proper object and natural 
 attachment; and the excellence of the one parent 
 will compensate for the defect of the other. The 
 mother will teach the gentleness of the daughter to 
 love the father, and the father teach the energy of 
 the son to venerate the mother. In no one charac- 
 ter could these several qualities, which tlie two great 
 classes of human minds respectively embody and 
 admire, be adequately developed for this purpose. 
 In separate minds they may be; and in the conjugal 
 relation tiiose separate minds united constitute one 
 object of filial obedience and love. 
 
 Viut this is not all : the parent is human, and the 
 child is human ; and man nev(>r can be to man an ade- 
 quate su))eriorto retain him in continued subjection, 
 especially in the maturity of his years. Given the most 
 
CH. VI.] OF POLITICAL SOCIETY. 63 
 
 wise and most virtuous of parents, and an offspring 
 equally wise and virtuous (for to rear up sucli an off- 
 spring is the object of domestic society), and how 
 is the parent still to be raised above the child ? It 
 can 1)6 done only by clothing him with a more than 
 human character; by placing him before the child 
 as the representative of God upon earth ; by giving 
 to his acts and words the sanction of a Divine com- 
 mand ; and by rendering obedience and reverence 
 not merely a voluntary homage, or a moral obliga- 
 tion, or an expedient practice, but a religious wor- 
 ship, addressed to God Himself, in the person of His 
 servant. In this way there will be no irreverent 
 prying into the faults of the parent ; no disappoint- 
 ment at imperfections, which the child can be taught 
 to expect as in a human being, without impairing 
 his veneration for the official character ; no degra- 
 dation in obedience under any altered relation of 
 goodness or power, or in the meanest offices of love. 
 The authority of the parent will continue infinite, as 
 the Being from whom he derives it. It will extend 
 over all acts, except where an equal commission has 
 been given by the same Being to the child. It will 
 strengthen with every exercise ; become more holy 
 and more awful as obedience becomes less compul- 
 sory ; admit of no resistance except what is ex- 
 pressly sanctioned by God Himself; and preserve 
 the unity of the family through every stage of its pro- 
 gress, without provoking collision or interruption. 
 
 And when the parent has thus been established 
 in his legitimate supremacy, he will be enabled still 
 further to bind together the several links in the 
 chain of the family by imparting to the children 
 various shares of his own power ; taking them into 
 his councils, borrowing their assistance, employing 
 them as his representatives, trusting to them not 
 only the care of their younger brethren, and the 
 
64 DOMESTIC SOCIETY TYPIFIES POLITICAL. 
 
 task of raising them also to manhood, but the do- 
 minion over that inferior part of the society, which 
 occupies the same relative position as the animal 
 creation, over which man was placed himself by the 
 hand of God. 
 
 Such seem to be the essential laws by which 
 unity is intended by the Almighty to be preserved 
 in families. And with this type before him, the 
 Christian may proceed to inquire how far they are 
 applicable to the same purpose in political society. 
 
ClI. VII.] DOMESTIC AND TOLITICAL SOCIETY. (J5 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 But before this can be done satisfactorily, it may 
 be necessary to consider distinctly the essential dif- 
 ferences between domestic and political society. We 
 are speaking of States and the government of States, 
 without having defined their nature or fixed their 
 end. And it is possible that the two forms of in- 
 corporation may be so dissimilar in their aims, that 
 no analogy can be pursued between them. The 
 family, for instance, bears on it direct and palpable 
 marks of its Divine origin. Its history is written 
 in the laws by which our very being is created and 
 preserved. But the State, to many, appears a con- 
 ventional contrivance of man. The family embraces 
 but a small number ; the State extends over mil- 
 lions. The family seems limited in its functions; 
 the State includes every occupation and profession, 
 to which human skill can be applied. The family 
 is composed of individuals ; the State of families. 
 And other differences might be noted. 
 
 But the Christian, bearing in mind the principle 
 with which he commences his inquiry — expecting 
 to find the great law of plurality in unity developed 
 in the association of man, even more than in all the 
 other parts of creation — and finding that to a certain 
 extent it is developed in the natural constitution of 
 the family, will still be led to anticipate a more com- 
 plete realisation of it. The attril)utes of the Deity 
 are infinite; ; and th(! works in which those attributes 
 are exem})lified will be infinite also. And the cha- 
 G 2 
 
66 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 racter of plurality, with all its consequeiices of multi- 
 plicity, intricacy, variety, contrast, and relationship, 
 will be as much developed in them as the principle 
 of unity. 
 
 Let us suppose that a being from another world, 
 to whom the great mystery of the Divine nature 
 had been revealed, were to visit this earth, and, 
 alighting on some small island, were to see in it a 
 single family, and to hear that this was the exhibi- 
 tion of the Divine Image in the person of man. 
 What would be the cause of the disappointment 
 which he would undoubtedly feel ? It would be 
 the want of plurality. He would look for greater 
 vastness, complexity, and duration, than could pos- 
 sibly be realised in a single family. But this would 
 not be all. For mere magnitude is not essential to 
 the perfection of a representation. A copy may be 
 made in miniature; and the symbol of the Divine 
 nature may be, and is, traced with as much accuracy 
 and completeness in the wing of an insect, as in the 
 framework of the globe. 
 
 But there is a magnitude which is essential to 
 perfection. It is that which gives scope for the 
 full expansion of all the germinating principles 
 which are contained in the original idea. Nature 
 designs, and reason expects, that beginnings should 
 have an end ; and wherever we detect a dormant 
 faculty, an undeveloped organ, an incipient move- 
 ment, a capacity as yet unsatisfied, or a growing 
 power, there neither nature nor reason rests till 
 some other stage of advancement has been reached, 
 in which there is no further appearance of incom- 
 pleteness and progression. And it is because the 
 family does not give scope for the full development 
 of human nature ; because it is not a form in which, 
 by itself, we can attain to the " measure of the ful- 
 ness of the stature of man," that an incorporation of 
 
CH. Vir.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 67 
 
 greater magnitude is required, and is created in 
 political society. 
 
 And this is the answer to the question, what 
 should be the size of a State, or the number of its 
 members. That size and number which is required 
 to bring out and exhibit all the faculties and capa- 
 cities of man. The family is human nature in boy- 
 hood ; the State is human nature in the maturity 
 of its being. 
 
 Consider how many faculties there are in man 
 which cannot be developed in the family alone. 
 Imagine that the human race were broken off and 
 detached from all other combinations ; thrown back 
 into the domestic form ; and these forms completely 
 insulated from each other ; placed, as it were, in 
 glass cases, without any power of breaking through 
 the charmed circle of their own internal relations. 
 How would they "crib and cabin in" the growth of 
 that wondrous being man, " the noble in reason, the 
 infinite in faculties, in form and moving express 
 and admirable, in action like an angel, in appre- 
 hension like a God, the beauty of the world, the 
 paragon of animals ! " He has an eye to embrace 
 the universe ; an ear to imbibe all knowledge ; a 
 tongue to witness to all truth before the face of 
 worlds ; a reason containing within itself the prim- 
 ary laws and forms of all created being ; an under- 
 standing untiring and unfearing, which cannot rest 
 from its labour in unravelling the mysteries of the 
 world, and which, if denied its proper exercise, 
 would create for itself tasks and toils, rather striving 
 to number the sands of the shore, and to name the 
 stars of heaven, than sit idly, gnawing upon itself. 
 He has affections, which weary and pine till they can 
 vent themselves upon some object of perfection, 
 and absorb in it his whole being. He has hands, by 
 which he can command the laws and elements of the 
 
68 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 earth, and become their task-master, and compel 
 them, at his bidding, to give up their treasures, and 
 transmute themselves into any form. In that deli- 
 cate and tender frame, which the mother suckles at 
 her breast, and shelters in a cradle from the very 
 breath of heaven, there is 
 
 " A si:)irit with divine ambition puffed, 
 Which makes mouths at the invisible event ; 
 Exposing what is mortal and unsure, 
 To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, 
 Even for an egg-shell."^ 
 
 There is a passionate tenacity of life, which will be 
 content with nothing short of immortality, wliich 
 toils for it, prays for it, slaves for it, believes in it, 
 is certain of it, in the midst of a torrent of chances 
 and a whirlwind of ruin, with an instinct as wonder- 
 ful and mysterious, as if a man tossed into the ocean 
 were to fold his arms and proclaim his faith that he 
 could not be swallowed up in its waves. There is 
 a restless longing to participate in the incommuni- 
 cable privilege of the Divine Being, the privilege of 
 creation. And Nature, like a nurse that would in- 
 dulge the heir of a throne in toys that ape and imitate 
 his future glory, whether to amuse his idleness, or to 
 exercise faculties, which he may employ hereafter in 
 vaster occupations of the same kind, submits herself 
 to his moulding, assists his designs, suggests ideas, 
 feeds and kindles his imagination, always withhold- 
 ing something from her own perfections, that man 
 may endeavour to supply the defect, or correct the 
 fault, according to the same laws of beauty upon 
 whicli she herself is formed. 
 
 And there is a consciousness of power and inde- 
 pendence, which demands scoj)e and freedom of ac- 
 tion in a vast field ; which \\ ill not be content with 
 
 ' Hamlet. 
 
CH. VII.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 69 
 
 battling against weak foes, with enduring petty ills, 
 struggling through a cobweb of difficulties and per- 
 plexities, or even receiving enjoyments which are to 
 be accepted passively, not won and purchased by 
 man's own energies. It is his pride to be the architect 
 of his own fortunes. Danger itself has a charm for 
 him. Command and empire are the first thought 
 of his heart ; and command over those most able to 
 command himself. 
 
 All these instincts and passions are innate in 
 man. They are abused and turned into vices, but 
 in themselves they are part of a noble nature, a 
 nature destined to become the heir of a divine 
 and eternal kingdom. They are to be trained, mo- 
 derated, combined, turned into right channels upon 
 good objects ; not to be smothered or extirpated. 
 And for their full growth and perfection they re- 
 quire a vast circle of action, an open atmosphere, 
 unshackled operations, collisions on every side, 
 combinations of various kinds, accidents even and 
 evils, from which the quietude, safety, and happi- 
 ness of the most perfect domestic union is sheltered 
 and saved. And the fact is acknowledged by daily 
 experience. Even the animal creation expel their 
 young from the nest, when they become capable of 
 providing for themselves, that they may attain their 
 full growth and strength in another and wider stage 
 of existence. And the first thought of the parent, 
 as his child grows up into maturity, is to send him 
 from the indulgences and softnesses of home into 
 the rough wide world, that in it he may be dis- 
 ciplined into a man. 
 
 What, then, is the true relation between Domes- 
 tic and Political Society ? It is the relation of two 
 concentric spheres, within which the embryo man is 
 placed, as in a shell, to be nurtured and develo])ed in 
 the whole extent and comprehension of his nature. 
 
70 
 
 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 His home receives him in the first stage of his ex- 
 istence, when as yet his eye is dim, his hand weak, 
 his step faltering, his mind passive, his faculties only 
 beginning to awaken. It surrounds him with in- 
 fluences and objects suited to the tenderness and 
 susceptibility of his being. It exercises him with 
 toys, guides him with a thread, feeds him with milk, 
 chastens him with a look. But it would exercise, 
 guide, feed, and chasten the whole man. The edu- 
 cation of the child, even under its mother's eye, 
 is to comprehend the whole of his faculties. His 
 bodily powers, his corporeal affections, his taste and 
 fancy, his understanding or logical faculty, his rea- 
 son and faith, his self-dependence and energy, his 
 power of choice and foresight amidst contingencies, 
 his love and hate, his ambition and obedience, his 
 gentleness and courage, are all to be drawn out, 
 each in its proper place and according as nature 
 permits, and to be combined, as far as can be in 
 that stage of development, into the rudiment of a 
 perfect man. Then the first shell is broken, and the 
 boy passes into the world, to take his part in poli- 
 tical society. But still he is incomplete. He has 
 faculties not yet fully trained, ca])acities not fully 
 expanded. And the State is prepared to carry on 
 the same process which the home began, only with a 
 severer discipline, with more laborious trials, with 
 heavier burdens, with greater liberty, and in a vaster 
 circle, proportioned to the advancement and growth 
 of the nature which she receives into her sphere. 
 And she does this — she acts as a schoolmaster — or 
 rather, she bears as in a wond) and as a mother her 
 child man (child even in the fullest maturity of his 
 powers upon earth), because beyond the earth there 
 is another concentric sj)here, liolding within itself 
 the State, as the State holds within itself the home, 
 — a sphere formed upon the same model with them 
 
CH. VII.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 71 
 
 both, the model of the Divine Nature, — compre- 
 hending the same relations, requiring the same 
 faculties and habits in all who would dwell within 
 it ; a sphere of which the State is the type to the 
 adult, as home is the type of the State to the child ; 
 and into which man, perfected upon earth, passes 
 when the shell of earth is broken open, and he is 
 admitted through tlie grave and gate of death into 
 the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 Such is the view which the Christian will take 
 of the relations established by God between the va- 
 rious incorporations of man, which proceed from 
 His own hand. I have made no mention of the 
 Church, because Catholic Christianity, whatever 
 may be the theory of Romanism, does not recognise 
 it as a separate part of this system. It is an integral 
 element of political society, as it will be necessary 
 to shew hereafter, and as the analogies traced out 
 in the constitution of the family have already sug- 
 gested. But there are two features in this system 
 upon which it is necessary to dwell. 
 
 One is, the completeness of the work, the uni- 
 versality of functions which are assigned in it both 
 to the family and to the State. Both are engaged 
 in the development, and discipline, and formation 
 of the whole man. In each, man is to be begotten, 
 as it were, and created by man, partly by his own 
 agency, partly by the ministration of others. In 
 each the full image and perfection of humanity is 
 to be drawn out, exhibited in a form composed of 
 many individuals, each representing prominently 
 some particular elements in the composition, while 
 all partake of the same fundamental and essential 
 qualities, and form one blended being, of one sub- 
 stance and many persons. Government in the pa- 
 rent, obedience in the child, protection in the hus- 
 band, faith in the wife, power and activity in the 
 
72 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 man, gentleness and submission in the woman, — all 
 these, the many shades of the one colour of human 
 nature severally expfessed, are to be harmoniously 
 combined, with the same ground of virtue and rea- 
 son pervading and uniting all. 
 
 But what a contrast does such a view present 
 with modern theories of legislation ! How will a 
 Christian reconcile with it the exclusion from the 
 functions of government of its paramount and uni- 
 versal work, without which no duty can be dis- 
 charged, and no attempt for good succeed ? When 
 we are told, on one side, by men without any pro- 
 fession of religion, and, on the other, by advocates 
 of an exclusive ecclesiastical independence, that the 
 State is not concerned with religion, that it has no 
 right to take a part in polemics, to assert theological 
 truths, to interfere with ecclesiastical arrangements, 
 or to interest itself in the well-being of the Church ; 
 let us ask. What, then, is its work ? It cannot be con- 
 cerned with the education of man ; for man, without 
 religion, is and must continue as a brute. It has 
 no right to enter on the province of morality ; for 
 the only true foundation of morals is the being, at- 
 tributes, voice, and revelation of God. It cannot 
 tamper with man's physical and material interests ; 
 for the whole good and evil of these, which are 
 themselves things indifterent, depend on the mea- 
 sure and mode in which they are used or abused, 
 and this measure can only be defined by morals, 
 from which the State that is excluded from religion 
 is also excluded by necessity. It has no power to 
 proclaim any truth whatever with authority; for all 
 truths are but mere opinions and chance-speculation, 
 until they are shewn to have their being and source 
 in the one great paramount universal eternal truth, 
 the Being of God. It has no prerogative to exercise 
 any powei' over man ; for men, if not really equal, 
 
CH. VII.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 73 
 
 will at least not confess their inequality. It strips 
 itself of a commission from God by refusing to con- 
 fess His name ; and its fate will be the fate of the 
 salt, which is intended to purify the world, but the 
 savour of which is lost ; it will be cast on a dung- 
 hill, and trodden under foot of men. 
 
 It possesses power indeed, the power which any 
 concentration of forces, which even mere bulk and 
 magnitude, acquire when put in motion. And it must 
 continue to generate and educate human beings, as a 
 hot-bed will throw up weeds and hatch vipers, when 
 it does not produce fruit. And it must profess to 
 direct its efforts to some object, to the expansion or 
 correction of some part of human nature ; either the 
 intellect, or the taste, or the morals, or the body and 
 its accessory wants. But refusing to comprehend in 
 its view the whole nature of man, lest it should be 
 compelled to comprehend religion, and the truths of 
 religion, or Theology, it can act only on some one 
 faculty, which it will swell into unnatural size and 
 fermentation, until it has produced a monster. It will 
 pamper the intellect, until a nation becomes, like 
 Athens, a collection of idlers and babblers, passing 
 their whole life in asking for something new. Or 
 it will refine the taste, till, as in Italy, the very name 
 of moral good is lost in the accomplishments of art. 
 Or it will stimulate the irascible principle, as in 
 Sparta, till the nation becomes a camp and nothing 
 more. Or it will exercise the prudential faculty, till, 
 as in Rome, a practical policy supersedes all deep 
 philosophy and refinement of feeling. Or it will 
 generate a Laputa of abstract thought, or a Sybaris 
 of bodily indulgence, or an America of self-love and 
 independence, or a Tyre of commerce. Or it will 
 swallow up the whole body of the man, with all its va- 
 riety of organs, as in one vast hand ; and that hand 
 
 H 
 
74 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 delicate indeed and cunning in workmanship and 
 contrivance, but begrimed with filth, callous with 
 midnight toil, palsied and convulsed by fits with 
 the alternations of a fluctuating employment, itching 
 for money, and sordid witli fraud and cheating, and 
 betraying, even in its muscular strength, the sores, 
 and gauntness, and emaciation of sickness and fa- 
 mine. Such is a manufacturing nation ; and such 
 is to be the state of England. 
 
 Secondly, from this view of the relation between 
 the family and the State, it is evident that the one 
 is as much a Divine Institution as the other. Both 
 are equally necessary to the perfection of man ; both 
 are parts of one system for his nurture and deve- 
 lopment ; both therefore designed by Providence, 
 and provided for in the arrangements of Nature. 
 And we may not rashly tamper with one more than 
 with the other. The crimes most revolting to the 
 heart are those which sin against the family : adul- 
 tery, polygamy, filial ingratitude, neglect of child- 
 ren, violence against parents, incest, fraternal hatred, 
 abandonment of domestic ties. But there are ana- 
 logous crimes in the State ; more heinous in reality, 
 because more extensively mischievous ; and only less 
 startling and oflTensive, because we do not understand 
 our real position within it. It is too vast for our 
 comprehension. Our personal interests are absorbed 
 in some little corner of it ; and we do not feel the 
 violation of relations and duties, which are themselves 
 scarcely acknowledged. But those relations and 
 duties exist in a fearful independence of our con- 
 sciousness. CEdipus, the murderer of his father, 
 and the marrier of his mother, was not conscious of 
 the act that he was committing; and yet his fate is 
 held up as a picture of the dee))(\st horror and suf- 
 fering which ever befel mankind. And so it may 
 
CH. VII.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 75 
 
 be with tliose who violate their obligations to their 
 country, and shelter themselves under the plea that 
 they were not aware ol' their existence. 
 
 Thirdly, a Christian, wdio recognises the general 
 plan of the Divine operations, will be prepared to 
 expect a very strong analogy and resemblance be- 
 tween both these concentric systems, the family and 
 the State. He kno\vs that all the parts of creation 
 are harmonised and compacted together ; and that 
 the harmony and unity of a whole consists mainly 
 in tliis, that every member of the framework is mo- 
 delled on the same type, and moves on the same 
 principle. He will see also in the identity of that 
 human nature which is placed under discipline and 
 instruction in each sphere, the necessity for consider- 
 able identity in both the schemes of education. And 
 he w ill expect only such variations as are needed by 
 the alteration of character which takes place in the 
 boy and the man. A plant in leaf may require one 
 temperature; and the same plant in flow^er and fruit 
 another. But the general principle of management 
 will probably be the same. 
 
 Fourthly, upon the same consideration, observ- 
 ing how individuals are collected and crystallised into 
 families, and families into states, he will guard most 
 carefully against any theory, which would represent 
 the State to be formed not of families but of indivi- 
 duals. Such theories lie at the root of all those 
 legislative acts, wdiich interfere with or supersede the 
 peculiar duties and privileges of the parent ; plans 
 of state-education, in which the Government claims 
 the child as its own, without consulting the parent; 
 a tampering with the laws of marriage ; proceedings 
 which unsettle the principles of legitimacy in blood, 
 or disturb and embarrass the descent of family pro- 
 perty; needless restrictions upon the prerogatives 
 
76 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 and authority of parents ; institutions which encou- 
 rage illegitimacy, such as hospitals for foundlings ; so 
 immorality, the degradation of the female character 
 and office, tastes and occupations which withdraw 
 men from their firesides, and break up the domestic 
 circle, and substitute more than is absolutely neces- 
 sary of political interests for domestic duties ; the 
 modern establishment of clubs ; the diffusion of news- 
 papers ; the facilities for travelling; the numerous 
 associations in which females are encouraged to join 
 for objects of charity and religion, in which the 
 quiet unpretending duties of home are too often 
 sacrificed to excitement ; infant schools, in which the 
 child is taken from the mother at the very time when 
 it should be most closely attached to her; the em- 
 ployment of young children in mines and manufac- 
 tories ; the withdrawal of manufactures themselves 
 from the cottages of the labourer to vast establish- 
 ments; in Romanism the principle of forced celibacy, 
 and of monasteries in general, so far as they sacri- 
 fice and violate domestic association ; poverty, which 
 strips home of its comforts ; excessive labour, \vhich 
 allows no time for its enjoyment; the want of inno- 
 cent recreations, which may give a charm to the 
 poor man's fireside ; or the establishment of vicious 
 public amusements, which may create that ciiarm 
 elsewhere ; ignorance, which precludes wholesome 
 occupation for the mind within doors, when we can- 
 not labour without ; and vice, especially drunken- 
 ness and immorality, which destroy the very found- 
 ations of domestic happiness — all those, and many 
 more might be added, are circumstances in the pre- 
 sent day which bear upon this point, and demand 
 most serious consideration. Stones are made of par- 
 ticles of sand, and houses are constructed of stones. 
 But what will be that house, in building which the 
 
CH. VII.] WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 77 
 
 mason pounds his stones to dust before lie uses 
 them ? We cannot buikl houses with sand ; and we 
 cannot construct a State of individual men. 
 
 Fifthly, if this be true, and if it be one great of- 
 fice of the State to supply, for the perfectionment of 
 man, what cannot be supplied by the family, in the 
 State there must be some provision for those indivi- 
 duals, who, by the accidents of life, are thrown out of 
 family-circles, and yet cannot attain their full growth, 
 perhaps cannot even exist, without them, — orphans, 
 children abandoned or neglected by their parents or 
 relations, others who are corrupted by those who 
 should watch over their innocence, minds too tender 
 and delicate to battle with the world, or capable of 
 great service in combination with others, but without 
 the relations of marriage — all tliese loose and scat- 
 tered atoms, as it were, of society, which are broken 
 off from families in the collisions of the world, in- 
 stead of lying like rubbish upon the ground, despised 
 and trodden under foot, or turned to some mean and 
 unworthy purpose, or tost about by every chance, 
 without worthy object or abiding rest — all these 
 should be carefully collected by the statesman, and 
 gathered into artificial forms and combinations; as 
 the very pebbles of the shore are consolidated into 
 massive stone, and built up in bulwarks by imbed- 
 ding them in concrete. A nation, alas, alas ! like 
 England, in which there is no provision for these 
 unhappy beings, is destitute of one of its chief glo- 
 ries, and neglects one of its highest duties. The 
 laws on which such factitious families should be 
 framed, and the uses to which they may be applied, 
 together with the abuses to which they are liable, 
 may be traced out at another time : the need of them 
 is all that is here suggested. And it will be a blessed 
 day for this country, when, recovering from the panic 
 and disgust into M'hich the extravagances of a false 
 n -2 
 
78 
 
 COMPARISON OF DOMESTIC 
 
 system of religion drove it, and carefully guarding 
 against any renewal of them, she may still venture 
 to provide, within the bosom of her own Church, 
 some place of refuge for those of her children, who 
 are now cast out into the world, like callow birds 
 which have fallen from their nest, and must perish 
 unless it can be regained. 
 
 Sixthly, it will appear that one of the chief ob- 
 jects and duties of the State is education ; education, 
 as was before observed, comprehending the whole 
 nature of man. The State is not merely the shell, 
 in which the embryo is contained. It is not a mere 
 locality, or circumscription of name, place, or power, 
 within which so many families are counted by the 
 head. It is the matrix, the womb in which they are 
 imbedded, to be formed by it, and to derive from 
 it their life and nourishment. It may be that two 
 or more kinds of education are required, according 
 to the different stages of maturity in the offspring. 
 The egg is hatched by incubation only ; but the nest- 
 ling once excluded from the shell demands a more 
 extended care and a varied treatment. But both 
 the operations are performed by the parent bird. 
 
 And yet we must beware. In the present day 
 the statement seems a truism. And the State in this 
 country professes, as one of its first interests, the 
 encouragement and superintendence of education ; 
 and yet, by sad practical experience of the result, 
 we feel that some fallacy must lurk in its professions. 
 It must educate, and is bound to educate ; and yet, 
 when it makes the attempt, it is obliged to abandon 
 it in despair, or it only develops rude, unorganised, 
 and vicious forms of life ; like the re])tiles engendered 
 by the sun from the shores of the Nile. 
 
 And how is this ? Because it neglects the family. 
 It neglects to employ the ministration of the family 
 in the first stage of education ; as if a grandmother 
 
CH. VII. J WITH POLITICAL SOCIETY. 79 
 
 should attempt to feed hor grandchild instead of al- 
 lowing it to be suckled by its own mother ; or as if 
 a maker of porcelain should insist on at once sub- 
 mitting the wet clay to the last degree of heat through 
 which it must ultimately pass, instead of arriving at 
 it by degrees. It neglects to copy the type of the 
 family in the institutions which it employs for that 
 education of adults, which does more especially be- 
 long to its own province. Its schools, colleges, uni- 
 versities, gymnasia, whatever they are called, are 
 not families and homes. They present only maimed 
 and lifeless exhibitions of the domestic system. And 
 they must be such, so long as the State itself aban- 
 dons the domestic type in its own constitution and 
 operations, and acts only by one half of its being, by 
 the civil power only, without the close and affec- 
 tionate co-operation of the spiritual. Just as if a man 
 left with a family of infant children after the mother's 
 divorce or death, should resolve to educate them 
 himself, without any one to supply her place. 
 
 And one more suggestion may be drawn from 
 this view of the relation between the family and the 
 State. As many individuals form one family, and 
 many families one State, so, upon this model, and 
 according to the same law by which the whole sys- 
 tem of nature seems generated, many states and na- 
 tions may be formed into one grand Incorporation 
 of the human race, having for its end the same 
 object of developing human nature in a'l its forms 
 and germinating principles ; and exhibiting it, per- 
 haps, in its relation to that last and grandest sphere, 
 in which all others are involved, — the coming King- 
 dom of Heaven. That passion for Unity, which 
 cannot be bounded or checked by any barriers of 
 space, or differences of nature and condition ; that 
 vision of an universal Empire, comprehending the 
 whole globe, which has elevated to something like 
 
80 DOMESTIC AND POLITICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 dignity even the meanness and selfishness of ambi- 
 tion ; that sense of an universal nature and pervad- 
 ing sympathy, binding together in some one end all 
 the scattered races of mankind, as they are bound 
 together in the one spring-head from which they 
 have flowed ; that glimpse of wonderful connexions 
 between the most distant phenomena of history, and 
 of a secret mysterious thread of destiny running 
 through and linking together the revolutions of 
 the whole human race ; all these seem auguries 
 and instincts pointing to some such consummation. 
 Natural instincts, universal expectations, are never 
 without their reality and fulfilment, though the 
 fulfilment be wrought out by degrees, slowly, and 
 in part, and in a mystery whicii the human eye can- 
 not see through ; as a prisoner in a dungeon could 
 not detect the order and regtdarity of a vast proces- 
 sion which passed slowly before the window of his 
 dungeon. Such a view, difficult as it may be to 
 trace out, would constitute the true Philosophy of 
 Universal History. But it is too extensive to be 
 attempted here, and must be left for some future 
 occasion. 
 
CH. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 81 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 My dear Friend, — Before I begin this chapter, 
 I must once more remind you of our conversa- 
 tion on the cliffs at D — . As we passed, on our 
 return, into one of the deep narrow dells with which 
 the coast is there intersected, and wound along a 
 narrow path which had been formed in its side, 
 under the shade of some gigantic oaks, you stopped 
 to pick up an acorn, and crushed it in your hands. 
 And you asked, after some thought, whether it 
 would be possible to detect, by any microscope, 
 the primary atoms within it on which the principle 
 of vitality depended, — that vitality, you added, by 
 which this acorn might become an oak, and the oak 
 a forest. This led us to reflect on the laws, by 
 which, in the animal as in the vegetable world, and 
 seemingly in every part of creation, the stream of 
 life flows out from some one germ or embryo, 
 widening in geometrical proportion till it becomes 
 a sea; and retaining its unity throughout, by some 
 mysterious infusion from the })arent seed. You then 
 passed on to remark the tendency in the material 
 world to take an analogous form, and to fall into 
 a pyramidal outline. Pile up the sand, you said, 
 which is heaped on those low hills along the coast, 
 and leave it only to the law of gravitation, and it 
 will fall into a cone. Even the waves, as they break, 
 curl up and mount into an apex. And if I were 
 to sketch any part of this scene, I must commence 
 it by grouping the members of it, and this group- 
 ing could only be effected by combining them in a 
 pyramidal outline. 
 
82 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 And when the intellect of man, I subjoined, 
 throws itself upon the chaos of materials and facts 
 which the world at first sight exhibits, its whole 
 effort likewise is to classify genera, till they are 
 ranged one above the other, and close in one, the 
 highest of all ; or to generalise laws, till one law 
 can be traced as a root from which all the other 
 combinations ramify ; or to detect the one elemental 
 form, of wiiich the whole compound is a congeries 
 and expansion. Perhaps, I added, this pyramidal 
 law might be detected in the moral combinations 
 of the world, as well as in the material. It may be 
 a law of society. What would you say, if it was 
 asserted that society cannot exist in any other form, 
 and that there can be no government whatever, 
 strive as we may to create one, except an absolute 
 monarchy ? I should say, you replied smiling, that 
 this was one of your paradoxes. 
 
 This paradox it is now necessary to examine. 
 We are to apply to political society the type of the 
 family, and to ascertain if the same organisation is 
 not established in both by nature for the preservation 
 of their unity ; for creating one body, though with 
 many members. And the first element required is 
 a supreme presiding power in the State, analogous 
 to that of the father. For it is only by the pressure 
 and action of such a power that a multitude of 
 minds can be reduced to one. One will must be 
 impressed upon all, or the body is in discord and 
 distraction. To enable them to take such an im- 
 pression, there must be a surrender of their own 
 peculiar bias. They must be emptied of their self- 
 will. They must resolve, whether from fear or love, 
 or any other consideration, to move with the move- 
 ments of another mind distinct from their own ; and 
 this self-abandonm(uit must be, not a mere acci- 
 dental agreement of opinion ; not a willingness to 
 
CH. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL TRINCIPLE. 83 
 
 Avalk in the same path, so long as the same path seems 
 agreeable — but a complete renunciation of their own 
 inclinations and opinions, in all essential differences. 
 No general would undertake the command of an 
 army in which soldiers and officers promised to 
 obey only so long as they chose. No captain would 
 take a vessel to sea with a crew who would submit 
 to his orders only where they seemed reasonable and 
 pleasing. Absolute submission, unreserved, uncon- 
 ditional, mechanical, in all things necessary, is essen- 
 tial to unity of movement in a multitude of minds. 
 Harsh as the statement must sound, it is undoubtedly 
 true. It does not exclude thought, advice, consult- 
 ation, and the exercise of all legitimate influence 
 to change the determination of the presiding will ; 
 neither does it involve submission in any but essen- 
 tial acts; nor require it in unlawful acts. But the mo- 
 ment submission is withheld, the vital union is lost; 
 the external union becomes precarious, and dependent 
 upon accident and caprice ; and the moment active 
 opposition is offered, destruction commences. There 
 is no mode by which many minds can be fused into 
 one, except by the annihilation of the self-will of all 
 in one. The hand, the foot, the eye, every member 
 of the body, must be in obedience to one will. So in 
 the grosNth of the oak, the whole mass of particles 
 absorbed into, and assimilated with its substance, is 
 subject all of it to the impulses impressed on all of it 
 by the one germinating principle ; so that the pre- 
 vious forms in which they were crystallised are con- 
 verted into one original type, and the natural ten- 
 dencies of all the juices are reduced into one current, 
 prescribed by it, and the congeries becomes one 
 tree : and so the wiiole compass of the universe is 
 made one, by the subjection of all beings, in all 
 tiieir operations and movements, however compli- 
 cated, to the one will of their Creator. 
 
84 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 But to will is an indivisible act ; and though its 
 determination be affected by myriads of preceding 
 affections, its decision is absolutely one, and the 
 being in which its faculty exists is one also. And 
 the one will must be one individual. Hard as it 
 may seem, if the unity of the body politic is to be 
 maintained in any action, in that action all the 
 members being subjected to one will must also be 
 subjected to one individual. I am speaking now, 
 remember, of single separate acts. An army, on 
 a field of battle, may make a hundred movements 
 in different directions, if placed successively under 
 the command of a hundred generals. But if they 
 move as a whole, not by the mere impulse of acci- 
 dent, but as one organised body, in each movement, 
 they will obey but one commander. No metaphysi- 
 cal ingenuity can escape from this conclusion ; how- 
 ever human wilfulness has struggled, and will strug- 
 gle against it to the end of time. For the pride of 
 man cannot submit to become the servant of his 
 fellow-man. They are apparently equal, and sub- 
 jection is degradation. But it is no humiliation to 
 be overpowered by superior forces ; and therefore, 
 if we are to be governed, we seek to be governed 
 by a number. We endeavour to frame a system 
 into which many wills and many voices shall enter, 
 to form one supreme will and power; and this is the 
 origin of all oligarchical and popular constitutions. 
 
 And now I will venture to suggest, that all such 
 schemes are delusions. It is no delusion to wish 
 and contrive that many minds and counterpoising 
 forces should be associated in a government. This 
 is necessary ; and the proper method and form of 
 association will appear hereafter. But it is a delu- 
 sion to suppose that a number of independent will>^ 
 can be brought together, and the result of their 
 combined or conflicting forces be summed up in 
 
CH. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 85 
 
 any one act or determination, so as to preserve the 
 unity of the body, without the one and the very 
 same condition wliich the machinerj^ is contrived 
 to exclude, — the subjection of those many wills to 
 some one individual. The attempt has been made 
 a<i^ain and again. Triumvirates, consulships, legis- 
 lative councils, even double monarchies, have been 
 framed for this purpose ; but no sooner have the 
 equal independent minds been placed together on a 
 level, than they have begun to fall into the form of 
 a cone ; the weak have crumbled to the bottom, and 
 the strong man has remained at the summit, a single 
 individual. All experience is in favour of the para- 
 dox ; even the American democracy confesses it, for 
 it cannot exist without a President. 
 
 That which deceives us in resisting it, is the 
 principle of deciding by majorities ; and it well de- 
 serves examination. I wish, therefore, to suggest, — 
 or rather, without presumption, it may be asserted, — 
 that the principle of majorities is admirable and 
 necessary in consultation ; that it is the only mode 
 of gathering the collected experience and prudence 
 of many minds, previous to the determination of the 
 will ; but that, in the willing and acting itself, it is 
 either wholly incompatible with the unity of the 
 body, or, if unity be preserved, it is gained only by 
 the same surrender of the many wills to one in- 
 dividual, which is the essence of an absolute mon- 
 archy. 
 
 The Parliament of a nation is assembled. It is 
 proposed to alter the law of representation. There 
 are six hundred members. The voting commen- 
 ces ; and three hundred have voted on each side. 
 At this point let the state of the votes be made 
 known, and then consider the position of the indi- 
 vidual to whom belongs the casting vote. Upon 
 him, upon his absolute and irresponsible will, de- 
 I 
 
86 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 termined within his own breast, as much resides the 
 power of deciding the whole question, as if no pre- 
 vious votes had been given — as if no others were asso- 
 ciated with him in the assembly — as if he were a mon- 
 arch and a despot. That he has had advisers and 
 counsellors brought forward in the process of voting, 
 is true. So may a despot. That he is now able to 
 weigh and compare the forces which may be called 
 into action by his decision, is also true. So may a 
 despot. He has only to inform himself accurately 
 of the state of his kingdom. But in the privacy of 
 his own mind he may discard, or be unable to com- 
 bine, any such calculations. He may decide by 
 passion, by prejudice, in ignorance, in selfishness, 
 in folly, in madness. There is no one to control 
 him. His account must be rendered, like the des- 
 pot's, to Heaven alone. " Deum ultorem expectet^ 
 At his feet stand both the parties in trembling and 
 anxiety, to await his voice. Each know that their 
 own votes are nugatory as air, if he so wills it. 
 Each is ready to court and purchase his decision, as 
 they would bribe a despot. And it is the triumph 
 of his power to hold them suspended on his caprice, 
 and wavering with every alternation of his fancy. 
 For the time, then, for this single act, the fate of the 
 whole nation is dependent on the will of a single 
 individual. 
 
 But change the condition of the majority, and 
 still it is the same. The moment three hundred 
 votes have been given on one side, let the state of 
 the voting be made known, and the voter who fol- 
 lows next possesses tiie same absolute power of ren- 
 dering nugatory all those which follow him, and 
 giving all the validity of which tliey are susceptible 
 to those which preceded. He may throw his weight 
 into the scale at once, and the question is decided — 
 decided by his single vote, absolute, arbitrary, irre- 
 
CH. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 87 
 
 sponsible ; which may be determined honestly and 
 wisely with reference to the opinions and power of 
 others, or as a fool and a rogue ; but which, in 
 either case alike, is binding on the destinies of the 
 whole body ; or he may wave his privilege, and 
 prefer taking his stand with the minority, whose 
 supremacy is still undecided, leaving it to the next 
 voter, and he to the next, and he to the next in 
 succession, to exercise the same privilege of deter- 
 mining the question at once, or passing it on to 
 another. But whether he decide, or refuse to de- 
 cide, in each case the act of his will is absolute and 
 arbitrary. If he turn the scale at once, the fate of 
 the body is decided by that single individual. If 
 he wave it, the end is only postponed till the voting 
 reach an individual who does not wave it, or till 
 both parties are equalised, and the casting vote, as 
 before, is left to an individual. In whatever way 
 we analyse the process of determining by majori- 
 ties, the decision will still be traced to some single 
 vote, by which the majority is constituted, on which 
 its essence and validity entirely depends, not indeed 
 as single in itself, but as coming in a certain order 
 after a certain number. But it is still a single vote. 
 The whole validity and efficacy of all the others is 
 as much derived from it as the voices of the advisers 
 of a tyrant are potent by his voice. We may en- 
 deavour to disguise the fact by keeping secret the 
 order and progress of voting, so that no individual 
 may know that he is the person who is called on to 
 decide the majority. But to be unconscious of the 
 power which we exercise is not to lose it. Poison 
 kills though administered in ignorance ; and nations 
 receive the death-blow from an ignorant legislator, 
 though no one knows where to fix the crime. 
 
 But, indeed, this very concealment renders the 
 danger greater, and the criminality more extended. 
 
88 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 It is affected, either lest the individual, conscious of 
 his power, should use it to his own selfish purposes, 
 as votes in popular elections are held back to the 
 last, to extort for them a higher bribe ; or that the 
 chance of the power may be distributed among all, 
 as in a blind lottery. But the effect is to destroy 
 the sense of individual responsibility in all, while 
 over all the responsibility is extended. Each man 
 votes as he might do in a minority, whose success is 
 uncertain, while all alike severally may be in the 
 position of a casting vote. And it is this consider- 
 ation which renders the contemplation of a repre- 
 sentative government so full of awe. 
 
 But, it will be said, the single voice, which de- 
 termines the majority in an assembly, is powerless, 
 except it be preceded by the voices of at least half 
 the constituency ; and that, in this respect, it differs 
 from the single voice of the despot. But the differ- 
 ence is merely superficial. The single voice of the 
 despot is alike powerless, unless it can depend on 
 the support of a number of wills, constituting, in 
 like manner, a force more than equal to any which 
 can be brought against it. This force may be com- 
 posed of janissaries, or Swiss, or Scottish archers, or 
 condottieri, or a mob, or a faction — it may be made 
 up in its amount, not so much by numerical su- 
 periority, as by discipline, courage, military skill, 
 superiority of arms, or position. But the single will 
 is powerless without it. Both cases are precisely 
 alike in this point. They differ only according as 
 the auxiliary force is composed of the good and the 
 wise, under the sanction of law, whose concurrence 
 guarantees the goodness of the supreme will; or of 
 slaves, and mercenaries, and ruffians, who are de- 
 termined in their service only by interest or passion. 
 
 And this brings us to the great ju-oblem in form- 
 ing constitutions. As in every constitution there 
 
CII. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 89 
 
 must be one determining will for at least each 
 several act of the state ; and as that will must be 
 absolute and arbitrary in the privacy of its own 
 deliberations and decisions, it is vain to struggle 
 against the principle of monarchy in the abstract. 
 And as no individual in himself can possess power 
 over a greater number, unless he be supported by a 
 superior force in others, it is equally vain to com- 
 plain of monarchy, as if it could be exercised by 
 any insulated arm. An individual alone cannot 
 govern a nation. It is impossible : it was never 
 attempted. But it is not vain to consider in w^hat 
 way the body, without which the one determining 
 voice is powerless, may be so constructed as to ren- 
 der it an adequate and efficient representative, not 
 of the mere will of the subjects, but of goodness and 
 truth, wisdom and justice, religion and piety, in them- 
 selves. In the composition of this body lies the chief 
 excellence of a constitution, and the chief mystery 
 of good government ; and it practically supersedes 
 even the preliminary question of the depository of 
 the determining will. If that will cannot act with- 
 out the concurrence of another power, regulate that 
 power rightly, and the movements of the deter- 
 mining will cannot go wrong. But it may be far 
 more easy to regulate aright the will of the state 
 than the will of the monarch ; far more easy to con- 
 struct an unerring standard of truth out of many 
 minds, than out of one. The impulse must be given 
 by one, but the balance-w^eight must be composed 
 of many. 
 
 We thus arrive at two great political questions. 
 First, by what law is the monarch to be selected ? 
 and, secondly, in what manner is the State to be 
 constituted ? And I will venture henceforth to use 
 these words in rather a peculiar sense ; signifying, 
 by the Monarch, the one will on which the decision 
 I 2 
 
90 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 of each act must depend, whether in a pure despot- 
 ism, or a representative system, or a democracy; 
 and by the State, that majority of forces, however 
 combined, by whose assistance his will takes effect 
 over the whole body. 
 
 And, before these questions are examined, it 
 may be worth while to observe how, by the natural 
 action of society, the biune principle again meets 
 us. For tl*e right government of a nation there 
 must be associated together, as in one body, both 
 the State and the Monarch. The very essence of 
 their combination depends on their possessing two 
 separate individual wills ; otherwise the Monarchy 
 would be nullified, or the State would possess no 
 power of check or counterpoise. But the happiness 
 and good government of the nation is to be mea- 
 sured by their perfect harmony and unity. The 
 power of the two parts of the machine is distri- 
 buted in the same paradoxical form as that of the 
 two presiding forces in the domestic society. There 
 is a primary, active, originating, determining will 
 reposed in a single individual. There is a negative 
 power, one capable of resisting, but not of originat- 
 ing, motion ; and of resisting passively, by refusing 
 to co-operate, not actively, by commencing a colli- 
 sion — a power of advice, of suggestion, of moral 
 influence, of mind rather than of body. The active 
 power cannot move without the consent of the pas- 
 sive, nor the passive without the active. The State 
 has no power without the Monarch, nor the Monarch 
 any power without the State. And yet the State 
 derives all its power from the Monarcii, as the wife 
 derives her power from tlie husband. The Monarch 
 cannot act at all, unless the State approves his move- 
 ment. The State cantiot act at all, unless the Mon- 
 arch gives the impulse. Hence, amidst the frailties 
 and corruptions of human nature, there arise fre- 
 
en. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 91 
 
 quent embarrassments, constant difficulties, sus- 
 pended action, occasional inconsistencies, triumplis 
 of more or less duration of one body over the other. 
 And yet, from these conflicting and disturbing 
 forces, flows out one tolerably uniform and har- 
 monious line of action, when contemplated in its 
 full extent, — ^just as the heavenly bodies are main- 
 tained in their courses, not by undeviating orbits, 
 but by counteracting and counterbalancing aberra- 
 tions. And tliere is an analogy to this political 
 system in the material and moral world, wliich is 
 not to be overlooked. There is a vulgar adage (and 
 vulgar adages are expressions of general truths), that 
 it is the last feather which breaks the horse's back 
 — the last drop makes the cup run over — the failure 
 of the last atom in the decayed timber brings down 
 the house — the last impulse, though but the move- 
 ment of a finger, overthrows the carriage — the last 
 breath hurls down the avalanche — the giving way 
 of the last fibre, or the corruption of the last drop 
 of blood, brings Mith it death. All these single 
 movements determine the event ; without them it 
 would not take place. But these movements them- 
 selves are powerless, except they are preceded and 
 accompanied by a multitude of others of a similar 
 kind, which themselves are powerless without the 
 crowning act. Decay is working for years in the 
 human frame, but life does not depart. Drop by 
 drop a mass of water penetrates the dyke, but the 
 dyke does not give way till the last particle has been 
 saturated and loosened. And so in the moral world. 
 Act after act, suffering upon suffering, still the habit 
 is not formed — it may be yet altered. One act more, 
 and all is over; and the character and colour of the 
 soul, whether for good or for evil, is burnt into it for 
 ever. So ideas recur again and again ; at last they 
 mature into thought ; from thought they are warmed 
 
92 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 into feelings and affections ; and affections ripen into 
 inclinations and propensities. And yet all this pre- 
 vious process, pregnant as it is with consequences, 
 and essential to the final result, are in themselves as 
 nothing ; till one more step is taken, and the deli- 
 beration passes into will, and the will into act, and 
 man is plunged into crime. And even then he lives 
 on from day to day, adding sin to sin, or, it may be, 
 virtue to virtue. And still the seal is not set upon 
 his fate, to fix him either in heaven or in hell, until 
 some one conclusive movement, seen perhaps only 
 by that eye which penetrates the secrets of the heart, 
 and watches the ripening of our souls ; and then the 
 word is given, and where the tree falls, there it lies 
 for ever. 
 
 And so it is in the intellectual world. It is the 
 last item in the calculation of probabilities which 
 determines the decision of prudence ; and yet that 
 item weighs as nothing without a previous accumu- 
 lation of others. It is the last touch which gives 
 perfection to the work of art. And how often is 
 it felt that years of labour and expense have been 
 wasted, because this one touch is wanting ! One 
 black spot upon a picture, one flaw in a gem, one 
 scratch upon a mirror, one deficiency in a machine, 
 one curiosity missing in a collection, one discordant 
 string in a harmony of music, one unnatural tone, 
 or gesture, or expression in the representation of 
 passion — and pictures, gems, mirrors, mechanism, 
 museum, harmonies, dramas, or oratory, all become 
 valueless. Without the accompanying mass the ul- 
 timate atom is as nothing ; but without the ultimate 
 atom the mass itself is nothing. Such is the constitu- 
 tion of the world — a combination of many particles, 
 of which one particle must rule and give the bias ; 
 but the bias cannot take effect unless a majority 
 of the others consent to move in the same line; and 
 
CH. VIII.] THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 93 
 
 in which the majority themselves cannot move at 
 all, till the ruling and biassing particle has com- 
 municated to them the determining impulse. 
 
 And if we ascended still higher, even to the will 
 of the supreme Creator, and the will of His creature, 
 man, it may be that the same mystery would meet 
 us. It may be that the great problem of practical, 
 as well as of speculative, religion — the problem of 
 free agency and of fate — may be but another form 
 of the same great law. Man can do nothing with- 
 out God. And yet God Himself declares that He 
 will do nothing without man. Man may be upon 
 this earth even now as the State, and God as the 
 Monarch. God by His own M^ord has submitted, if 
 so we may dare to speak, the operations of His own 
 will to the prayers of man in the name of that Divine 
 Person who is Himself both God and man. And 
 our prayers — the prayers of the Church — may be 
 like the voice of parliaments of old, which also took 
 the form of prayers — prayers to the one Supreme 
 Will, that grievances might be redressed and mis- 
 chiefs amended. And without such prayers it may 
 be part of the system of God's political government 
 of the universe that His providential interpositions 
 should scarcely take effect, and that the world 
 should be abandoned to the ravages of those evil 
 influences, which, for some wise purpose, He has 
 permitted to break down its fences, and to destroy its 
 vineyards. And such a view would give a wonder- 
 ful consistency and harmony to the character and 
 offices of the Church. But it may seem presump- 
 tuous to dwell upon it, where so much is left behind 
 a veil to human eyes. And still more presum])tuous 
 would it be to follow the same analogy still farther 
 into the sanctuary of the Divine nature ; where, 
 perhaps, the sight of angels may discern it in the 
 wonderful and mysterious relations of the Father, 
 
94 THE MONARCHICAL PRINCIPLE. 
 
 who has given all power to the Son, and the Son 
 who came to do the will of His Father ; and who, 
 without the Father, doeth nothing, as the Father 
 doeth nothing without the Son, and in answer to the 
 prayers of the Son. 
 
 But to pursue this farther might lead us to ir- 
 reverence ; and it is better to refrain. 
 
CH. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 95 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 If, then, in every form of human society, each act 
 of the society, however preceded by common de- 
 liberation, or externally determined by a majority 
 of voices, must practically be decided by a single 
 voice and individual will, it is of paramount import- 
 ance to ascertain the laws by which this individual 
 should be selected. 
 
 In this selection politicians have generally kept 
 in view only the evils which must obviously flow 
 from committing the whole fortune of the State to a 
 single will ; and that will liable to distraction from 
 passion ; to blindness and error from ignorance ; to 
 versatility from caprice; to selfishness, prejudice, and 
 viciousness of all kinds ; tempted to extravagances 
 and follies by the very supremacy of its power ; and 
 even when subjected to truth and goodness in the 
 best of human characters, perishable and mortal, so 
 that no calculation can be made of its permanency 
 beyond the limits of a short human life. 
 
 How will it be possible to preserve the unity 
 of the State, while its movements are directed by 
 a power so vacillating and precarious ? And the 
 answers given to the problem have been various. 
 At one time this sovereignty is to be entrusted to 
 an individual for his life, as in monarchical govern- 
 ments ; at another for a term of years, as in the 
 Presidency of the United States ; at another for an 
 indeterminate period, according to the exigencies 
 of a particular crisis, as the Dictatorship at Rome. 
 
96 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 
 
 Or it may be shifted from hand to hand every year, 
 or month, or week, or even day, as in many demo- 
 cratical constitutions. Or it may be placed alter- 
 nately in the same hands. Or it may be made to 
 depend upon the popular voice, as in unsettled and 
 licentious periods, when the favourite of a mob, or 
 of a despot, practically rules during the good plea- 
 sure of his master. Or, as before suggested, instead 
 of fixing the individual who is to exercise it, it may 
 be thrown into a popular assembly, and left to be 
 tossed about at hazard in the blind conflicts of a 
 fluctuating majority. Or the power itself may be so 
 split and distributed, that while one will is supreme 
 in one province, others may be sovereign in the 
 rest ; and an attempt may be made to form an 
 united government out of three or more absolute 
 and contending wills, as in the modern theory of 
 the British constitution, which is described as a bal- 
 ance of powers. And it is not perceived, that the 
 only possible result of such a balance, when per- 
 fectly maintained, must be absolute inaction ; and 
 that, in every other condition of its existence, it 
 must be involved in conflicts and collisions, in which 
 no one step of advance can be gained, except by the 
 triumph of one force over the others. 
 
 Of these various schemes, those which are en- 
 deavours to escape from the rule of a single will are 
 futile ; and when they are contrived in a spirit of 
 insubordination and impatience of restraint, they 
 virtually only transfer power from one individual to 
 another. And those which are framed simply to im- 
 pose checks, and throw embarrassments in the way 
 of the ruling will, act as mere obstructions to the 
 movements of society ; and are rather like stones 
 and beams, which mischief might throw down upon 
 a railway, than those well-adjusted balance-wiieels 
 which regulate a macliinery, without introducing 
 
CII. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 97 
 
 any opposing principle of motion. Those only are 
 worthy of imitation which tend to create a State in 
 harmony with, and in snbordination to, the Mon- 
 arch. And a Christian will readily allow this. 
 
 It will be his first grand principle, that all power 
 whatever is derived from one supreme fountain- 
 head — from God Himself; and that it is bound to 
 act under His commission, and in subjection to His 
 laws. He knows also that the " hearts of kings are 
 in His rule and governance," and that He alone 
 " can dispose and turn the wills of any rulers, as it 
 seems best to His godly wisdom." He will therefore 
 be comparatively inditterent to the hands in which 
 power may be placed, provided that he can trace, in 
 the disposition of events, the hand of God ; and not 
 mere human will opposing or despising it. If, in 
 political arrangement, as in any other moral act, 
 we simply obey the will of God, He will turn all to 
 good. If we neglect or disobey His will, and then 
 seek to obviate evil by human contrivances, all our 
 contrivances will be turned to nothing. We have 
 but to seek for some true manifestation of the will 
 of God in the appointment of our rulers; or if no 
 clear and distinct declaration be made, as in the 
 Jewish polity, for the nearest and best signs of it 
 which we can reach ; and then we may safely and 
 contentedly resign tlie rest to Providence. 
 
 Now, the first acknowledged title to power is 
 given by wisdom and goodness. Upon these, by 
 the very constitution of our nature and the arrange- 
 ment of the world, the Creator has set the seal at 
 least of ultimate sovereignty. And no one disputes 
 their claim. Even when vice asserts its right to 
 command, it is compelled to mask itself under some 
 disguise of virtue. Upon this fundamental law of 
 our moral nature the wliole system of society must 
 rest. No governiiKMit, whether popular or despotic. 
 
98 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 
 
 can maintain its right ultimately upon any other 
 plea. 
 
 But the acknowledgment of the rightful au- 
 thority of goodness, and the power of discerning 
 it, are very different things. Every individual will 
 admit the one ; few may possess the other. We 
 judge of wisdom by the false standard of our own 
 ignorance, and of goodness by the corrupt inclina- 
 tions of our own hearts. The mind casts its own 
 shadow and colour on every object which it con- 
 templates. " All the ways of a man are clean in iiis 
 own eyes."^ And even the dealings of the Most 
 High will be judged by man, as if " God were even 
 such an one as himself." " With the holy He shall 
 be holy ; and with a perfect man He shall be per- 
 fect. With the clean He shall be clean ; and with 
 the fro ward He shall learn frowardness."^ And a 
 Christian will be as distrustful of his power to dis- 
 tinguish goodness in others, as he will be of possess- 
 ing it himself. 
 
 It is not said, that he can be exempted from the 
 duty of pronouncing such a judgment. On the 
 contrary, he can no more escape from this in the 
 privacy of his own mind, than he can taste food 
 without pronouncing on its savour, or see objects 
 without distinguishing colour, or being conscious 
 that they please or displease. It is in fact one of 
 the chief, perhaps the very chiefest, trial imposed 
 upon man by his Maker; and by his conduct in 
 which trial his character is made known, and his 
 own fortunes sealed. And as it is essential to good 
 government that there should be a certain equipoise 
 of powers between the Monarch and the State, in 
 the composition of the State — as, for instance, in 
 the selection of Parliaments — the popular voice must 
 
 ' Prov. xvi. 2. -' Psalm xviii. 25. 
 
CH. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 99 
 
 often be consulted, if only as a witness to the com- 
 petency and character of subordinate rulers. But 
 the self-distrust of a Christian will make him thank- 
 ful to be spared the necessity of sitting in judgment 
 on his rulers. Instead of seeking and arrogantly 
 claiming a right of suffrage, he will endeavour to 
 decline it. He will desire to guard against a 
 wrong selection, by comparing and combining the 
 suffrages of others. And knowing the fallibility of 
 man, even when every precaution has been taken, 
 he will far prefer taking a part in the nomination 
 of the State, than in the election of a Monarch. A 
 wrong judgment in choosing the one supreme will, 
 which is to be the fountain of power, can scarcely 
 be remedied. But the wrong choice of a counsellor, 
 or a judge, or a member of Parliament, may be 
 counterbalanced by a right choice of other con- 
 stituents of the same body. And hence the popular 
 will, which cannot safely be called on to decide the 
 succession in an elective monarchy, may be safely 
 trusted with elective powers to certain subordinate 
 offices in a monarchy which is hereditary. Nor must 
 another reason be omitted, why a Christian would 
 shrink from possessing a voice in the election of a 
 sovereign. No one can confer more power than he 
 possesses himself. No people, therefore, can elect a 
 king without assuming to themselves, at the very 
 least, during the interregnum, the kingly power. 
 And if the theory before given of a majority be 
 correct, that kingly power, strictly speaking, is, or 
 may be, by chance, exercised by any individual who 
 votes in it. He who constitutes the majority prac- 
 tically does exercise the highest of all regal func- 
 tions, — the nomination of the king. The fearful re- 
 sponsibility of such an act is in itself sufficient to 
 deter a Christian from voluntarily undertaking it. 
 But he will advance still farther. Before he assumes 
 
100 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 
 
 such a power, a power so peculiarly belonging to 
 Almighty God, of nominating his own servants and 
 ministers, he will ask for the commission under 
 which the right of nomination is conferred upon 
 himself; and he will find none. The act is an usurp- 
 ation ; and an usurpation so heinous and treasonable, 
 that he will expect it to be visited, as it always has 
 been visited, by the heaviest punishment of Heaven, 
 upon the nation which dares to perpetrate it. 
 
 But another principle will flow from the self-dis- 
 trust of a Christian, in his own power of discerning 
 good and evil. Acknowledging that all power must 
 depend upon wisdom and goodness ; and that these, 
 in our moral conceptions, constitute (if we may dare 
 so to speak) the supreme claim and righteous title 
 of the Almighty Himself to the willing obedience of 
 His creatures ; he will recognise the legitimacy of 
 every power which bears on it the Divine commis- 
 sion, however different it may seem from his own 
 peculiar opinions. In faith he submits with patience 
 to the ravages of the storm, to plague, and pestil- 
 ence, and famine, to suffering, and death. They are 
 powers ordained of God, or permitted by His will. 
 We may pray against them ; guard against them ; 
 seek for remedies and cures according to the laws of 
 God, and without transgressing the powers which 
 He has given to ourselves. And the skill which con- 
 trives against such evils, and the patience wdiich 
 cheerfully su])mits to them when inevitable, may 
 perhaps be contemplated by the Creator as ends in 
 this His creation. And in the same faith the Chris- 
 tian will submit to those seeming anomalies in the 
 moral government of God, which flow from His 
 delegation of power to the hands of the wicked and 
 the foolish in the present constitution of the world. 
 There is a mystery in it beyond our comprehension ; 
 but tliat it occurs in a creation of the Most High is 
 
CH. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 101 
 
 sufficient to prove its wisdom : " The Lord hath 
 made all things for Himself; yea, even the wicked 
 for the day of evil."^ And there may be cases in 
 which it may be better, even for the peojile of 
 God, to " go forth at His command unto the king 
 of Babylon's princes," - than to remain in the city. 
 A Christian will never tolerate the maxim, that 
 none but good men ought to bear rule upon earth. 
 He knows that, even were it true as a fact, in 
 the judgment of men it would seem otherwise. The 
 very perfection of government must appear imper- 
 fect to imperfect subjects. But he knows also 
 that it is not true as a fact — that in whatever 
 degree the tendencies to a perfect moral govern- 
 ment may be traced in this world, we have no 
 promise that they will be fully developed till 
 another has sprung from it. Earthly power is not 
 distributed on earth according to strict measures of 
 goodness and wisdom. Goodness and wisdom are 
 here in conflict with evil and folly ; and the battle 
 shifts and wavers. Now one side gains, and now 
 another. Defeat follows upon triumph, and triumph 
 upon defeat. All is doubtful, and precarious, and 
 obscure, except the faith, which through mists and 
 storms discerns the brightness of the day which will 
 be hereafter. And from this conflict are evolved 
 the virtues of human nature — the courage to con- 
 tend, the patience to endure, the hope which com- 
 forts, the faith which binds us to our Maker, the 
 thought which reasons, the love which links us 
 closer to each other by every adversity and sufl'er- 
 ing ; even the happiness which is to come, which, it 
 may be, as finite beings we could scarcely enjoy, 
 without passing through a previous stage of misery 
 and fear. And under it the habit is matured, with- 
 
 ' Prov. xvi. 4. '^ Jer. xxxviii. 17. 
 
 K 2 
 
102 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 
 
 out wliicli, as far as we can see, finite imperfect be- 
 ings could not dwell patiently and contentedly even 
 in heaven — even under the eye of the Almighty — the 
 habit of resignation to His will, and of obeflience to 
 His commands, even when'we are unable to discern 
 their end and fitness. We learn this by submitting 
 patiently upon earth to powers which are evil in 
 our eyes, and which yet ^ve know are ordained by 
 God. And the discipline through which upon earth 
 our spirits are to be matured for heaven would be 
 imperfect, if power upon earth did not often wear 
 the aspect of evil, and if we refused to acquiesce in 
 it with patience at the bidding of God. 
 
 But from this follows another principle. 
 
 If moral goodness is not the only Divine title to 
 earthly power and rule, and since, even if it were 
 so, man would be unable to distinguish it by any 
 unerring judgment, there must be some other badge 
 or mark by which the Divine commission may be 
 recognised — a badge, external, formal, palpable — in 
 discerning which there would be little intrusion 
 either of a fallacious reason, or of a corrupt will, 
 open to the most common sight, and equally intel- 
 ligible to all mankind. There must be an outward 
 visible sign of the Divine will ; and for this the 
 Christian will search, if jiossibly it may be found. 
 And five such marks have been generally acknow- 
 ledged by those who have not altogether denied 
 our need of them. First, the right of parentage ; 
 secondly, the right of primogeniture ; thirdly, exist- 
 ing usage ; fourthly, the actual l^ossession of power 
 considered as a Providential arrangement ; and, 
 fifthly, a nomination by the Spiritual authority in 
 the State, 
 
 The first of these, on which is founded the pa- 
 triarchal theory of society, is not sufficient to bear 
 such a superstructure. The right of parentage can- 
 
ClI. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH, 103 
 
 not extend beyond the family ; and it must cease 
 with the death of the parent. And tliough Adam 
 might be the natural head and monarch of the whole 
 human race during his lifetime, the question would 
 still arise, on wiiom this power would devolve after 
 his death ? It must be a power superior to that of 
 the parent, for it must extend over parents them- 
 selves, since the nation is composed of families, and 
 not of individuals. And it cannot be derived from 
 parentage ; because it must spread beyond the fa- 
 mily, over the children of collateral branches. The 
 question is one of precedency not between parent 
 and son, but between brother and brother. And the 
 regal functions are also as distinct from the parental, 
 as political society is from domestic. And though 
 an inference might be drawn from one to the other; 
 as we might conjecture the will of a sovereign to 
 place an officer in a high post of honour or trust, 
 because we found him placed already in a lower of- 
 fice ; even this would scarcely hold good, since the 
 parental character is no necessary evidence of fitness 
 for political rule, or of Divine approbation. 
 
 We must therefore seek for some other intima- 
 tion of tiie Divine will in the selection of the indivi- 
 dual who is to rule over many families, and to form 
 the head of the nation. And, first, it is to be ob- 
 served, that if any order of precedency has been 
 fixed by the Divine hand, although it may not coin- 
 cide with the order of merit, it may yet be a sufti- 
 cient guide for our own arrangement. For, however 
 we may wish and struggle to harmonise and adjust 
 the two lines, we know that such an adjustment is 
 not the plan of Providence in this world ; that man 
 at least is wholly unable to eff'ect it, because he is 
 incapable of measuring correctly degrees of good- 
 ness ; and that whatever adjustment could be efiected 
 must be temporary and precarious, because not only 
 
104 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH, 
 
 our own standard of goodness, but the degrees of 
 goodness itself in man are perpetually shifting. En- 
 deavour to arrange the members of a political society 
 according to their worth, and how shall the scale be 
 fixed ? What number of voices will be brought to 
 agree in the proportions? Even of those who agree 
 to-day, how many will retain the same opinion to- 
 morrow ? And even in those who are consistent 
 and firm, how will it be possible to maintain the 
 same estimate of characters, which characters are 
 deteriorating or improving every moment by no 
 fixed law, and beyond our powers of discernment? 
 Let us remember also how false are the principles 
 on which we endeavour to adjust the order of rule 
 with the order of merit. We think that earthly 
 power is a good, and should be proportioned to 
 goodness in man. But God thinks otherwise. He 
 neither thinks it a good, nor places it in the hands 
 of those who are His best and most faithful servants. 
 "To be despised and rejected of men" is far more 
 often the badge of His service than to be clothed in 
 purple, and to sit upon thrones. Or we think it ne- 
 cessary for our own happiness and virtue that we 
 should be placed here upon earth under a rule of 
 uniform goodness ; and God thinks otherwise. He 
 has permitted an enemy to enter into His field, 
 and to sow tares among the wheat; and has de- 
 livered over the glory of the world, seemingly, to 
 the prince of darkness,, "that he may give it to 
 whomsoever he will."^ And even if it were possible 
 for us to select the best and wisest of men, to place 
 him at the head of a nation, not only would it be 
 necessary to make provision against his incidental 
 frailties and faults, but for the good of the nation 
 itself, to enable it more completely to realise within 
 itself the Divine Image, a State must be created 
 ' Luke iv. G. 
 
en. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 105 
 
 likewise; that is, a body of subordinate wills so re- 
 gulated as to regulate the movements of the one 
 supreme will ; and where this exists, it is compara- 
 tively of little moment who may be the king. 
 
 With these considerations, a Christian will be 
 disposed to recognise in the principle of primogeni- 
 ture an order of precedency traced out by the hand 
 of God, and to acquiesce in it as such, notwith- 
 standing the obvious difficulties with which it is 
 embarrassed. He cannot admit the principle of 
 election without introducing into the body politic 
 jealousies, discords, prejudices, conflicts, and vacil- 
 lations, which must destroy all its unity; while, as 
 was observed before, the very principle of popular 
 election is in itself an act of usurpation upon the 
 Divine authority. He may adopt a fixed order 
 distinct from primogeniture, by which, as in the 
 laws of Tanistry, the most advanced in years of all 
 the family succeed to the throne, so as to preserve 
 it in experienced and mature hands. But even this 
 cannot always be successful. And it presents the 
 obvious objection, that the successor to the throne 
 may as often be in the dotage of old age as in the 
 imbecility of childhood ; and that the jealousies and 
 rivalries, which too often are engendered between 
 tlie possessor of the throne and the heir, are far 
 more likely to break out between two different 
 brandies of the same family than, between a father 
 and a son. The principle of division, which was so 
 often adopted in the decline of the Roman empire, 
 and by the successors of Charlemagne, cannot of 
 course be admitted without immediate destruction 
 to the unity of the nation. And primogeniture alone 
 remains. It carries with it the natural aifection of 
 the parent to his first-born, the natural respect of 
 brothers for one superior in age, and therefore, for 
 the most part, in acquirements and experience ; the 
 
106 APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 
 
 prejudice of custom, since primogeniture is the natu- 
 ral law of precedency in families ; and, lastly, the 
 associations which spring up in all minds, connect- 
 ing the parent with the child, and transferring to it 
 the power, and merits, and even the virtues, of the 
 parent. And history confirms the wisdom of the 
 principle ; since few great empires have been estab- 
 lished without its adoption ; and its abandonment 
 has been generally the signal for a succession of 
 revolutions and convulsions. 
 
 But adherence to the law of primogeniture can- 
 not be expected, except where a State has already 
 been formed to supply the defects to which it is 
 necessarily exposed. Institutions must have been 
 settled, powers consolidated, habits and prejudices 
 matured ; and, if I may anticipate an observation 
 which will occur hereafter, an ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity must have been fixed and maintained in a nation, 
 before it will or can acquiesce in the rule of a child, 
 or of a female, or of one incapacitated by his cha- 
 racter from defending or controlling it — and ac- 
 quiesce in it upon a principle which, as policy, can 
 only be appreciated by deep thought, and, as piety, 
 presupposes a mature faith. It is not said that 
 adherence to this law, under any circumstances, 
 would not be the safest and the best conduct. Pro- 
 bably it would tend more than any thing to develop 
 rapidly and eflliciently the formation of the State, by 
 rendering it imperative on the nation to surround 
 the throne at once with counsels and with protection 
 independent of the individual will of the monarch; 
 and thus to generate that permanent body of wisdom 
 and power which is to neutralise the bad impulses 
 of the individual, while it gives support and strength 
 to the good. But human short-sightedness, and 
 impatience, and still more iiuman ambition, will not 
 tolerate such delays and self-denial as are required 
 
CH. IX.] APPOINTMENT OF THE MONARCH. 107 
 
 for the exercise of supreme power under the name 
 of another, without usurping its reality to ourselves. 
 And the exigencies which arise in unsettled and un- 
 developed constitutions, during a minority, demand 
 a vigour and decision of character to meet them, 
 which can scarcely exist without tendencies to cu- 
 pidity and aggression. Whatever be the true and 
 morally right theory, the practice of political socie- 
 ties, in the early stages of their formation, and in 
 all periods of great convulsion, will always tend to 
 place power in the hands, not of the first-born, but 
 of the strongest. Might will make right ; and the 
 seeming necessity will cover the injustice or impolicy. 
 
108 THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 What, then, is a Christian to do, when the order 
 apparentl)' marked out by Providence has been bro- 
 ken by liuman eovetousness and faithlessness, and 
 when a power which he cannot but regard as usurp- 
 ation has intruded on the rights of primogeniture ? 
 The question is practically involved in the conduct 
 of every Christian during periods of usurpations in a 
 kingdom. And Revelation has mercifully and wisely 
 solved it, so far as moral questions can be determined 
 by general principles. Nothing perhaps is more 
 remarkable in nature than her provisions against con- 
 tingent evils, which nevertheless she does not seem 
 to contemplate in the original construction of her 
 machinery. It is no part of her intention that the 
 bones of the human body should be fractured ; and 
 yet when the fracture happens, it is found that she 
 has provided the cement by which they are united 
 again, and which is not produced until the need for 
 it occurs. She has not framed the skin to be 
 wounded, or the senses to be blunted. But when 
 laceration is caused, there is an apparatus ready to 
 heal it; and when one sense is impaired, another be- 
 comes quickened, so as to remedy the evil. And so 
 in the moral world. It is not the will of God that 
 man should sin ; and he is surroiuided with every 
 warning to deter him from it. But he does sin ; and 
 a provision of mercy is imnuHiiately called into 
 action, by which he may still be saved. In one 
 word, the whole system of the M-orld seems to be 
 constructed, as the greatest of Christian pliilosophers 
 
Cn. X.] TIIK RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 109 
 
 lias observed, ' upon a prineiple rather of mercy 
 than of benevolence ; in theory, as if it were pc^rfec- 
 tion ; in practice, as if full of imperfection. Man is 
 embarked not in a vessel of pleasure, in which he 
 may sail at his ease ; but in a life-boat, which is to 
 save him from a wreck. 
 
 And an instance of this kind may be traced in 
 the great rules of political obedience laid down by 
 the Scriptures. " Let every soul be subject unto 
 the higher powers : for there is no power but of 
 God. The jwivers that be are ordained of God."" 
 " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for 
 the Lord's sake."^ "Servants, be subject to your 
 masters with all fear ; not only to the good and 
 gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thank- 
 worthy, if a man for conscience toward God en- 
 dure grief, suffering wrongfully."^ " Follow peace 
 with all mcn."'^ " I exhort that, first of all, suppli- 
 cations, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, 
 be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are 
 in authority."-' " Remove not the ancient land- 
 marks which thy fathers have set."'' " Meddle not 
 with them that are given to change."^ And to these 
 may be added all the exhortations to walk in the 
 old paths, and stand in the old ways ; not to judge 
 by the sight of our own eyes ; not to provoke the 
 wrath of the king; and to follow in all things the 
 example of our Lord, who even in the heathen 
 Cffisar, the conqueror and usurper over Judea, re- 
 cognised the sovereign power, and commanded to 
 pay tribute to him. 
 
 " The powers that be are ordained of God." 
 Under whatever constitution we may be placed, 
 whatever be the distribution of the sovereign au- 
 
 ' Butler's Analogy. - Rom. xiii. 1. ^ 1 Peter ii. 13. 
 4 1 Peter ii. 18. ^ Heb. xii. 14. « i xim. ii. 1. 
 
 ' Prov. xxii. 28. " Prov. xxiv. 21. 
 
 L 
 
110 THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 
 
 thority, — whether as a monarchy, or an oligarchy, 
 or a republic, — maintain existing institutions, sup- 
 press all tendencies to innovation, preserve peace, 
 exclude every thing like cupidity and ambition, in- 
 culcate content, recognise the hand and authority 
 of God in all existing authorities, and obey them as 
 in the Lord. And no other rule will be required 
 to bring out, even from the most unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances, a tolerable, and, at last, even the best 
 of governments. It is not necessary to revert vio- 
 lently to that system, which seems to have been 
 originally intended by Providence, and to be in it- 
 self the best. There is no neglect of duty in sub- 
 mitting to that under which we are by God placed. 
 And though we may be reluctant to take an active 
 part in a government founded on false principles, 
 and therefore essentially evil, we are not called on 
 to work any change in it, except that which may fol- 
 low naturally from a ready submission to its autho- 
 rity. In what mode such a change will be effected 
 by such a submission, may be shewn hereafter. 
 
 Thus, upon this same great principle, — that 
 " there is no power but of God ; that the powers that 
 be are ordained of God," — is established the fourth 
 criterion by which a Christian distinguishes his le- 
 gitimate ruler, independently of his own personal 
 feelings and opinions. In all popular proverbs there 
 is a certain mixture of truth ; and even the ob- 
 noxious declaration, so often made the foundation 
 of the most atrocious political systems, that " might 
 makes right," is not without its partial application 
 to Christian conduct. Might cannot make right, in 
 a moral sense. It cannot obliterate injustice ; can- 
 not clear a successful criminal from his responsi- 
 bility ; cannot make tyranny a virtue, or success 
 the measure of goodness. But it can render patience 
 and ac([uiescence as morally right as it may be phy- 
 
CH. X.] THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION. Ill 
 
 sically necessary. When a power is established over 
 a nation in such a manner that the assertion of 
 previously existing rights is wholly impracticable ; 
 when complaints and remonstrances have failed; 
 and no legitimate power exists, or is able to act, by 
 which the yoke can be shaken off, — a Christian will 
 recognise, in such a dispensation, either the just 
 judgment of God upon the sins of a people, or some 
 trial of patience and resignation, out of which is to 
 be wrought a higher degree of goodness and glory. 
 That which is the law of Christian gentleness in 
 private life will be his law in public : " I say unto 
 you, that ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall 
 smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other 
 also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and 
 take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 
 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go 
 with him twain." ^ It is idle, and worse than idle, to 
 attempt to restrict and explain away this positive 
 command. And the Christian Church has always 
 upheld it in its full extent. With one uniform un- 
 hesitating voice it has proclaimed the duty of '''■pas- 
 sive obedience,'' When the tyranny is exercised by 
 an acknowledged legitimate sovereign, the course 
 of the Christian is to put in force all acknow- 
 ledged legitimate existing powers, by which he may 
 l)e saved from it, and its oppressions be checked. 
 He may petition, appeal to authorised tribunals, 
 claim all established protections of the constitu- 
 tion. He may, and must, refuse to take any active 
 ])art in doing ill, or to sanction it even by his 
 silence. He is bound to protest and remonstrate; 
 otherwise he becomes involved in the guilt of sup- 
 j)ressing truth, and encouraging wrong. But he 
 will neither lift nor evoke an arm against the su- 
 preme power of the nation. Create a second power 
 ' Matt. V. 39. 
 
112 THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 
 
 — a rival and conflicting spring of action — and 
 the unity of the nation is destroyed. It is as if 
 the arm or the foot in the human body were sud- 
 denly endowed with thought and volition, and were 
 to act independently of the sovereign reason, and 
 in opposition to it. What would become of the 
 body? And raise up a rival will and conflicting 
 power in political society, and what becomes of the 
 nation ? Whatever temporary relief may be gained, 
 must be followed by infinitely worse revulsions, 
 when the principle of conflict is once introduced; 
 when subjects are permitted to redress their own 
 grievances, and consequently are familiarised to a 
 licentiousness of complaint and impatience, under 
 Avhich no government can remain stable ; when 
 the ruling power is exasperated and hardened by 
 opposition, often frivolous and always menaced ; 
 when the collision between the rebel and the sove- 
 reign lets loose upon society all the horrors and 
 passions of civil discord ; when mutual suspicion 
 and distrust is infused into every relation of life ; 
 when foreign interference is invited to assist the 
 contest, and take advantage of its issue; when all 
 fixed rule and order is cast aside in the appointment 
 of governors, and their designation is now openly 
 left to the decision of the sword ; when brute vio- 
 lence is thus made the law of the nation, and before 
 it are swept away ancient institutions, honoured 
 classes, holy rites, all that is permanent, and peace- 
 ful, and sacred ; and the state becomes a wreck, and 
 the land is defiled witii blood. Such is the career 
 of every nation which ventures to trample under 
 foot, as slavish and destructive, the doctrine of pas- 
 sive obedience. And the escajM; from this fate alone 
 would be a sufticient attestation of its wisdom, if 
 any attestation were recjuired by a Christian to a 
 j)ositive command from God. But it bears on its 
 
CH. X.] THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION". 113 
 
 face the promise also made to the meek, that 
 " they shall inherit the earth ;" ^ that promise of 
 power and dominion to the gentler virtues of our 
 nature, which is fulfilled in the command which in- 
 fancy and weakness, when viewed with pity and 
 without contemi)t, exercise over age and strength. 
 Submission disarms resentment, and patience neu- 
 tralises persecution. There can be no action 
 where there is no resistance ; no shamelessness 
 where there is no plea and excuse for cruelty ; 
 no triumph or enjoyment in success where there is 
 no opposition to overcome. And the arm of the 
 tyrant will fall wearied, and listless, and ineffective, 
 where there is no conflict to provoke the blow. 
 Such are some of the provisions of nature for the 
 repression of violence, and the protection of the 
 weak. She would oppose a yielding surface to the 
 waves, that they may flow over and spend themselves 
 on air. And when man has thus done his part in 
 stilling the raging of the sea and the madness of 
 the ruler, then the ear of the Lord is open to his 
 prayer, and His hand is stretched out to save — that 
 hand which " holds the heart of the king ; and, as the 
 rivers of water, turneth it whithersoever He will."^ 
 There is, indeed, a position full of difficulty and 
 pain in which a Christian is placed, whenever a con- 
 flict occurs between an established and an usurping 
 power, and the result is not yet decided so as to 
 ascertain to which side Providence has given the 
 victory. In this, as in many other questions of 
 morals, it is impossible to lay down any but general 
 rules. The very ditficvdty of applying them con- 
 stitutes the trial of the human heart, and no theore- 
 tical casuistry is able or ought to release us from it. 
 But the general principles of a Christian's conduct 
 in this case are not obscure. He is bound to strug- 
 ' Matt. V. 5. - Prov. xxi. 1. 
 
 L 2 
 
114- THE RIGHT OF POSSESSION. 
 
 gle to the utmost to maintain and guard the rights 
 of his existing ruler, even to death. His life as a 
 citizen cannot be sacrificed more nobly than in de- 
 fending his king against a rebel or a foe. He is 
 bound to continue this struggle until it becomes 
 hopeless; and, in concluding it to be such, he must 
 admit no self-interest, no cowardice, or indolence, 
 or despondency, to warp his judgment. When by 
 such proof as is required in all cases where we are 
 liable to be biassed by our own feelings, he is justi- 
 fied in considering that Providence has set its seal 
 upon the fortunes of the antagonist power, he is 
 bound to dissuade the weaker from prosecuting a 
 course which can only lead to bloodshed, and war, 
 and misery, without offering any probable hope of 
 ultimate success. His allegiance, if sworn, he can- 
 not withdraw, unless the obligation be removed by 
 the death of his sovereign, or by his sovereign's 
 voluntary surrender of it. He must retain and ac- 
 knowledge it, in case some favourable contingency 
 should occur, which would justify or require a re- 
 newal of the contest. And if the usurper insist on his 
 transferring it to himself, he must refuse at any cost, 
 and at whatever risk. But he may still continue in 
 his country ; and his duty will be to submit in pa- 
 tience and resignation to the rule of the usurper, 
 until either it be overthrown by the hand of God, or 
 becomes so firndy fixed and rooted that the previous 
 title is extinguished, and a new dynasty is legalised. 
 In this manner Nature, and with Nature Reve- 
 lation, endeavours to reset as it were those fractures 
 in the structure of political society, which are so 
 frequently occurring by the collisions of human pas- 
 sion and and)ition. It is one perpetual effort to 
 restore unity to the body politic, and a fixed per- 
 manent order, in spite of successive derangements 
 and disturbances. 
 
CH. XI. J THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHUKCU. 115 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 But there is still a fifth mark, which the Christian 
 will seek of Divine; approbation set upon his ap- 
 pointed rulers. With him, as indeed with all prac- 
 tical politicians, who build their systems not upon 
 some idle philosophical theory, but upon the com- 
 mon wants, instincts, and perceptions of human 
 nature, a government which does not rest its claim 
 to power upon Divine sanction must be destitute 
 of all solid title and authority ; and a government 
 which makes this claim requires the attestation of a 
 voice independent of its own. What our blessed 
 Lord has laid down as the necessary marks of 
 a Divine commission, in His spiritual polity, are 
 equally needed to guarantee the same commission 
 in the civil polity. " If I bear witness of myself, 
 my witness is not true."^ "It is also written in 
 your law, that the testimony of two men is true."^ 
 " I am one that bear witness of myself, and the 
 Father that sent me beareth witness of me." 
 
 A claim to power is naturally listened to with 
 jealousy and suspicion. An unsupported claim to 
 spiritual power, or what is closely connected with 
 it, to a Divine commission, is open to more suspi- 
 cion than any other assumption, since it is in itself 
 vaster; is more open to abuse; is less capable of 
 being tested by the ordinary confirmations of evi- 
 dence ; is frequently the result of fanaticism and 
 delusion ; and is greedily and blindly admitted by 
 
 ' John V. 31. 2 johnviii. 17. 
 
116 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the enthusiasm of a vulgar and uneducated populace. 
 It requires, therefore, in an especial manner, the 
 guarantee of anotlier witness ; and tliat witness, to 
 make his testimony valid, must himself be accre- 
 dited by a recognised commission from God. He 
 must be independent of the authority to which he 
 testifies; distinct from, and yet united witli it. He 
 must be disinterested ; and, for that reason, must 
 be content with attesting the claim to power with- 
 out conferring it. And he should be a witness 
 within the circle of the nation, and not a foreigner, 
 because an appeal to any foreign support or inter- 
 ference, however limited, is fatal to the independ- 
 ence, and even to the existence, of national life. 
 
 Upon principles like these, before the Christian 
 Church was developed and established in the several 
 kingdoms of the world, the civil governments, es- 
 pecially of the East, were supported and buttressed, 
 as it were, by vast hierarchical bodies — Brahmins, 
 Magi, the priesthood of Egypt, the Druids, and other 
 similar spiritual authorities. And it is remarkable 
 with what care, even in the highest assumption of 
 spiritual power, these hierarchies disclaimed and 
 discountenanced any direct usurpation of the civil 
 power ; and how rapidly such an usurpation, when 
 attempted, was followed by the fall of the empire. 
 It rested upon two pillars— upon two counterpoising 
 sides of an arch— and with the overthrow of either, 
 the whole structure fell to the ground. And now, 
 since the development of the Church, she exercises 
 the same great function in witnessing to the Divine 
 authority of the " powers that l)e." In this cha- 
 racter it received appeals from princes, and decided 
 the fate of thrones, during the middle ages. Tiiis 
 was the truth upon which, mixed with the grossest 
 falsehoods, the i>apa('y built up its nu)nstrous system 
 of temporal usurpation. It was no mere fanaticism 
 
CII, XI.] THE TESTIMONY OF THE CIIUKCII. 117 
 
 of an uninstructed aj^e : for tlic example of Charle- 
 magne was copied by Napoleon ; and the attestation 
 of the sup})osed head of the Catholic Churcli, and the 
 so-called vicegerent of God upon earth, was thought 
 necessary by the most powerful of con(|uerors in 
 the nineteenth c(!ntury, as in the dark ages, to give 
 validity to their tith', and stability to their thrones. 
 And the general truth is not destroyed l)y the admix- 
 ture of falsehood which spiritual and>ition or fanati- 
 cism may have infused into it. It is not true that the 
 Catholic Church is placed upon earth to interfere 
 violently with the rule of empires; "that it is set 
 over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out, 
 and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, 
 to build, and to plant." ^ This has been the sin of the 
 papacy. But that the destinies of nations depend 
 upon her under Christ; upon her attesting voice; 
 upon her prayers and intercessions ; upon the re- 
 verence and affection with which she is treated by 
 rulers; and upon the reverence and affection towards 
 rulers, which she alone can infuse into the hearts of 
 subjects and exhibit in herself, is most true. But 
 this prophetical office and spiritual influence is far 
 removed from the arrogance which sets its foot upon 
 the necks of kings, and disposes of crowns, as of pro- 
 perty conferred on it by God. And it is not true 
 that the voice of the Catholic Church, much less of 
 any pretended representative of it, is to be required 
 in confirmation of the title of national government. 
 To eschew any foreign interference of any kind, 
 except in the decision of controversies between na- 
 tion and nation, is one of the first conditions of 
 national (existence. But the witness of that Ijranch 
 of the Catholic Church which is established in the 
 nation, is one of the strongest, rather it is the 
 strongest, the most necessary support to its govern- 
 
 • Jer. i. 10. 
 
118 THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 ment ; and without it no government can long sub- 
 sist. It cannot maintain its hold over the people, 
 who are most keenly susceptible of religious pre- 
 tensions, and a religious influence, though their re- 
 ligion may too often be tinged with superstition. 
 Even now the excommunication of a government — 
 its excommunication by its own act, by a voluntary 
 apostacy, by a renunciation of attachment to the 
 Church, or by an open profession either of scepti- 
 cism or infidelity — strips it as much of its moral 
 influence, of its command over the hearts of men — 
 leaves it as much a mere creature of earth, a power 
 whose vitality is confined to brute force and worldly 
 cunning — undermines it as much, and menaces it 
 full as much, as in less reasoning times a ban pro- 
 nounced by the papacy. Man Avill struggle against 
 man upon any temptation of covetousness or passion. 
 But he will not fight against God. And he will not 
 permanently believe that any power comes from God, 
 if the human hand which wields it is not supported 
 and consecrated by another arm — sacred, and in- 
 dependent, and disinterested. This is a true func- 
 tion of the Catholic Church in a Christian nation, 
 and it is solemnly and distinctly recognised in the 
 acts of coronation. Never did Napoleon's ambition 
 tempt him to a falser step of policy than when he 
 placed the crown upon his own head, instead of re- 
 ceiving it — not as from a giver, but as from a wit- 
 ness — at the hands of the ministers of the Church. 
 
 And in giving its sanction and attestation to a 
 government, the Church must be contented with 
 recognising any one of these three marks of Divine 
 permission — either primogeniture, or established 
 usage, or actual and settled power. It must not 
 confine its view of the legitimacy of government to 
 a single theory. It would not be justified in with- 
 holding its sanction to the rule of a Queen in Eng- 
 
CH. XI.] THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 119 
 
 land, because Christianity seems rather to recognise 
 that the man, and not the woman, is the image and 
 glory of God ;^ nor in repudiating the Salic law in 
 France, on the ground of its interfering with the 
 privileges of primogeniture. It may endeavour to 
 recommend the order of primogeniture as most 
 agreeable to the order of Providence ; but where 
 a different order is established, there prescription 
 sanctions it under the law of obedience to the 
 " powers that be. " And when the struggle is 
 brought to a close between usurpation and legiti- 
 macy, and the hand of Providence seems clearly 
 visible in placing even a Jehu upon the throne, or 
 a Nebuchadnezzar in the city, the Church may not 
 prolong or renew a hopeless conflict. No theory 
 of monarchy would justify an attempt at this day in 
 England to restore the right line of descent, which 
 was departed from at the Revolution. That is true 
 in the State which is not true in the Church — that 
 possession heals the flaw of a title, and prescription 
 legalises usurpation ; till the resistance which at one 
 time would be loyalty and a duty, at a later time 
 becomes rebellion. 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi. 7. 
 
120 DlifTINCTION OF POLITICAL AND 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 And I pause for a moment upon this point, because 
 the ])rinciple lias been transferred to justify the 
 usurpation of the Papacy, to criminate tlie English 
 Reformation, and to vitiate the title of the English 
 Church ; and without distinction it may be mischiev- 
 ous. Usurpation, then, in the State is one thing, and 
 in the Church another. The polity of the Church is 
 far more distinctly marked out, as a positive institu- 
 tion of God, than any particular form of civil society. 
 Episcopacy bears upon the face of history far more 
 of Divine sanction and prescription even than mf)n- 
 archy. Its violation, therefore, is far more criminal. 
 And there are reasons why one form of polity should 
 be far more scrupulously guarded in the Church 
 than in the State. In the first place, the Church is 
 the channel for the conveyance to man of peculiar 
 gifts from God ; of nothing less than spiritual life. 
 And upon the analogy of nature, we have no more 
 right to expect that this life should be conveyed 
 through any other than its fixed appointed organi- 
 sation, than we have to anticipate the diffusion of 
 animal or vegetable life without the intervention 
 of the ordinary laws of propagation. Break up or 
 disturb the Divine organisation of the Church ; and 
 we have at least no promise, no security, for the 
 invisible performance of its most solemn functions. 
 But, secondly, the Church seems to be placed on 
 earth to correct and amend its disorders — especi- 
 ally the disorders of political society. It is like a 
 
CH. XII.] ECCLESIASTICAL USURPATION. 121 
 
 shi}), with all its mechanism perfect, moored ])y the 
 side of another which is (hiily falling to pieces, and 
 hazarding a wreck. PLace the Church, with its 
 e})iscopal polity, in any nation, however deranged 
 and vitiated, — in the wildest democracy, or in the 
 most violent of tyrannies, — and give it scope to act ; 
 and by infusing principles, its own principles of 
 order, of patience, of gentleness, of obedience, of 
 love — by exhibiting in its own person the model of 
 a sound constitution — by recalling minds to the ex- 
 amples and laws of the Divine government — and by 
 accustoming them to make the will of God, even 
 when only to be traced by hints and symbols, the 
 rule of public as of private morals — insensibly, 
 and without disturbance, it will act upon the whole 
 chaos of society, softening, penetrating, remoulding, 
 readjusting, bringing order out of confusion, and 
 light out of darkness, till the most ruinous and dis- 
 located fabric is restored to its natural shape ; and 
 a form analogous to that of the Church itself is im- 
 pressed by it upon every nation in which it is em- 
 braced. History will sufficiently prove that such has 
 been the influence of the Church, wherever it has 
 been adequately developed in its true and apostolical 
 form. And the frightful civil convulsions which it 
 generated, when this form was superseded by the 
 form of the papacy, or of dissent, may indicate the 
 importance of preserving its Divine configuration ; 
 and jirove that no length of usurpation can possibly 
 justify its abandonment, or preclude the duty of re- 
 turning to it, whenever it is permitted by Provi- 
 dence. A disorder in the polity of the Church 
 must wholly prevent it from remedying disorders in 
 the civil polity. It must even increase and extend 
 them. If the physician himself has the plague, what 
 must be the fate of the patient ? 
 
 Thirdly, the apparent object, certainly the result, 
 
 M 
 
122 DISTINCTION OF POLITICAL AND 
 
 of the Divine command of obedience, which ulti- 
 mately legalises even usurped power in civil society, 
 is not to perpetuate a vicious form of government, 
 but to place society in that position in which that 
 form may most easily and speedily be amended. 
 When a surgical operation is to be performed, the 
 first thing necessary is, that the patient should be 
 fixed in one position. When a drowning man is to 
 be saved, the first injunction is, that he cease to 
 struggle. And when a nation is to be restored by 
 the Church (for no other power, humanly speaking, 
 can restore it,) from anarchy and misgovernment to 
 a right order, its convulsions must first be quieted, 
 and all its conflicting principles of movement re- 
 duced to one. This is the first step of the cure. 
 Not even in civil society does the doctrine that 
 prescription gives a title to usurpation, justify that 
 usurpation itself. It is admitted only as the proper 
 mode of ultimately superseding it. But in amend- 
 ing the evils of political society, the nation is chiefly 
 passive, and the Church is active. And the same 
 quiescence, the same willingness to " stand still and 
 see the salvation of the Lord,"^ which the Lord re- 
 quired of His people when He was about to save 
 them from the Egyptians, may not be applicable to 
 that arm by which He now would save them. " The 
 Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your 
 peace." The Church, as possessing lawful authority, 
 must direct and order rightly its own movements; 
 while the duty of the nation may be only to yield 
 itself up to its guidance. 
 
 But, fourtlily, when the legalising power of pre- 
 scription is applied in its fullest extent, it is applied 
 to individuals and families, not to forms of govern- 
 ment. No possible duration can make a Christian 
 regard a democracy with any thing but fear and 
 ' Exod. xiv. 13. 
 
CH. XII.] ECCLESIASTICAL USURPATION. 123 
 
 aversion. No time can render a due modification 
 of a despotism, properly conducted, treason and re- 
 bellion. But when an individual or a family have, 
 for a certain period, and under certain circum- 
 stances, been excluded from a throne which they 
 once possessed, it now becomes treason and rebel- 
 lion to endeavour to reinstate them, as it may be 
 illegal and even unjust to disturb the possession 
 of property which, however unjustly acquired, has 
 been undisputed for a certain term of years. How 
 far prescription, in this sense, may be applicable to 
 the spiritual polity, so as to heal accidental flaws 
 and interruptions in the transfer and derivation of 
 the spiritual powers of the Church, through the 
 apostolical succession of its ministers, it is not ne- 
 cessary here to inquire. 
 
 But this suspension of the original curse, that 
 the crimes and the punishment of parents should 
 descend and be perpetuated on their children — a 
 suspension which must always be preceded by some 
 goodness on the part of the children (otherwise their 
 possession would not endure, in all probability, to 
 the term of the prescription), is very different from 
 ])ronouncing what is positively evil to be good, 
 or from commanding adherence to that evil by a 
 Divine sanction. Democracy cannot be good. An- 
 archy cannot be good. Any form of polity in the 
 Church which is a deflection from the original con- 
 stitution framed by the Divine hand, must be a de- 
 flection from good, and as such cannot be tolerated, 
 much less recommended and perpetuated by the 
 Author of good. It must be amended by the ap- 
 pointed authorities. 
 
 And, lastly, there are essential differences be- 
 tween a spiritual and a temporal polity. The tem- 
 poral kingdoms of the earth, with all their glory, 
 have, we know, been delivered over to Satan, to work 
 
124 DISTINCTION OF POLITICAL AND 
 
 his will in them. Like the fabric of the earth itself, 
 they seem to have been subjected to convulsions and 
 dislocations ; and to have been made the field in 
 which all the powers of evil should battle — nay, to 
 have been framed in the very womb and by the 
 agency of turmoil and confusion ; which, for some 
 wise purpose, the Almighty tolerates, even in that 
 creation which He pronounced good, and out of 
 which there may now be slowly evolving some 
 hidden creation of glory for a future time. This 
 very disorder in civil society may be necessary for 
 developing the perfection of the Church. The 
 creature was made subject to vanity for the mani- 
 festation of the Sons of God.^ And thus in the 
 one polity disorder and derangement may be toler- 
 able ; there may have been scope purposely left for 
 them ; there may be patience required and com- 
 manded under them, which in the other are as moral 
 blots, never to be palliated or endured. 
 
 And the privileges and blessings of the Church 
 are not those of merely civil society. Temporal 
 power and temporal property are not real goods. 
 They are not promised under covenant from God ; 
 they may be shifted, altered, diminished, and still 
 the essential happiness of man be left untouched. 
 A wise man and a Christian will so think ; and he 
 will look upon disturbances in their arrangement 
 with composure ; and in the words and spirit of the 
 Church, will pray chiefly, if not only, for his lot in the 
 kingdoms of the earth, that it may lie in peace and 
 quietness — peace and quietness amidst the elements 
 of society as in the elements of nature — that Chris- 
 tian virtues and the Christian Church may grow up 
 in fulness and strength under a pure and tranquil 
 atmosphere, and out of a soil undisturbed, in which 
 its roots may spread unhurt, and draw from it a 
 ' Rom. viii. 20. 
 
CH. XII.] ECCLESIASTICAL USURPATION. 125 
 
 healthy nutriment. And yet the same eye which 
 can look calmly npon any outward circumstances, 
 provided they give him but repose, and can find 
 hope, and strength, and satisfaction, under any form 
 of temporal society, if only it continues undisturbed 
 by violence, will regard with fear and trembling any 
 alteration whatever in its own essential organisation. 
 In any soil the tree may perhaps find nourishment and 
 life; but only with one form of internal organisation 
 can it derive that life. To alter the constitution of 
 the civil polity is to disturb the soil — to alter that 
 of the Church is to mutilate the roots, and destroy 
 the heart of the tree. It is absolute death. And 
 no prescription whatever can preclude the duty and 
 necessity of restoring the system to its divine model 
 and primitive integrity. No length of time can jus- 
 tify an ecclesiastical and spiritual usurpation. No pre- 
 scription, even if it had been created, — that which, 
 in the teeth of repeated legislative enactments and 
 public protestations, never could have been effected, 
 — could bar the English Reformation from its right, 
 from its most solemn duty, of restoring the polity of 
 the Church to its primitive and apostolical liberty; 
 and this by hands not of self-appointed theorists, 
 but of the old apostolical authorities acting under 
 law, and claiming no new powers, but only their 
 ancient privileges, which never could have been lost 
 by abeyance, because they are positive appoint- 
 ments of the Almighty; and in such cases the 
 laches of one generation cannot forfeit for those 
 which come after. 
 
 M 2 
 
126 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 By reasoning such as has been employed hitherto, 
 the Christian ma}' arrive at the same conclusion with 
 the profoundest political philosophers, and with the 
 practical experience of histor}^, that an hereditary 
 monarchy, in which the succession is regulated by 
 the law of primogeniture, is of all forms of society 
 the best and wisest. One will there must be to give 
 unity to the nation. And although no individual 
 will can be preserved in perfect unity itself, free 
 from caprices and vacillations, far more consistency 
 and harmony is likely to be preserved in the separate 
 acts of the same mind than in separate acts of sepa- 
 rate minds. And when a thread of continuity is 
 wanted to link together the succession of genera- 
 tions, and once more to preserve unity in their 
 principles and character, though individuals perish 
 and fall off, none presents itself more natural or 
 more strong than that which nature herself has 
 provided to perpetuate the society of the family, 
 and to preserve the continuity of generations — the 
 bond of parent and child. It maintains as much 
 identity of being and of blood as is possible. It falls 
 in with the natural instinct of family aggrandisement. 
 It ofiers a hope at least of preserving a consistency 
 of character. It fixes the attention and affections of 
 a people to one and the same point. And it offers 
 the least interruption to that continued series of 
 actions and plans which it is desirable that society 
 should carry on, unbroken by the accidents of death. 
 The Creator has Himself established a certain unity 
 
CH. XIII.] THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 127 
 
 and continuity of being and life between the parent 
 and the child, and through this relation between all 
 the oth(T relations of consanguinity ; and the Chris- 
 tian will avail himself of it to bind together the 
 relations of the civil polity. 
 
 But, in reaching his conclusion by the present 
 process, a Christian will never have forgotten what 
 he knows of the nature of the Divine Being; or 
 that he has received this knowledge by Revelation 
 through the voice of the Church ; or that he owes 
 to this voice the deepest gratitude and unbroken 
 allegiance; or that the nature of the Creator of the 
 world must be the true and only key to the mysteries 
 of the world, His will the law of laws. His form the 
 type and model of all other forms and constitutions. 
 He will have threaded his way to the sanctuary of 
 truth — that sanctuary in which the deepest specu- 
 lations of unassisted reason have been thankful to 
 close their toils — without quitting the safe shelter of 
 the Church ; M'hile mere Philosophy will abandon its 
 home, and rush out into the dark night and inclement 
 sky, amidst pitfalls and precipices, and with a light 
 which any gust of wind may extinguish ; proud only 
 to struggle to the same point with a disdainful re- 
 jection of every assistance from Heaven. 
 
 And now, having ascertained the principles by 
 whicii the Divine appointment of the Supreme Will 
 would be discernible, it would follow to trace out the 
 laws by which a State, in the restricted sense of the 
 word, may be formed, in order to support and assist 
 it, in conformity to that biune principle which is so 
 essential an element in society, and which the Scrip- 
 tures so frequently assert. "Two are better than one; 
 because they have a good reward for their labour. 
 For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow : but woe 
 to him that is alone when he falleth ; for he hath not 
 another to help him uj). Again, if two lie together, 
 
128 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 
 
 then they have heat; but how can one be warm alone? 
 And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand 
 him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken."^ 
 
 But there is a question connected with this part 
 of the subject — the question of the origin of society 
 — which is of no little interest and importance, and 
 which may derive some light from observations re- 
 cently made. 
 
 If by the origin of society is meant its final cause, 
 or the object for which it was contrived, three theories 
 have attempted an answer. With one, political so- 
 ciety was constructed for the good and improvement 
 of man — of man in his individual capacity. With 
 another, it is only the development of the principle 
 of covetousness and ambition in those who possess 
 power; just as the formation of a family, and the 
 establishment of dependents and retainers, is one of 
 the first steps in personal aggrandisement. With 
 the Christian, it is designed to exhibit the image 
 of the Divine Being in man, in order to fulfil the 
 good pleasure of the Creator; and even the disturb- 
 ances and imperfections of civil society are instru- 
 mental to the realisation of this great object, in 
 developing the Church militant upon earth, out of 
 which is to be evolved hereafter the Church tri- 
 umphant in heaven. And, although neither of the 
 first two theories are complete, they are not wholly 
 false. No human opinion can be wholly false. It 
 is only imperfect, only half the truth. Society is 
 necessary, and does conduce, and was designed for 
 the good and improvement of man — for his disci- 
 pline, correction, civilisation, and expansion ; and it 
 is actually formed by the aggressive and expanding 
 forces of human covetousness. But both these views 
 fall short of the last ; and it is only the last which 
 admits and includes both the others. 
 
 ' Eccles. iv. 9. 
 
CH. XIII.] THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 129 
 
 But the question of tlie origin of society may 
 bear another meaning. By whose appointment is it 
 ordained ? Is it a creation of God, or of man ? Is it 
 a human contrivance, with which we are at liberty to 
 dispense, or which we may alter at will ? Or does it 
 come to us with the seal and sanction of a Divine in- 
 stitution ? And the answer to this also is, that what- 
 ever flows necessarily and essentially from the origi- 
 nal constitution of a creature, without meeting any 
 moral check or prohibition, is to be accounted an 
 intention of the Creator; just as the movements of 
 the watch are attributed to the contrivance of its 
 maker. And whatever tends and is necessary to 
 the development of the full stature and perfection 
 of man, is binding on him by a moral obligation ; be- 
 cause the law of conscience, equally with the voice of 
 Revelation, commands him to " be perfect, even as 
 his Father in heaven is perfect." Political Society, 
 therefore, is a Divine institution, because it cannot 
 but spring out necessarily from the circumstances of 
 human life ; and we are bound to live within it, be- 
 cause without it we cannot attain to the maturity of 
 our being. But to these moral laws Christianity 
 has added a positive command. And with this 
 command a Christian will commence his reasoning, 
 before he proceeds to confirm and illustrate it by 
 tracing the same law in the less distinct and more 
 complicated characters of his own nature. But this 
 positive law does not extend to more than the gene- 
 ral principle of obedience to the " powers that be." 
 The rest appears left to be evolved by the natural 
 action of moral laws, and by the providential course 
 of events. Faith, humility? fortitude, gentleness, 
 love, — these are the virtues of the man, which will 
 also prove the virtues of tiie citizen, and the best 
 modellers of the State; and they will insensibly lead 
 to the creation of that form of society which appears 
 
130 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 
 
 to be most agreeable to the Almighty, because most 
 analogous to His nature, most distinctly intimated 
 in other parts of His creation, and most conducive 
 to the good of His creatures and the manifestation 
 of His attributes. They will lead naturally and ne- 
 cessarily to a monarchy ; and in this view, monarchy 
 itself may be called a Divine institution. But yet, 
 it is not positively ordained, in the same manner as 
 the Sabbath or the Sacraments. If the Almighty 
 had given only the general law, that one day in seven 
 should be kept holy, although it would be impossible 
 but that one day, before any other, should be the 
 fittest and most acceptable in His sight (for in reality 
 nothing can be indifferent when viewed in its rela- 
 tions and effects on other things), still man might be 
 allowed to acquiesce in the selection of any other 
 da)^ without infringing a Divine command. But 
 when the seventh day was positively fixed, to the 
 seventh day he was confined exclusively. And if 
 monarchy had been established in civil society in 
 the same manner, and with the same distinctness, as 
 episcopacy in the Church, a Christian could no more 
 acquiesce, without guilt, in the existence of demo- 
 cracy, or take a part in its public management, than 
 he now can in any form of Church-government 
 which is a wilful departure from Apostolical and 
 Catholic practice. 
 
 Why the Almighty has thus left human will and 
 human reason free to choose and act in the settle- 
 ment of polities, without giving it a more express 
 direction than the moral precept of obedience to the 
 powers that be, and hints and intimations of that 
 form which is most acceptable to Himself, and the 
 general moral law to do all things that are agreeable 
 to His will, and to make all things after the pattern 
 of His nature, — it nuiy be rash to inquire. But so 
 children are often left bv their instructors to exer- 
 
CH. XIII.] THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 131 
 
 cise their own taste and ingenuity in their tasks and 
 plays, without more than general outlines for their 
 direction ; where the object is not merely to pro- 
 duce the best result, but to exercise and exhibit the 
 faculties and tempers. And, as it has been remarked 
 before, perhaps the very failures and confusion 
 which are thus permitted to occur in the construc- 
 tion of civil society, the disturbances with which 
 it is distracted, the variety of abortive theories 
 and conflicting experiments which history presents 
 to us, may in themselves be part of the process re- 
 quisite for developing the functions and shaping the 
 creation of the Church. It may be necessary that 
 the very soil in which that tree is to thrive should 
 be frequently stirred and disturbed, — that it should 
 be fertilised even with vile and loathsome things, 
 with blood and ordure, — " that it should be dug 
 about and dunged."' But, whatever be the end of 
 this providential arrangement, the fact is beyond 
 question. And while man is so formed that he can- 
 not but fall into political society, in some shape or 
 another; and that society must comprehend certain 
 elements of government and of submission, and be di- 
 vided into the ruler and the ruled, the particular form 
 of this system is, in a certain degree, abandoned to the 
 rude hand and capricious imagination of man him- 
 self; abandoned, be it remembered, not without law, 
 not as if lie was free to take any course whatever 
 without responsibility or punishment, but without 
 express positive guide, except that of his conscience 
 and his reason. 
 
 We now come, therefore, to the third sense in 
 which the question of the origin of civil society maybe 
 put. What is the process by which man, thus left to 
 himself, forms himself into states and nations? And 
 two chief answers have been given : one, the action 
 ' Luke xiii. 8. 
 
132 THE ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. 
 
 of force ; the other, the social contract. And as 
 in every instance where human systems are erected 
 upon seemingly opposite principles, so here also we 
 may be assured that there is truth in each. History 
 does undoubtedly exhibit a multitude of cases in 
 which a number of seemingly independent powers 
 have joined together, to place at their head an indi- 
 vidual or a body, which they have bound down by 
 solemn compact to exercise the power thus conferred 
 only under predefined restrictions. And it exhibits 
 as many cases where families and tribes have been 
 amalgamated and consolidated into nations by con- 
 quest and physical force. And we may trace these 
 several processes by the laws and action of the hu- 
 man will. 
 
 If civil society is formed by the reduction and 
 subjection of many wills to one, so that the whole 
 body becomes permeated with one spirit, and moves 
 with the motions of that one will, how is this reduc- 
 tion and subjection effected by the natural action 
 and relation of mind and mind, when brought into 
 contact? By three principles. One is, the volun- 
 tary surrender of our own will to that of another, 
 without reserve or resistance, in the spirit of faith 
 and love. It is the resignation required by God 
 Himself from all His creatures. It abandons even 
 the right to mature prospectively any particular act 
 of volition within ourselves, lest it should be con- 
 trary to the Divine Will. It subjects to that Divine 
 Will not only the external acts, but the inward 
 thoughts ; and holds every movement suspended till 
 it ascertains whether it can be made M'ithout oppos- 
 ing the movement of Providence. It is an entire 
 abnegation, not of self, so as to sacrifice the indivi- 
 dualism of our being, but of selfishness, so as to 
 maintain the will of the subject in perfect and con- 
 tinual harmony with tiic will of the ruler. 
 
CH. XIII.] THE ORIGIN OP SOCIETY. 133 
 
 The second principle is that of interest. In this 
 the seH'-love is retained, and made, indeed, the spring 
 and rule of action. But the will of the subject is har- 
 monised with that of the ruler by a temporary accord- 
 ance of inclinations, or calculations of expediency. 
 The reluctancy and independent movement of the 
 mind is not destroyed ; so that the will of the subject 
 should be yielded up as a voluntary sacrifice, or rather 
 as a member of the body which cannot move without 
 the consent, or against the direction, of the soul. 
 But it is for the time brought to act voluntarily in 
 the same line which is marked out by authority. And 
 the reasoning which eflects this may be more or less 
 extensive and profound, and, in the same propor- 
 tion, more or less precarious. A very enlarged cal- 
 culation of expediency might bring us to the same 
 complete abnegation of selfishness, which is pro- 
 duced by the spirit of faith. It might shew that 
 such entire obedience to a Divine rule is far more 
 conducive to the happiness of society, and to the 
 good even of the governed, than any reserve of 
 power to ourselves. But even here, without faith 
 there would be no hearty, effectual, affectionate 
 union between the ruler and the ruled. Each might 
 move in the same path and orbit, but each in its 
 own atmosphere, and around its own centre. They 
 would be insulated and separate, without that moral 
 union in a distinctness of persons which constitutes 
 true goodness and true happiness. But when we 
 think how far such profoundness of reasoning is 
 from the great mass of mankind ; how various are 
 their tastes ; how discordant their opinions ; how 
 vague and unstable their fancies ; how shifting and 
 perplexed, rather how impossible, is the process of 
 calculation, by which the greatest amount of self- 
 enjoyment is to be extracted from the contingencies 
 of circumstances ; in which calculation we can nei- 
 
 N 
 
134 THE TRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 
 
 ther collect all the items of the facts which will 
 occur, nor foresee the disturbing forces produced 
 by their collision ; nor guard against extraneous 
 accidents ; nor maintain our own minds in the same 
 uniform state ; nor our relations to other beings and 
 things in one and the same position, so as to derive 
 from the same events to-morrow the same satisfac- 
 tion wliich we contemplate to-day ; when, in one 
 word, we reflect on the absurdity and folly of en- 
 deavouring to preserve any two minds for any two 
 hours in one uniform course of conduct, by separate 
 calculations of their own good and evil, — we shall 
 place very little confidence in any scheme of so- 
 ciety in which the allegiance and obedience of the 
 subject, and the unity of the nation, is to be pre- 
 served by the doctrine of expediency. 
 
 A third principle of social union still remains — 
 the law of fear and of brute force. And, by this, 
 external acts may be reduced under one will, and 
 an external unity may be preserved, while the wills 
 themselves of the subjects are not only not resigned 
 to the ruler, as by the principle of faith, but are not 
 even harmonised with it by accidental similarity of 
 inclinations. They remain hostile and embittered ; 
 ready to burst out in rebellion with the first oppor- 
 tunity of success ; and smother their movements and 
 menaces under a sullen and murmuring compliance. 
 
 These are the only three principles which can 
 act upon the human will — faith, interest, and fear. 
 And, accordingly, to one or other of these we must 
 refer every human step in the formation of civil 
 society ; the essence of which consists in the agree- 
 ment and co-operation of many wills in one. And 
 looking to human nature, it can scarcely be neces- 
 sary to suggest that neither of these alone can be 
 exclusively assigned as the cause and origin of so- 
 ciety, or to ask which of them has acted most gene- 
 
CII. XIII.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 135 
 
 rally and most powerfully. Faith will rarely be 
 found. Interest is a bond too precarious and too 
 slight to bind the body together for more than a 
 few acts. And to fear, to physical force, to the 
 power of the strong man over the weak, we must 
 attribute, in by far the largest proportion, the crea- 
 tion and the maintenance of national existence. In 
 whatever degree body in human nature predominates 
 over mind, and each separate atom of society retains 
 its own self-will and independent agency under the 
 influence of selfish passions, in the same degree it 
 is necessary that they should be held together by 
 a band of iron — not necessary that this band should 
 compress every movement, or act as an instrument 
 of torture — but absolutely necessary that it should 
 be solidly compacted and rivetted round the Avhole 
 frame of society. Men in such a state are but a 
 heap of sand, with no vital principle pervading and 
 holding them together in an organised form ; and 
 ready to dissolve and fall asunder at the first touch ; 
 or rather they are like a heap of living creatures 
 with venomous fangs and tiger's claws, tossed in pro- 
 miscuous confusion into a pit, and there struggling 
 and battling to free themselves and escape, each by 
 tearing and trampling on the other. And without 
 a stern and strong arm to keep them still, they will 
 be turned into a heap of carnage. 
 
 And it is interesting to see how nature has pro- 
 vided for the creation of this physical force, that it 
 may never be long wanting. She has infused into 
 man's self-will an aggressive, expansive, grasping 
 instinct, perpetually and insatiably struggling till it 
 reduces and appropriates to itself, and consolidates 
 almost as a part of its body, all the external world 
 within its reach. Even the child in the cradle can- 
 not see a toy without stretching out his tiny fingers 
 to reach it, and trying his power by endeavouiing 
 
136 THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 
 
 to break it in pieces. As these salient points of self- 
 ishness spread and diffuse themselves, like circles 
 in water, they meet and clash against each other — 
 clash constantly and untiringly, until one is broken 
 and gives way, and the two circles of property are 
 fused into one. The moment the exact balance of 
 power is destroyed, the larger circle proceeds to 
 swallow up the smallest which lie around it, and 
 thus to aggrandise itself almost without a conflict. 
 The augmentation proceeds with self-multiplying 
 forces, and can only be resisted by a confederacy of 
 the smaller powers; and no confederacy can equal 
 in unity of action, or in intensity of energy, the 
 consolidation of a whole mass under one undivided 
 rule. In this manner conquest and dominion spread 
 rapidly ; gathering vast bodies round a single centre, 
 up to a point which nature herself seems to have 
 marked by the outlines of physical geography ; and 
 beyond this they crumble into fragments. And be- 
 sides the internal action of physical force, there are 
 other laws which contribute to the same result. 
 There is the natural love and admiration of man for 
 that which is vast and powerful— there is the selfish- 
 ness which strives to attach to itself some share in 
 the greatness of another, by endeavouring to add 
 to and enlarge it. In this manner property is often 
 bequeathed to men who possess little other claim to 
 it than the possession of vast property already ; and 
 the Roman empire, as well as the kingdoms of the 
 middle ages, were often swelled by legacies from in- 
 ferior powers, simply on the ground that they were 
 already gigantic. There is also the desire to shelter 
 our own weakness under the protection of strength, 
 wherever it is to be found. And in all vast bodies 
 there is a certain tendency to uniformity and regida- 
 rity of movement, which is as necessary to their exist- 
 ence as it is conducive to growth and expansion. 
 
en. XIII.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 137 
 
 Nature, moreover, has attached to physical force 
 a singular supremacy, which deserves careful atten- 
 tion, as it explains many problems which at present 
 perplex questions of Christian political philosophy^ 
 Matter, even without the assistance of mind, can 
 entirely overpower, because it can destroy, mind, so 
 far as this world is concerned. It can destroy life ; 
 and with life, to eyes that cannot look beyond the 
 grave, the soul itself vanishes. The fall of a rock, the 
 knife of a madman, the poison of an adulteress, the 
 stumbling of a horse, the breaking of a wave, may 
 decide the fate of empires. One privilege, indeed, 
 is denied to it — permanence and stability. Its reign 
 is only for the day. But in that day it triumphs 
 without mind, and against mind ; and triumphs over 
 the whole range of human nature. Its rule is abso- 
 lute, supreme, final, universal. How often do the 
 grandest schemes of policy, embracing all the noblest 
 interests of mankind, devised in the purest spirit, 
 and matured by consummate wisdom, depend for their 
 accomplishment upon a single life ; and that life is 
 each moment at the mercy of the least power which 
 can lacerate a fibre, or puncture an artery ! And 
 to the movement of this brute force Providence has 
 attached a wonderful degree of violence and rapidity. 
 It is blind, and does not stay to calculate. It rushes 
 headlong on the first object of appetite. It gathers 
 strength and impetuosity as it moves ; rolling on like 
 a torrent, and swelling itself with every stream that 
 it swallows in its vortex ; lashing itself into fury 
 with every success ; plunging more madly into crime 
 with every leap and fall ; and throwing up its waves 
 with more voracity and menace against every re- 
 sistance. Mind, on the contrary, moves slowly, 
 cautiously, and feebly. Instead of indulging the ag- 
 gressive and expansive appetite of human cupidity, 
 it endeavours to crush and extinguish it. It gives 
 N 2 
 
138 THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 
 
 up the world of matter, and the reign of the body, 
 as an object not deserving tliought. Wlien com- 
 pelled to act, it acts with deliberation, with constant 
 reference to an unseen law and a Superior Will. It 
 seeks quiet and repose. It disdains to employ nia- 
 terial forces to gain its purposes: and yet matter 
 can only be met and conquered by the instrumen- 
 tality of matter like itself. It is scrupulous, diffi- 
 dent, unirapassioned, unresisting, gentle, merciful, 
 long-suffering. And Providence has placed it upon 
 earth, seemingly, as a victim to be sacrificed, " not 
 opening its mouth even when led to the slaughter," 
 and yielding to the hand of violence, that the Divine 
 strength may be perfected in human weakness, and 
 final glory be educed, by a purifying process, out 
 of a hard discipline of fire and of blood. 
 
 To physical power, therefore, is assigned, in the 
 first and chief degree, the office of gathering to- 
 gether and consolidating political society. And no 
 society can be permanent in which the supreme will 
 is not also armed with supreme material force. 
 And in this light the kingly authority seems pecu- 
 liarly regarded in Scripture. It is an object of awe 
 and terror, independent of moral considerations. 
 " The wrath of a king is as messengers of death ; but 
 a wise man will pacify it." ^ " The king's wrath is as 
 the roaring of a lion." 2 "The heaven for height, 
 and the earth for depth, and the heart of kings is 
 unsearchable.""^ " Put not thyself in the presence of 
 the king, and stand not in the place of great men."^ 
 " My son, fear thou the Lord and the king, and 
 meddle not with them that are given to change."''* 
 " Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the 
 evil. Wilt thou, then, not be afraid of the power? 
 Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise 
 
 1 rruv. Avi. U. - Ch. xix. 12. ^ Ch. xxv. 3. 
 
 ^ Cli. xxv. (i. •• Ch. xxiv. 21. 
 
CII. XIII.] THE PRINCIPLK OF FORCE. 139 
 
 of tlie same : for he is the minister of God to thee 
 for jijood. But if tliou do that which is evil, be 
 afraid ; for he beareth not the sword in vain : for 
 he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute 
 wrath upon him that doeth evih" ^ Human reason 
 and human Avilfuhicss woukl represent the regal 
 ))0wer as a contrivance for promoting human com- 
 fort, and as an indulgent minister to their own wants 
 and wishes ; but Revelation gives to it uniformly a 
 far sterner and more awful character; and as such 
 it appears in the history of nations ; and when this 
 aspect is lost, it sinks into nothing. 
 
 Strength and power of resistance is the first es- 
 sential for government, and therefore for the exist- 
 ence of society. And as in the formation of the 
 individual man, the body precedes the mind — as in 
 education bodily discipline and nutriment must be 
 thought of before the development of intellect, or 
 the culture of affections — as in the evolution of 
 mind itself, the action and influence of the senses 
 predominates in its first stages — as in the creation 
 of habit, the outward acts must first be subjected 
 to an external standard of right ; and from this we 
 proceed, first, to take pleasure in such acts, and 
 then to understand their reasonableness and truth — 
 as children are led and formed by the imagination 
 rather than by abstraction — as this earth and visible 
 universe are the womb out of which is to be formed 
 a glorious immaterial creation — as corruption in the 
 order of Providence is prior to incorruption, dis- 
 honour to glory, weakness to power, the natural 
 body to the spiritual body, the living soul to the 
 (juickening spirit, the image of the earthly man to 
 tlie image of the man from heaven — so is it in the 
 construction of society. First bind the atoms of 
 sand together by a bond, and in a framework of 
 ' Rom. xiii. .3. 
 
140 THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 
 
 iron, and then proceed to infuse into them that 
 breath of moral life, that spirit of faith and love, 
 M'hich will combine and consolidate them by them- 
 selves. 
 
 Nor to a Christian, who recognises in every part 
 and movement of creation the hand of an overruling 
 Providence, and in whose eyes even this shattered 
 and disordered world of matter bears the impress 
 and the type of a glorious world beyond it — to 
 whom even this sickly being and mortal flesh is con- 
 secrated, by its mysterious connexion with a Being 
 who bore it likewise, and with a glorified resurrec- 
 tion of the body — will the action even of physical 
 force in the formation of society be without its 
 sanctity and awe. He will no more desecrate, or 
 blaspheme, or vilify, or trample in philosophical 
 scorn upon the ravages of the conqueror, and the 
 iron despotism of the tyrant, than he will think 
 lightly of the whirlwind or the lightning. Both are 
 ministers of God — ministers of terror, but ministers 
 of God. Both are ruled in secret by an unseen 
 arm ; both work out ends of an inscrutable Provi- 
 dence. Nor, to suggest at once a grand and most 
 important principle, which lies at the beginning of 
 many and many a conflict and a crime in the history 
 of polities, is there any such distinction and con- 
 trariety between matter and spirit, the body and 
 the mind, the temporal and the spiritual, that either 
 should be capable of existence without the other. 
 The mind cannot act in this world without the in- 
 strumentality of the body ; nor the body move with- 
 out direction from the mind. The spiritual powers 
 must perish unless supported by the temporal, and 
 the temporal unless supported by tlie spiritual. Both 
 spheres of rule and infiuenco How into and are con- 
 centrical with each other, and they are divisible 
 only in reasoning and by name. And he who first 
 
CH. XIII.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE. 141 
 
 endeavoured to sever them, so that the physical 
 power of the nation should be emptied of its con- 
 secrating spirit, and this be all concentrated in the 
 hierarchy ; or, on the other hand, that the hierarchy 
 should be left in possession of religion only, and be 
 stripped of all worldly succours and supports, might 
 with as much wisdom, and as much pretence to a 
 Divine sanction, have severed the soul from the 
 body, and thought to preserve one as a walking 
 statue, and the other as an invisible essence. 
 
142 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 CHAPTEK XIV. 
 
 But this permitted predominancy and precedency 
 of the material over the spiritual in the construction 
 of society does neither justify its moral abuse, nor 
 extend to the exclusion of the spiritual. Brief tem- 
 porary triumph is all that Providence has vouchsafed 
 to brute force, even in this world of disorder. It 
 destroys itself. Its violence exhausts its strength. 
 Its attacks provoke attacks. It stretches its arms 
 to grasp more than it can hold, and the whole ac- 
 cumulation tumbles to the ground. Its folly gene- 
 rates contempt. Its vice rouses against it the no- 
 blest of human virtues. And its severance of all 
 moral ties loosens the adhesion of those instruments 
 by which it is compelled to work. Even fear wears 
 out by familiarity with danger. And unless a moral 
 life is infused into the body of society, the body will 
 split like the dragon in the idol-temple, or melt like 
 a colossus built of snow, as by an internal fire. 
 
 Which, then, of the other two principles, in- 
 terest and faith, shall we select as the most binding, 
 penetrating, and tenacious cement, by which to at- 
 tach to the ruler the body of his subjects? Modern 
 political philosophy has almost exclusively selected 
 interest. The mediaeval theory of feudalism was 
 founded upon faith. And a sound philosophy will 
 maintain both. Man possesses a heart as well as a 
 leason, and a reason as well as a heart; both pre- 
 carious in their movements, both liable to hourly 
 aberrations, both blind and corrujjt, both varying at 
 
CH. XIV. J THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 143 
 
 every movement and in each individual ; neither of 
 them, therefore, supplying a solid and immovable 
 bond of political union, any more than of private 
 affection ; but each to be cultivated and employed 
 as far as possible for the consolidation of society. 
 
 All, therefore, that gathers the love and the re- 
 verence of the subject round the person of his ruler, 
 and leads him by a natural impulse of the affections 
 to lose his own self in the thought of his monarch, 
 is to be studied and embodied in the institutions of 
 a nation ; tliat faith, as far as may be, may be infused 
 into the relation of the two parties. Whatever fixes 
 the person of the sovereign, so as to concentrate 
 round him the attachments and associations of his 
 people from his cradle to the grave — whatever ex- 
 hibits him as the fountain of mercy, and the dis- 
 penser of blessings — ^whatever surrounds him with 
 those external symbols of honour and power, by 
 which the eye acts upon the heart, with solemn cere- 
 monials, with punctilious observances, with a certain 
 degree of reserve and mystery, to rouse interest and 
 exclude the familiarity which breeds contempt — 
 whatever places him before them in that light and 
 character which will most excite their admiration or 
 their love ; as when he leads them to battle against 
 their enemies, or throws himself at their head into 
 dangers or hardships, or sympathises with their 
 wants and feelings, or shares in their amusements 
 or their sorrows, or deprives himself of enjoyment 
 for their sake, or lays aside at times the burden of 
 outward form, and shews himself as a man like 
 themselves without compromising the dignity of the 
 monarch — when he trusts himself among them with- 
 out fear, even though menaced with assassination — 
 when he exercises a necessary severity with tears, 
 and tempers his public magnificence l3y rigid per- 
 sonal economy, lest his subjoots sliouhl be burdened 
 
144 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 by his extravagance : in all these acts, simple, and 
 natural, and trifling as they may be, more is done 
 to bind together a nation in one, by binding their 
 hearts to one ruler, to soothe its dissension^, to arm 
 it with force, to consolidate its polity, than by all 
 the systems of antagonist powers that ever emanated 
 from the dreams of a philosopher. The heart of 
 a people is like the heart of a child, as tender, as 
 susceptible, as full of warm affections and generous 
 sympathies, as ready to throw itself without reserve, 
 and almost without thought, into the bosom of a pa- 
 rent, when encouraged even by the most trivial acts. 
 Individuals become seared and callous, and indifferent 
 or incredulous towards goodness in private life, as 
 in a sphere too small to excite interest or attention. 
 They are insulated from each other by selfish pur- 
 suits, or the exclusiveness of rank; jealous from an 
 assumed equality, or embittered by collisions and 
 contests. But the sovereign is a being of another 
 sphere ; and just as the most hardened minds are often 
 most sensitive to the emotions of a fictitious drama, 
 subjects who in their private conduct would disdain 
 to be carried away by an impulse of affection, are 
 swayed to loyalty and patriotism by what in other 
 cases they would ridicule as an idle sentimentality. 
 In the very movements of masses of men there is 
 much which prevents calculation, softens the heart, 
 and encourages sympathy. Self is lost in the sense 
 of communion of feeling. Feeling itself acquires in- 
 tensity by contagion. With the first surrender of the 
 mind to any powerful emotion, all the better and more 
 generous instincts spring up and mingle with the 
 passion, and a new taste is kindled for moral enjoy- 
 ment; so that even in the worst excesses of a mob, 
 the germs may be detected of high principles, which 
 contrast singularly witli tiie ferocity and recklessness 
 pf their crimes. All tliese are provisions of nature 
 
CH. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 145 
 
 for reducing mankind in society to that state of 
 comparative childhood, from which a judicious rule 
 will niaiure not only habits of docility and submission, 
 but the highest and best energies of our nature — 
 the energies of faith. And to speak of nations as 
 children is not to depreciate their dignity in the 
 eyes of a Christian. It is only to prosecute the 
 analogy of domestic life beyond the mere outward 
 form. They are children, because they require to 
 be governed, as all men in the fullest vigour and 
 maturity of their powers require to be governed in 
 this life. But in the Christian child, to a Christian 
 eye, there is a holiness, and dignity, and awfulness, 
 beyond what any human rule or imagination can 
 confer. It is a proud and elevating moment in the 
 history of a people when they kneel before their 
 king as their father, and he blesses them as his 
 children — when they recognise the hand and the 
 tenderness of a parent in his care for their welfare — 
 when they refuse to hear or to think of his faults, 
 much less to sit in judgment on them, as they would 
 shrink from acknowledging the sins of a parent; 
 proclaiming the grand maxim of the English law, 
 that " the king can do no wrong" — when they ac- 
 knowledge that they derive, and consent to hold, 
 from hini all which they possess, trusting to the 
 laws which he administers that their possession will 
 not be violated — when they feel that their lives are 
 in his hand, not merely by his holding the sword, 
 but by a delegation and commission from Him in 
 whom are all the issues of life and death — when 
 they would sacrifice their all for him, as for the 
 head and fountain of all earthly good — the pillar 
 of the State : 
 
 surgit, 
 
 Quo surgente domus, quoque cadente cadit. 
 Nor is it a less ennobling act when they gather round 
 
146 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 to fight by his side and defend him ; abjuring all alle- 
 giance but to him under God ; swearing to reveal to 
 him all that may offend against his crown, his person, 
 or his dignity ; and losing every thought of self in his 
 preservation and success. When the Greeks fought 
 and died at Marathon, they fought for themselves ; 
 to guard the soil which they were themselves to 
 tread and cultivate; to save their own hearths from 
 ruin, their own children from the sword, the laws 
 which protected themselves, and which they had 
 themselves made, from being overthrown by a ty- 
 rant. They fought for liberty, for life, for glory, 
 for independence. But it was their own liberty, 
 their own life, their own glory, and their own in- 
 dependence. Self mingled with and poisoned the 
 whole act. And a Christian eye will look with far 
 greater satisfaction and admiration on the Persians 
 who threw themselves out of the sinking vessel, that 
 by their own death they might save their king, than 
 upon Thermopylae or Marathon. To defend our 
 country is a glory, and to shrink from its defence a 
 shame. But to defend our country in our king, is 
 better than to defend our country without a king — 
 in the same degree as a person is nobler than a 
 thing, and an abstraction ; and as devotion to him 
 more completely absorbs the lower and poorer in- 
 stincts of our nature. Compare, under the same 
 circumstances of peril, self-sacrifice, or suffering, the 
 history of patriots and of royalists. Ask which have 
 exhibited most energy, most devotion, most patience, 
 most courage, most love, most perseverance, most 
 dignity, most religion. Count their comparative 
 numbers. Sum up the martyrdoms of Englishmen 
 during the rebellion, or of Frenchmen during the 
 revolution, sustained in support of their kings — mar- 
 tyrdoms of family, of pro])erty, of lite, of all that man 
 most values, — and the martyrdoms of Greece dur- 
 
CH. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH, 147 
 
 ing the whole period of its democratical revolutions. 
 Strip from both all that was selfish and interested — 
 faction, or revenge, or animal excitement, or blind 
 fanaticism. Examine the appeals made at each 
 period to the principles and feelings of each party ; 
 and there will assuredl}' result the conclusion, that 
 a people filled with the spirit of faith in the power 
 which rules them, presents the grandest spectacle 
 which can be exhibited by humanity ; but that for 
 the growth of this spirit of faith, the power which 
 rules them must be a person and a Sovereign. 
 
 And yet a Sovereign is but a human being. And 
 how can a human being concentrate, and maintain 
 consistently, the virtues and excellences, without 
 which faith is but credulity, and submission slavery ? 
 I answer, by the kingly character, apart from all 
 private peculiarities. It is to the person of the 
 monarch, whether that monarch be wise or ignor- 
 ant, a female or a man, a child or an adult, that the 
 loyalty of the subject is pledged; not to that acci- 
 dental group of external circumstances with which 
 it happens to be associated. 
 
 And this brings us once more to that wonderful 
 mystery with which our whole inquiry commenced ; 
 which recurs again and again in a variety of politi- 
 cal questions; and to the oversight of which may 
 be attributed so many of our modern political diffi- 
 culties — the union of many distinct persons in the 
 substance of one mind. Lord Bacon has enlarged 
 upon one instance of this phenomenon with wonder- 
 ful distinctness.^ And it deserves great considera- 
 tion. 
 
 The human mind, in fact, is like a single atom, 
 or monad, or principle of motion, placed in the 
 centre of a variety of threads of events, and com- 
 binations of circumstances and persons, with each 
 ^ Case of the Post-Note. 
 
148 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 of which it connects itself in so many separate rela- 
 tions ; and by attaching them to itself, and colour- 
 ing and modifying itself, as it were, by them, it con- 
 stitutes so many different minds, without ever losing 
 its identity and substantial unity. Such is the fact 
 in human nature. Thus Socrates used to assert that 
 lie was conscious of possessing two minds : one when 
 his internal acting principle threw itself out upon 
 bad objects, and under bad impulses ; the other 
 when it gathered round it thoughts and affections 
 of holiness and goodness. And when the mystery 
 is stated in language which must recal to our minds 
 the grand theological verity which is the founda- 
 tion of Christianity, let us beware of assuming it as 
 any explanation of that awful mystery. It is so 
 far a removal of its difficulty, that it exhibits as a 
 fact, what in the statement is equally perplexing, 
 and in practice leads to extraordinary involutions 
 of duties and problems of reasoning. It presents 
 a mystery; we dare not say of an analogous na- 
 ture ; but in an analogous subject-matter, the world 
 of spirits — a mystery M'hich, though we cannot ex- 
 plain, we are compelled to believe. We cannot, 
 therefore, refuse to believe another mystery of the 
 spiritual world on the ground of inability to explain 
 it. This is the reasoning of Bishop Butler; and thus 
 far it may be employed. It is presumption to carry 
 it farther. And even the essential difference between 
 a finite and infinite, a created and an uncreated 
 mind, while it renders the fact of a mystery antece- 
 dently more probable, prohibits more effectually an 
 attempt even to illustrate it by any thing within the 
 exjjerience of man. 
 
 But the fact of this assumption of different per- 
 sons by the same mind is familiar to us all. The 
 same being is a son and a father, a brother and a 
 friend, a citizen and a churchman ; good in some 
 
CH. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 149 
 
 actions, and bad in others. And in each of these 
 characters he enters into different relations, becomes 
 involved in different duties, excites different, and 
 even opposite, feelings. In the same manner the 
 person of the king is distinct from the person of the 
 individual. And the phenomenon cannot be more 
 strikingly illustrated than when a queen regnant con- 
 tracts marriage; pledging herself, as a woman, to 
 obey her husband, who, as a subject, is pledged to 
 obey her. In the same manner, also, is to be ex- 
 plained the conflict which so often arises between 
 spiritual and temporal authority ; where, as a minis- 
 ter of the church, an individual may command even 
 those whom, as a simple citizen, he acknowledges 
 as his superiors. 
 
 So one and the same power of steam or of water 
 may be applied to an infinite variety of combinations 
 of machinery ; and in each constitute a different ma- 
 chine : one for cutting, another for sawing, a third 
 for lifting weights, a fourth for driving piles — each 
 with its peculiar work, character, and excellence. 
 And when the mind contemplated them each, the 
 steam-power by itself, though absolutely essential 
 to the movement, would be regarded as nothing; 
 it would possess no distinctive character, nothing 
 of which any one could assert either good or evil. 
 And so also the machinery by itself would be as 
 dead, useless lumber until the power was attached 
 to it. But both together would constitute the ma- 
 chine, as both together — the motive power of the 
 mind, and the thoughts, acts, and circumstances to 
 which it is attached — constitute the person ; and 
 constitute a different person with each change of 
 circumstances, only retaining the unity of sub- 
 stance, the unity of memory and of conscience, and, 
 what is most fearful of all, the unity of responsi- 
 bility to God. 
 
 o 2 
 
150 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 When, therefore, a Christian would preserve his 
 faith, reverence, loyalty, and love towards his sove- 
 reign, whatever be the private acts and character of 
 that sovereign, he must preserve distinct in his own 
 mind the person of the sovereign and the person of 
 the individual. And he must realise to himself the 
 full idea of kingly authority and power. And this 
 process of abstraction, though seemingly fanciful 
 and difficult, is far otherwise in reality. It may be 
 difficult to those who are brought immediately into 
 contact with the individual, who see his private de- 
 fects and vices forcing themselves through the veil 
 and robes of his regal person. But to the great 
 body of subjects this is not the case. They hear, 
 and only hear, of a power infinitely above them, 
 which is pictured to their imagination as surrounded 
 with every attribute of grandeur, and raised far 
 above the level of their own humanity. It comes 
 before them in a thousand mysterious symbols ; in 
 the ermine of the judge, the writ of the sheriff, the 
 bayonet of the soldier, even in the common procla- 
 mation of the public crier; in the magistrate, the 
 constable, and every subordinate officer of the ex- 
 ecutive ; in the language of law ; in the ornaments 
 of churches; in the unseen hand which is yet felt to 
 protect the sanctity of their homes; in the overlooking 
 eye which takes cognizance of all their acts, sanction- 
 ing the good and punishing the bad ; in the universal, 
 all-pervading being whose peace and dignity are 
 wounded at any hour, and any spot, by the slightest 
 infraction of the peace of his Society. In this way 
 subjects reach the general idea of the monarchical 
 person. And it is a miserable and criminal philo- 
 sophy which would ridicule or suppress it. If to the 
 faith which attaches us to the person of the king can 
 be added faitli in the individual, a Christian will not 
 object to it ; any more than he would regret that the 
 
CH. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 151 
 
 reverence due to a priest of the Church should be 
 accompanied with reverence lor the man. But he 
 will not rest upon this private individual feeling. 
 He will endeavour to keep it out of sight ; to bring 
 the monarch before the people as little as possible 
 in his private character. Least of all will he permit 
 the man to be drao:j^ed forth from under the crown 
 and the purple of the king, and exhibited to his peo- 
 ple in the nakedness of our common earthly nature. 
 He will tolerate no caricatures or scandalous anec- 
 dotes, no prying into the sanctity of private life, no 
 omission of those ceremonial observances, which, 
 however tedious and unmeaning they may seem, 
 are infinitely important, as expressing the kingly 
 ciiaracter, and warning eyes, which have no power 
 of deeper vision than beyond the external form, that 
 there is a mystery and power before them which is 
 not lightly to be approached or neglected. The 
 faculty of discerning such invisible powers is one of 
 the highest privileges and perfections of our nature. 
 He who cannot discover the mind behind the move- 
 ment of the body, the intention of a Creator in the 
 character of his works, the hand of Providence be- 
 hind the outward changes of events, the presence of 
 God when all is dark, the world to come through the 
 veil of the present universe, the inward and spiri- 
 tual grace under the outward and visible signs by 
 which it is conveyed to us — such a man is really 
 sightless, and must wander, and stumble, and perish, 
 and drag those whom he professes to guide into the 
 same pit with himself, as blind leading the blind. 
 And so with nations. " Where there is no vision, the 
 people perish."^ 
 
 And when it is said that this theory of a mon- 
 archical i)erson is a fiction of law, a mere theory, — • 
 
 ' Piov. xxix. lb. 
 
152 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 the answer is, Yes; it is a fiction — a fiction of that 
 law which is the perfection of reason ; a fiction 
 in the same sense in which the highest and most 
 glorious creations of man's imagination are fictions ; 
 creations, that is, without which the realities of life 
 were dull and dead, and incapable of generating a 
 noble thought, or of satisfying a purer aspiration. 
 It is a part of the great fiction of society, and its 
 foundation-stone. If political society be an end and 
 good in itself, apart from the good of individuals; if 
 its formation and maintenance be intended to exhi- 
 bit upon earth, as far as may be, and to prepare for 
 heaven, an image of the Divine Being hewn out of the 
 quarry of mankind ; if, to accomplish this work, it 
 must possess unity, permanence, and consistency, — 
 and yet the only materials which it can reach are 
 human beings, shifting, discordant, short-lived, 
 swayed about by every breath of accident and pas- 
 sion, — is not the task hopeless? How is a temple 
 to be raised of water ? How is a rope to be spun of 
 sand? 
 
 Trace, therefore, the history of society ; whether 
 in theories of philosophers who have been called on 
 to invent constitutions, or in its gradual develop- 
 ment in practice ; and we shall find that it must al- 
 ways be constructed on a framework, not of individual 
 beings, but of general principles and abstractions, 
 of fictitious persons like that of the monarch. There 
 can be no permanence or solidity except in such 
 mental creations, any more than there can be mathe- 
 matical reasoning and demonstration except as built 
 upon hypothesis. It was by abstract angles, which 
 never existed in matter, not by any angle which can 
 be placed before the eye, that Newton argued. A 
 statesman fixes for himself in theory an arrangement 
 of offices, a distribution of powers and privileges, an 
 order of magistracies, witliout reference to any in- 
 
CU. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 153 
 
 dividuals. He arranges his various combinations of 
 machinery, each with its prescribed force and rela- 
 tion to the rest; and having thus adjusted his whole 
 system, he then takes individual minds as motive 
 principles, just as he would apply the steam-power 
 to the engine. And in a well-constructed scheme 
 the arranger considers as little as possible the pecu« 
 liarities of tiie individual. If they are such as to 
 impede or preclude the proper working of the ma- 
 chine, they must, indeed, be rejected. But he will 
 endeavour so to construct it that it shall work of 
 itself, and with as little dependence as possible for 
 assistance or guidance, for any thing but actual 
 movement, upon the individual mind. To a forget- 
 fulness of this principle must be traced the repeated 
 failures of our modern social constructions. A so- 
 ciety for education is to be established. The iirst 
 act is to select an individual whose talent and 
 experience will enable him to conduct it. Upon 
 him the whole conduct of the work is thrown. He 
 infuses into every part of it his own peculiar bias. 
 He is its animating principle : when he pauses, all 
 stops ; when he changes, all changes with him ; 
 when he errs, the whole errs likewise ; and when 
 he dies, the fabric falls to the ground. Thus, on a 
 larger scale, the Macedonian empire rested not on a 
 fictitious theory of monarchy, and of artificial per- 
 sons, as the words might be contemptuously used, 
 but upon the individual Alexander and on his in- 
 dividual officers — and with his death the empire 
 broke to pieces. Thus the strong arm of Charle- 
 magne sustained his fabric of power; but the con- 
 solidation of it by positive institutions, by hereditary 
 offices, by fixed relations and subordinations of 
 authority irrespective of individuals, was not yet 
 achieved ; and with him it fell, exactly in proportion, 
 and in the parts, in which " the theory and the fie- 
 
154 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 tion" were deficient. Thus a general, in planning 
 a campaign, requires to make his calculations by 
 regiments and brigades, by abstract amounts of 
 forces, independent of individuals. If the advance 
 of a troop, or the maintenance of a post, is to depend 
 upon an individual officer, he can scarcely risk a 
 movement on so precarious a contingency. He en- 
 forces a discipline which reduces all individual dis- 
 tinctions to one uniform model. He arranges a 
 succession of command which shall provide for uni- 
 formity of action through any series of deaths. He 
 plans his operations with chessmen and counters ; 
 and executes them by human beings emptied, as far 
 as possible, of all that makes them individuals, their 
 free agency and their peculiar bias, and reduced to 
 automata. And exactly in proportion as he can do 
 this he is victorious. That machinery is most ad- 
 mirable which performs its work as well, whether, 
 as in the steam printing-press, a child or a man is 
 placed to guide it. And political society approaches 
 nearest to perfection, when its functions can be car- 
 ried on healthily and vigorously, whatever indivi- 
 dual minds are placed to give to them their motive 
 power; when a child may sit on the throne, and 
 the throne still remain unshaken ; and men of party 
 be placed on the bench, and still the laws be admin- 
 istered impartially ; and military discipline be so 
 perfect, that it is obeyed and enforced even under 
 the weakest hand; and legislation be conducted 
 safely, whoever may be tem])orary legislators; and 
 education carried on successfully, without the need 
 of extraordinary talent or peculiar learning, by a 
 system which even children may work. The office 
 should make the man, not the man the office. Society 
 should mould individuals, not individuals society. 
 The fictitious invisible person should be exhibited 
 as constantly present and uniforndy acting. It 
 
CII. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 155 
 
 should be exhibited in abstract names, in peculiar 
 dresses, in common localities, in general ceremonies 
 which have no reference to individuals, and in which 
 the individuals are lost. Upon this principle, to 
 throw aside official costume is the first step to de- 
 stroy the authority of the abstract person, and with 
 it the constitution of society. To depart from offi- 
 cial language on the bench, or in any executive 
 function, is to supersede the magistrate by the man ; 
 that which is always venerable by that which must 
 frequently be contemptible. To introduce innova- 
 tions from our own caprice upon an established 
 system, is to strip that system of its authority by 
 making it rest upon ourselves. To cast aside the 
 principle of tradition, whether in usage or in law, is 
 to give up the whole fabric of society to be volati- 
 lised and dissipated by every movement of self-will. 
 Hence the grand maxim of England, that our consti- 
 tution and our law are built alike, not upon written 
 statutes, the work of individual legislators, but upon 
 usage and tradition. Hence the noble paradox, that 
 the king cannot do wrong, and never dies. Hence, 
 though he alone can administer justice, yet when 
 James would sit in person in his own court, to try 
 parties who were summoned by his own writ to ap- 
 pear before himself, the judge refused to permit it, 
 because the abstract fictitious monarch, and not the 
 individual, was contemplated in the whole of that 
 process, — fictitious, and yet most real — real as all 
 the grand truths and fundamental principles upon 
 w hich science, and art, and piiilosophy, and practice, 
 are built — without which life is but a chaos of facts, 
 and creation a congeries of phenomena — and which, 
 though impalpable and invisible to senses of flesh, 
 constitute the highest region for the exercise of rea- 
 son, and the only solid ground on which the aspira- 
 tions of man can find a resting place and home. 
 
156 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 And thus political society is, as it were, the poetry 
 of practical life. And it supplies what Bacon has de- 
 clared to be one of our greatest needs, and the end of 
 all works of human imagination, — characters more 
 noble, powers more great, relations more stable, 
 systems more perfect, an unity more complete, than 
 can be found in the heart and acts of any indivi- 
 duals. It is, in fact, a drama nobly conceived and 
 brilliantly exhibited, in which emperors and kings, 
 judges and officers, the best and most perfect that 
 can be imagined, are brought before us ; and we 
 ourselves are made to take a part upon the stage, 
 that we may witness the grandest truths of morals 
 and practical philosophy developed in action, justice 
 administered in perfection, law framed upon the 
 model of purest reason, no other language uttered 
 than that of truth and goodness, no other principles 
 professed than those of benevolence and equity, — 
 while all the time, in the hearts of the actors, the 
 lowest passions of human nature may be raging ; and, 
 when the gorgeous stage-attire is stripped off, there 
 is left but poverty and sorrow. And yet, who shall 
 say in scorn that this drama is a lie, or that man can 
 exist without it ? It is a truth ; because eternal truth 
 depends not on the agreement of man's thoughts 
 with his words, but on the agreement of either 
 with the laws and the being of the Most High. No 
 hypocrisy can make virtue false ; no mere formal 
 profession of the lips turns religion into a delusion. 
 And Providence has so constructed man that so- 
 ciety can scarcely utter any language but what is 
 noble, even when the secret thoughts of individuals 
 are full of baseness. Whatever be the motives of le- 
 gislators, the preambles of laws must profess what is 
 just and good. And whatever are the excesses of 
 tyrants, they are, as such, tiie destruction of society; 
 and must be cloaked under the pretence of some 
 
CII. XIV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 157 
 
 virtue, or at least of some prudence. And we little 
 know how^ much of private worth and elevation of 
 character is thus nursed under the framework of 
 the political system ; how many ennobling instincts 
 are gratified ; how the imagination, and with it the 
 affections, becomes warmed and expanded, by being 
 placed in a system which exhibits human nature in 
 its grandest aspect ; and how all this is reconciled 
 with truth and reason by that wise philosophy which 
 recognises, in the structure of society, not a mere 
 conglomeration of individuals, but an arrangement 
 of abstract persons, duties, offices, and relations, or- 
 ganised upon the highest principles of justice and 
 wisdom, to which individuals are attached merely as 
 springs of motion, and in the goodness and perfec- 
 tion of which individual faults are lost and forgotten. 
 And at the head of these persons is the monarch; 
 a being armed with supreme physical power by the 
 hand and permission of Providence ; as such, the 
 lord of our property, the master of our lives, the 
 fountain of honour, the dispenser of law, before 
 whom each subject must surrender his will and con- 
 form his actions; who, as the head of society, is 
 bound by his divine commission, and often by a 
 promise to his people, that he will govern them ac- 
 cording to the laws of God, not with any human 
 caprice ; upon w^hom lies a most fearful responsibi- 
 lity ; who, if he does his duty, must spend a life of 
 toil and anxiety for the good of others — and, if he 
 neglects his duty, must fail into far deeper guilt and 
 misery than any of his people ; who is placed in the 
 front of the battle, and exposed to perpetual danger ; 
 who, when he errs, errs as a man, and not as a king, 
 and is responsible not to man but to God ; and 
 whom we are commanded to obey, as an ordinance 
 of God, in all things, except where we have received 
 a prohibition as express from the same divine au- 
 p 
 
158 THE PRINCIPLE OF FAITH. 
 
 thorit}', — and even then must be content to refuse 
 to act with him, without raising up a rebellious arm 
 to originate an action against him. 
 
 Such is the object of the Christian's loyalty and 
 faith. And the mantle of the royal character is 
 thrown over all the frailties and vices of the indivi- 
 dual by the same hand by which kings rule, — hiding 
 and veiling them all; just as in the spiritual world 
 another veil of righteousness is thrown over the 
 same human corruption by the same divine hand. 
 And the twofold persons are united in one mind ; 
 just as the " old man" and "the new" are united in 
 the soul of the believer, and the old man is buried 
 in the new ; and the new alone is contemplated, and 
 loved, and honoured by the faith which sees all 
 things in the Lord, and the charity which loves all 
 things for His sake. 
 
 The very being of a Christian rests upon a similar 
 fact, a similar mystery, a similar fiction — the union 
 of two distinct persons in his own soul ; one divine, 
 the other human ; one which unites him to Christ, 
 and, through Christ, to God, — the other which keeps 
 him bound to and incorporated with earth ; one by 
 which he is already freed from sin, justified and 
 sanctified, and glorified, by the communication of 
 the Spirit of grace, and crucified, dead and buried, 
 and raised up above the heavens, — the other in 
 which he still is walking upon earth, in misery, and 
 shame, and corruption, waiting for the worm and 
 the grave. And the whole of his Christian edu- 
 cation and Christian excellence depends on his realis- 
 ing to himself the presence of the divine person 
 beneath the veil of the human; cherishing it, honour- 
 ing it, acting worthy of the vocation wlierewith it 
 calls him, mortifying in subjection to it all his mem- 
 bers upon earth, absorbing in it the whole of his 
 nature by the principle of faith. 
 
THE PKINGIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 159 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 If, then, material force is the first thing necessary 
 for binding together the external fabric of society, 
 and the spirit of faith is the second, for giving to 
 that congeries vitality and permanent union; where 
 shall we place the third element of association, in- 
 terest and expediency? Is it to be wholly excluded? 
 Assuredly not. It must occupy the same position 
 which reason occupies in relation to faith ; self-love 
 to benevolence; the lower wants of our body to the 
 higher aspirations of the mind. It must follow, not 
 lead. It is an admirable support of feelings and 
 affections, to find that what instinct prompts, reason 
 confirms. It adds strength even to moral obligation 
 (such is the weakness of our nature), when virtue 
 is found to be also useful, and duty terminates in 
 pleasure. And when loyalty is once assumed as the 
 tie which is to bind citizens together in one country, 
 then we may proceed to calculate the blessings of 
 the system which it generates — its peacefulness, its 
 order, the security of property, the sanctity of homes, 
 the development of national wealth and strength, 
 the refinement of civilisation, the expansion of in- 
 telligence, the liberty which it secures to individuals, 
 the confidence of public and private credit, the 
 spread of education, the diffusion of the rights and 
 responsibilities of government, the augmentation of 
 comforts and enjoyments, and all the other elements 
 which make up an accumulation of national good 
 out of the separate good of individuals and of 
 families. 
 
160 THE TRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 In what manner the principle of an hereditary 
 monarchy facilitates this accumulation far more than 
 any other form of society, may appear more clearly 
 when we have traced the nature and formation of 
 that State with which it must be accompanied. But 
 it is right — it is absolutely necessary at this day — 
 that all who value their country should raise a warn- 
 ing voice, whether in the legislature, or in the pulpit, 
 or in schools, or in books, against the theory which 
 would make this accumulation the end of society, 
 and the primary obligation of the citizen. Such a 
 theory has now gnawed its way not only into all our 
 political philosophy, but into our public legislation 
 and private practice, till it has degraded society from 
 its highest functions, has sensualised and animalised 
 its character, has introduced a chaos of conflict- 
 ing elements into our system of laws, has secretly 
 dissolved the ties which bound us to each other as 
 well as to our sovereign, and has extinguished the 
 noblest instincts of private as of public life. It must 
 be thus whenever expediency is made the rule of 
 action, especially of political action. 
 
 When the human mind has no person set before 
 it on which to concentrate its affections, and vent 
 and lose itself in faith, it must fix upon a thing. And 
 things possess no value — are not goods — cannot 
 stimulate desire, except in relation to ourselves, as 
 they are good to us. Whoever, therefore, has set 
 before himself any end but a person as the object of 
 his affections and exertions, may be assured that he 
 is in reality only indulging and seeking his own self- 
 satisfaction. And the patriotism of a citizen w ith- 
 out loyalty is, at the best, but a modified selfishness. 
 He loves his country as he loves his property; be- 
 cause he sees in it a security for his own happiness, 
 or the work of his own hand, or the glorification of 
 his own ambition. And, at the best, when patiiotism 
 
CH. XV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. IGl 
 
 assumes the form of general benevolence, general 
 benevolence is too vague a feeling, and our i'ellow- 
 creatures in a mass are too indistinct, too unworthy, 
 too precarious an object for the mind really and per- 
 manently to rest on them. It requires to be absorbed 
 in one person, one individual being, and, through 
 him, to comprehend others; as in Christianity we are 
 taught and enabled to love all our fellow-creatures 
 in Christ. True faith, or true love, is no more com- 
 patible with vague general benevolence, than true 
 religion is consistent with polytheism, or true do- 
 mestic union with polygamy. 
 
 But when self is made the spring of action, and 
 self-formed a})petites the measure of human good, 
 there must follow, in all men, an extraordinary sus- 
 pension or extinction of the higher instincts of our 
 nature, and, in most men, the lowest degradation. 
 He who does not recognise a person external and 
 superior to himself, is left without a lawgiver ; and 
 without a lawgiver, there can be no law : law in itself 
 is injpotent, is nothing but ink and parchment, des- 
 titute of all moral obligation to obedience, and all 
 power to punish and reward — conditions which can- 
 not be separated from personal relations and duties. 
 
 But without law there is no standard of good, 
 except the opinion and inclination of the individual 
 and of the moment. And if no such standard be 
 raised by a power supreme and absolute over all the 
 members of society, it cannot be raised by any among 
 the members themselves, who, as such, are equal, 
 and have no authority to bind each other. Where 
 the State hesitates to speak with authority, no citizen 
 is entitled to express more than his own opinion ; 
 and his own opinion may be but fancy. It is des- 
 titute of all sanction and weight. 
 
 Without faith, therefore, without law, without a 
 fixed standard of moral good and evil, without moral 
 p 2 
 
162 THE TRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 obligation, without fear of justice, or expectation of 
 coercion, except such as, in the absence of immu- 
 table principles of morals, must be regulated by 
 caprice, and exercised by the sole riglit of the strong 
 arm, what is to become of man ? What can result 
 but the development of the self-will of each indi- 
 vidual, without restraint, in that form which pre- 
 dominates in the great bulk of mankind, — in the 
 young, the undisciplined, the unpu rifled, the animal 
 rather than the rational part of human nature ? and 
 this, too, in a condition of the most violent conflict. 
 Such is the essential connexion between the doc- 
 trine of expediency and an unlicensed democracy ; 
 and between them both, and all those frightful evils, 
 moral as well as physical, which republican states 
 so generally exhibit, and no where more distinctly 
 than in the democracies of Greece, where philo- 
 sophy had most firmly established the political 
 theory of expediency. Good, measured by bodily 
 indulgence, — bodily indulgence purchased at any 
 price, — wealth made the chief object of political 
 struggles, and of private contrivance : hence the 
 most abject poverty on one side, and enormous ac- 
 cumulation of riches on the other; — hence civil 
 factions divided into the poor and the rich; — hence 
 battles, not for privileges and honours, which, as 
 in the earlier history of Rome, may be fought with 
 moderation, and terminated in peace, — but battles 
 for life, for subsistence — battles like that of help- 
 less travellers against ravenous wolves, in which no 
 thought of mercy or honour ever entered; nothing 
 but the ra[)acity of want and the recklessness of de- 
 spair : and with this went hand in hand a scepticism 
 which penetrated and dissolved the primary con- 
 ditions of existence. The standard of law being lost 
 by the expulsion of the lawgiver, there perished with 
 it necessarily the standard of all other truth. For 
 
CH. XV.] TUE TRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 163 
 
 if right and wrong can be volatilised and reduced to 
 mere opinion, no other obligations or belief can re- 
 main, so binding and so sanctioned. Every thing 
 else is mere speculation, and may be treated worthily 
 as such, from metaphysics to religion. Then came 
 infidelity and atheism ; and, with atheism, the wil- 
 fulness, and sensualism, and rapacity of man burst 
 forth with redoubled violence, till (in the words of 
 a contemporary historian) every form of atrocity 
 was exhausted, the very language of good and evil 
 Avas corrupted and reversed, and the whole nature 
 of man was exhibited in the fulness of its wickedness 
 — a spectacle and a warning to all future genera- 
 tions against the extinction of loyalty and faith, and 
 against the doctrine of expediency. 
 
 And let us not be deceived. Let us not flatter 
 ourselves that any degree of civilisation, or so-called 
 enlightenment, any extension of ordinary education, 
 any apparent stability of existing institutions, or pro- 
 found calculations of economical prudence, will 
 divest this doctrine of its poison, or save a nation 
 from ruin in which it has once been established. 
 
 Facilis descensus Averni. 
 
 Swift and easy is the transition from the higher 
 and more refined theories of good to the meanest 
 and worst, when once those theories rest upon human 
 opinion, not upon positive law. Think how rapidly 
 and how powerfully the animal in man developes 
 itself when once let loose from the chains of moral 
 obligation. Trace the course of any people who 
 have once entered on the path of innovation — of 
 innovation proceeding on opinion, not regulated by 
 precedent and traditional law. See how, in a few 
 years, almost in a few months, innovation changes 
 to reform, and reform to revolution, and revolution 
 to rebellion, and rebellion to civil war; and civil 
 
164 THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 war itself, losing even the dignity of war, becomes 
 a mad conflict of wild beasts, and a plundering of 
 thieves and robbers. Think that, when obligations 
 of positive law have once been superseded, and truth 
 and good are abandoned to opinion, all opinions must 
 be equal; every thing must be equal but the mea- 
 sures of brute force, which no theories, and no re- 
 finement, and no prudence, will coerce or reduce to 
 acquiescence in e(iuality. You may suppress the 
 disturbing principle in the hearts of the few. You 
 may expect the rich, the wise, the good, the happy 
 in themselves and in their families, to remain in peace 
 and silence, seemingly united in one body, because 
 there is no occasion which exhibits their disunion. 
 Bat you cannot still the waves. You cannot ex- 
 tinguish the cravings of famine, of lust, of passion, 
 of the mere weariness of vacancy, which fixes on 
 unoccupied minds. You cannot compress their 
 grasping and expanding forces, except by a moral 
 law, which by the doctrine of expediency you have 
 abrogated, or by a physical force, which, with the 
 abrogation of tiiat moral law, becomes a brute power, 
 on a level with their own in sanction, but as far in- 
 ferior in energy as prudence is less violent than 
 passion. If you are still to rule when the ruler is no 
 longer obeyed in loyalty, you must rule by an army. 
 Sooner or later, it must come to the bayonet. It 
 was so with Rome. It was so with France. It is so 
 now with England — in Ireland, and in the manu- 
 facturing districts. It will be so in every country 
 where the bond of political union is taken not from 
 the principle of loyalty, but from the doctrine of 
 expediency. 
 
 And even while this battle is yet delayed, and 
 the inert force of general prosperity, and successful 
 selfish prudence, and prejudice, and precedent, still 
 holds together the mass of society, what is the real con- 
 
CH. XV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 165 
 
 dition even of that proportion which is quiescent, and 
 seemingly united upon calculations of expediency? 
 
 Selfishness has been installed as the fundamental 
 axiom of life — correct, refined, prudential, sober 
 selfishness — selfishness which acknowledges the need 
 we have of others, which may even regard their wel- 
 fare as conducive to our own, — but still selfishness. 
 Every eye is turned inward and downwards. Every 
 hand is stretched out to grasp what does not belong 
 to it ; and is checked only by fear of ultimate loss. 
 Each family, and in that family each individual, 
 constitutes itself the centre of a future system, into 
 which every thing around must be absorbed; whether 
 by rank, or by wealth, or by talent. If by rank, the 
 distinctions of classes are no longer softened and 
 ennobled by hereditary dignity, and by a fixed re- 
 ciprocation of offices, but become harsh and offen- 
 sive, as barrieis of individual pride and arbitrary 
 exclusion. If by wealth, a money-aristocracy is 
 created, and, with this, money is erected into the 
 great idol of social life ; and all the sins with which 
 such an idolatry is followed break in without re- 
 straint. And if by talent, then perhaps the very 
 worst form of human selfishness establishes itself 
 as the master-rule of the nation, — the selfishness of 
 intellectual vanity, which can find no adequate satis- 
 faction except in overturning all that is old, and 
 making society, each day, the subject of some new 
 experiment. Until upon revolution in theories fol- 
 lows revolution in practice; and the lowest and most 
 de])raved of minds, which has learnt the great lesson 
 of such philosophy, that reason is perfect in itself, 
 and that the reason of each individual is the con- 
 stituted judge of all truth, carries his privileges into 
 action, and the summary justice of the lamp-post is 
 established, as in France, upon the philosophy of the 
 rights of man. 
 
166 THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 Such a process is now rapidly advancing, under 
 our own eye, in the heart of England. And its 
 origin may be traced distinctly to that one great 
 moral falsehood, which was established at the revo- 
 lution of 1688, and has been promulgated ever since 
 in the most active forms of modern philosophy, that 
 expediency is the rule of right, and human good, 
 as viewed by human eyes, is the object of political 
 society. And the end is rapidly approaching. We 
 all feel it, as we feel the acceleration of the current 
 when the boat approaches a cataract. And the 
 highest intellects, and most honest hearts, in the 
 nation are busied with contriving schemes by which 
 the coming fate may be averted. But there is one 
 scheme, and one only, which has been appointed by 
 Providence itself, to be the conservator of nations. 
 Partially we have had recourse to it already. Each 
 day encourages the hope of realising it in more ful- 
 ness and perfection. Even men who antecedently 
 despised it, have been compelled by experience to 
 adopt it. You must restore the principle of faith as 
 the bond of political society — the principle of faith 
 in a person — the principle of loyalty to a sovereign. 
 But how is this to be done ? There can be no faith 
 in man ; our faith is due only to God, and to those 
 who are the ministers and representatives of God. 
 Kings, therefore, must once more be invested with a 
 divine commission and character. All governments, 
 of whatever form, must be invested with the same. 
 But monarchies especially, because they are most 
 agreeable to the will and to the analogy of God. But 
 of this character they have been emptied by the 
 theories which made popular will the source of 
 power, and popular appetite the measure of good. 
 And they cannot recover it by themselves. No men 
 can claim power or authority upon their own testi- 
 mony. They require a second witness. Neither can 
 
CH. XV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 167 
 
 it be found in the people, without confirming the 
 very theory which it is necessary to abolish, that the 
 voice of tlie people — the voice of men told by the 
 head — not in questions of sense, but in matters of 
 morals and science, is the voice of God and the law 
 of truth. No mere popular acknowledgment of the 
 divine right of government, and of kings, founded 
 on the law of opinion, could give validity to such 
 a title. It is opinion, and no more ; and may be re- 
 scinded to-morrow by the same voice, and with the 
 same efficacy, with which it is established to-day. 
 Where, then, are we to look ? I answer : If in any 
 nation there exists an organised society of men analo- 
 gous to the prophets of Judea, who claim to themselves 
 a Divine commission and a Divine authority, upon 
 a title which has not yet been swallowed up in the 
 quicksand of opinion — who possess great truths, great 
 laws, great revelations of the Divine will and the 
 Divine nature, and who possess them not as human 
 opinions, not as wrought out inductively by man 
 from any experience of life, or interpretation of 
 words, but as conveyed to them expressly and dis- 
 tinctly by God Himself, and placed, as such, beyond 
 the reach of opinion : if this body of men can make 
 good their claim to be ministers of blessings from 
 God, and depositaries of the knowledge of Him, not 
 by appeals to expediency, and conjectures of incli- 
 nation, but upon plain, simple, external, historical 
 testimony — the same kind of testimony which the 
 highest reason desires to procure in all cases of evi- 
 dence; — if, by the holiness of their lives, the dis- 
 interestedness and integrity of their social conduct, 
 the elevation of their affections, and the profound- 
 ness of their intellect, they can bring the great body 
 of the nation to acknowledge their own Divine com- 
 mission, and to put faith in themselves; — then it will 
 
168 THE TRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 be possible and easy for them to infuse the same 
 spirit of faith once more into the relations of the civil 
 as of the spiritual society. They possess a rule of ac- 
 tion and a standard of morals, which opinion and ex- 
 pediency have not yet touched, and cannot approach. 
 Obedience and loyalty is, with them, an express, 
 positive command from God, prior to, and inde- 
 pendent of, all human consideration. Kings and 
 rulers, by them at least, are acknowledged as minis- 
 ters of God ; and the very title-deeds of government 
 are in their possession, written in the Scriptures, and 
 the interpretation confirmed by the uniform practice 
 and prescription of the Catholic Church. They can 
 themselves exhibit in their own person, and therefore 
 infuse into others — especially by those ministrations 
 to which supernatural blessings have been attached 
 by the express promise of God — that spirit of hu- 
 mility, that separation from worldly interests, that 
 self-sacrifice and self-denial, that enlargement of 
 charity, that confidence in an overruling Providence, 
 that power of discerning His presence. His repre- 
 sentatives, and His hand, even under the darkest 
 disguise of human frailty or earthly chances — that 
 gathering together of affections and of labour round 
 the spot and the person to which His good pleasure 
 has attached us, that contented resignation, that 
 submission to be a witness to truth, and joy in be- 
 coming a martyr, without aspiring to higher func- 
 tions or larger spheres of action, — in one word, all 
 those habits of thought and feeling, which in the 
 Church are charity and faith, and in the nation are 
 loyalty and true patriotism. " To suffer long, and 
 be kind, to envy not, to vaunt not himself, not to be 
 puffed up, not to behave himself unseemly, not to 
 seek his own, not to be easily provoked, to think 
 no evil, to rejoice not in iniquity, but to rejoice 
 
CH. XV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 1 G9 
 
 in the truth, to bear all things, believe all things, 
 hope all things, endure all tilings ;"^ is as much 
 the temper of the citizen as of the Christian. And 
 he who lias learnt it in the Church will practise it 
 also in the nation, which, as well as the Church, is 
 the work of God, and ruled, like the nation, by His 
 ordinances and His ministers. But the power of in- 
 fusing this spirit into the hearts of citizens depends 
 upon one great fact, — that the Church herself can 
 rest her own claim to authority, and to credence, 
 upon external positive law wholly independent of 
 opinion. If it rests upon opinion, like the State, it 
 cannot save the State. One drowning man can give 
 no assistance to another. He who would rescue his 
 brother from a quicksand must himself be standing 
 firmly on a rock. And if the Church be a State es- 
 tablishment, a human contrivance for the government 
 of men ; if its truths are speculative dogmas, not 
 unbroken catholic traditions ; if its moral laws are 
 developments of heathen and rationalistic ethics; if 
 its officers are appointments of man, depending for 
 their origin, and therefore for their permanence, on 
 man ; if its claims to respect and obedience be made 
 not on the express command of God, without refer- 
 ence to the sentiments of His creatures, but on theo- 
 ries of policy and promises of expediency^ — then the 
 Church is pow erless, and its own fate is near at hand. 
 Religion may, indeed, retain a longer hold upon the 
 heart than the mere social affection, but it cannot 
 resist the spread of self-will and self-opinion ; and, 
 in the end, both the Church and the State, and, with 
 them, all the truths, and laws, and institutions, and 
 interests, which they have hitherto been enabled to 
 preserve, will crumble into dust. 
 
 And this is one connexion between the political 
 philosophy and perils of this day, and those great 
 
 ' 1 Cor. xiii. 4. 
 Q 
 
170 THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 doctrines of the Church, which secure it from the 
 general reign and undermining power of opinion. 
 He who woidd malce men loyal, obedient, peaceful, 
 contented, and orderly as citizens, must remind them, 
 as Christians, and impress upon them deeply, that the 
 ministers of the Church are not appointed of them- 
 selves, but have been sent from the first ages of 
 Christianity, by those who had themselves received 
 from God authority to confer their power upon 
 others. They must preach tlie Apostolical Succes- 
 sion. Abandon this, and the clergy must depend 
 for their power on human opinion ; and human 
 opinion will reject and trample on them, when they 
 attempt to invest the offices of civil society with a 
 divine external sanction. They must exhibit a di- 
 vinely appointed scheme of polity, under a monarch- 
 ical rule ; the only scheme in which there really ex- 
 ists a rule external to the ruled ; since an aristocracy 
 decides by a majority, and the principle of majorities 
 once admitted, must rapidly be extended till the 
 populace are admitted to their share in it. A Church 
 which is to support a monarchy must itself sup- 
 port Episcopacy ; and that as a divine institution, 
 founded by Apostles, and guaranteed as such by the 
 catholic practice of Christendom. It must require 
 acceptance of its fundamental doctrines and its pa- 
 ramount laws, its creeds and its Scriptures, not as 
 human either in their origin or their interpretation, 
 but as transmitted from age to age unaltered and un- 
 alterable ; neither added to, nor taken from, in any 
 essential part, since the time of the Apostles. It must 
 preach the doctrine of tradition ; not spurious tra- 
 dition, such as that of Rome, which is no tradition 
 at all, but catholic tradition, such as is recognised by 
 the princi])les of our own Church, like that of old. 
 
 It must teach men from their infancy to regard 
 themselves as members of a vast body, citizens of a 
 
CII. XV.] THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIKNCY. 171 
 
 spiritual kingdom, of which they can neither discern 
 the extent, nor understand all tiie relations, nor con- 
 form at once their inclinations to its laws, nor see its 
 unseen King — but into which tiiey were brought by 
 others, without act or choice of their own, while they 
 were incapable of exercising thought, or expressing 
 will ; which nevertheless, at the peril of life and all 
 which they most value, exacts from them a rigid obe- 
 dience — to which they have incurred the most solemn 
 obligations, while they have received from it the 
 greatest knowledge — from which they cannot retire 
 without eternal death — of which they only form a 
 small, a most minute portion ; and yet participate in 
 all its grandeur and its fortunes — and which binds 
 them, by an invisible bond, to innumerable beings 
 like themselves ; that they may rejoice and sorrow 
 with each other ; call themselves by one name ; dwell, 
 as it were, in one spiritual city ; share in one earth, 
 the Church ; and in one heaven, the presence of their 
 Saviour ; and acknowledge one Lord and King, 
 whom yet they have never beheld with eyes of flesh. 
 Whatever stage of dissolution political society has 
 reached — whatever moral and civil corruption has 
 alienated man from man, and brought a nation to 
 the verge of anarchy, — teach them to regard them- 
 selves as baptised Ciiristians, as having been made 
 by baptism 'members of Christ, children of God, and 
 inheritors of the kingdom of heaven,' and it will be 
 possible to bring them to understand, and feel, and 
 act up to their analogous relations to their kingdom 
 upon earth. 
 
 So all the mysteries of political society — its 
 theory of persons, its official privileges, as distin- 
 guished from personal character, its involved and 
 intricate adjustment of powers, its fortunes, its hid- 
 den influences, the paradoxes which constitute its 
 chief wisdom and fundamental axioms, — will present 
 
172 THE PRINCIPLE OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 themselves, even as old familiar truths, to those who 
 have been nurtured in the Church, to accept its doc- 
 trines upon faith, to see beneath outward visible signs 
 of Divine appointment an inward spiritual grace, 
 and to reverence its sacraments. What Plato in his 
 elevated philosophy unhesitatingly maintained, and 
 Aristotle, with his modified scepticism and utilitari- 
 anism, was compelled to doubt, the Church system 
 thoroughly realises. It makes the virtue and the 
 duties of the individual coincident with those of 
 the citizen. His eye opens as he advances and the 
 prospect widens ; another sphere of action presents 
 itself, and new offices are accumulated ; but the 
 relations and proportions of these new objects are 
 the same as before. And the thoughts, and habits, 
 and faculties, which are required and matured in 
 any field of Christian duty, however small, are the 
 same which will fit him for discharging the vastest 
 range of functions in the kingdom of God upon 
 earth, or hereafter in His kingdom in heaven. The 
 same law which draws a pebble to the ground, re- 
 tains the planets in their orbits, and the sun in its 
 centre. 
 
 And thus, if the spirit of faith, the only true 
 bond of society, is once more to be infused into its 
 masses, it must be by the ministrations of a Church, 
 Holy, Catholic, and Apostolical; Episcopal in its 
 government. Traditional in its creeds, Sacramental in 
 its ministrations. Mysterious in its doctrines — but, 
 let it never be forgotten, finding for itself a home 
 in the affections and reverence of the people by 
 its own goodness and self-sacrifice, its purity and 
 charity, its moileration and sanctity ; that having 
 first won the hearts of subjects to itself, it may then 
 bind them also to their king. 
 
Cli. XVI.] THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 173 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 But if such is the account to be given of the true 
 origin and preservation of Society, what becomes of 
 the theory of the Social Compact — a theory which, 
 however fictitious in its data, and extravagant in its 
 results, lias still recommended itself to minds of no 
 little acuteness, and certainly coincides with many of 
 our natural instincts, and seemingly, to a certain 
 extent, with historical experience? 
 
 When thoroughly developed, this theory assumes 
 the following form : — That society is composed of 
 individuals — that those individuals are all born 
 equal, equal at least in their right and title to 
 power, if not in the possession of it — that they are 
 justified, therefore, in claiming this equality of power 
 and in maintaining it as they find means — that 
 perceiving from experience, that such a state of 
 conflict and war was incompatible even with the 
 existence of man, they met together and voluntarily 
 surrendered to one or more persons power over the 
 whole body, that the whole body might be preserved 
 in peace and order ; but that this voluntary sur- 
 render was made on the condition that the power 
 thus conferred should be exercised solely for their 
 good — and that of this good they were to remain 
 judges, and would retain in their own hands the 
 right to resume or modify the power according to 
 their own discretion, whenever they considered the 
 compact to be violated by an abuse of it. 
 
 The theory might be stated in a more terse and 
 q2 
 
174 THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 
 
 striking form of absurdity and self-contradiction ; 
 but this is not necessary. 
 
 The first fallacy lies in making individuals, not 
 families, the elementary constituent parts of society. 
 And the object of this assumption is to evade the 
 palpable contradiction to the hypothesis of natural 
 equality contained in the condition and relations of 
 parent and child. If, in the domestic union, human 
 beings are not equal — if they are framed by nature 
 under a form of the greatest inequality — if this in- 
 equality cannot be destroyed by any advance of 
 strength or intellect in the son, so long as he is 
 morally bound to reverence and obey the father 
 who gave him life — and if the happiness and virtues 
 of both parties depend on this very inequality, and 
 on the duties and affections which flow from it, — 
 then in political society the analogy of nature would 
 infer not equality, but similar inequality, and a 
 similar reciprocation of obedience and law in the 
 governor and the governed. 
 
 To maintain, therefore, the political hypothesis, 
 the facts of the family are put out of sight. And 
 even the fifth commandment is so perverted and 
 slighted, that the home, with such philosophers, 
 becomes nothing but a physical contrivance for the 
 preservation of animal life ; and its obligations are 
 merged and lost in a barter of bodily enjoyment. 
 The language of Locke himself, upon the domestic 
 relations, must be sufficient to warn any Christian 
 against blindly admitting his theory of political re- 
 lations. 
 
 But, admitting the composition of society from 
 individuals, as adult representatives of families, we 
 are met by another falsehood, — the natural equality 
 of adults. They are not equal — not equal in talents, 
 in age, in experience, in bodily strength, in ingenuity 
 of contrivance, in self-command, in intensity of pas- 
 
CH. XVI.] THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 175 
 
 sion, in goodness, in knowledge, in maturity of habits, 
 in any thing upon which the relations of political so- 
 ciety in this world can be adjusted and calculated. In 
 one sense, indeed, they are equal — equal as Christians 
 before God — equal as having nothing of their own, 
 and as holding all which they possess by one and the 
 same tenure, of permission and free gift from Him, 
 through the merits of one Lord and Saviour. And 
 yet even in this equality, what "diversities of gifts," 
 what " differences of administrations !" ^ " To one 
 is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another 
 the word of knowledge, by the same Spirit ; to an- 
 other faith, by the same Spirit ; to another the gifts 
 of healing, by the same Spirit ; to another the work- 
 ing of miracles ; to another prophecy ; to another 
 discerning of spirits ; to another divers kinds of 
 tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues."^ 
 Even in heaven there are rulers and ruled, " thrones, 
 and dominions, and principalities, and powers."** 
 How much more in the distribution of earthly and 
 material things, of which the very essence consists 
 in plurality, and the knowledge depends upon di- 
 versity, and the action upon opposition, and the 
 beauty upon variety ! They are not equal as nature 
 forms them. They ought not, by any moral law, to 
 be equal in their possession of wealth and power, 
 either personal or political — for the Divine Being 
 has not distributed such external things upon any 
 principle of equality, or according to any proportion 
 of moral or spiritual goodness. Their equality would 
 destroy the very nature of society, by excluding any 
 supreme and binding power to cement its atoms ; 
 any distribution of offices to harmonise its move- 
 ments ; any variety of relations to call forth duties 
 and affections. And even if equality were possible 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 4. ^ ver. 8. 3 Coloss. i. 16. 
 
176 THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 
 
 where men are perfect, it is impossible in that battle 
 of self-will and passion, which the absence of a con- 
 trolling rule lets loose upon the world, and in which 
 the whole struggle is directed to the attainment of 
 the greatest possible inequality, and is continued un- 
 til this is achieved. Throw men together in a body 
 — unbind the restraints upon their wills, — and then 
 preach to them the doctrine of equality ; and you 
 may as well let loose all the winds of heaven upon 
 the sea, and command that its waters will lie smooth. 
 
 But there is a third fallacy, which has perplexed 
 these reasoners, and which they do not profess to 
 escape from. 
 
 Any body of individuals acting together must 
 act by the voice of a majority. They must divide 
 into two portions. Nothing can prevent this. It is 
 an elementary law of all society. However small or 
 however large it be, one portion must be ruled and 
 governed by the other ; and governed against their 
 will, contrary to their notions of expediency, and, 
 where expediency is the standard of goodness, con- 
 trary to their sense of right. So again, the majority 
 itself must resolve itself into two portions, — the sin- 
 gle voice which decides it, and the number which 
 without it remains impotent and lifeless, a caput 
 mortuum. No theory, no contrivance, no fiction or 
 fact, can prevent society from falling into these 
 three elementary forms and portions. A Monarch, 
 a State, and a People, it must possess. Who shall 
 be the State, who the Monarch, and who the People, 
 may be doubted ; and on these points experiments 
 may be infinitely varied. But in their essential cha- 
 racters they nmst exist. 
 
 What, then, becomes of the theory of society in 
 which there is to be no people ; that is, no persons 
 who are to be governed against their will ; in which 
 the equal rights of all are asserted upon the autho- 
 
CH, XVI.] THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 177 
 
 rity of a natural law, when nature herself provides, 
 by an irresistible force, against the maintenance of 
 those rights? How has nature pronounced that all 
 men should be free, when she has rendered it impos- 
 sible for them to exist except in society, and im- 
 possible for society to exist without one portion of 
 it being reduced to a state of slavery — that is, of 
 subjection to a rule in which they have no voice, 
 and against which both their reason and their incli- 
 nations must necessarily but ineffectually rebel ? 
 
 I pass over the absurdity of supposing that men 
 living, as it is called, in a state of nature, that is, 
 in the very last state in which nature designed that 
 they should live, — a state of war, and license, and 
 anarchy — of pillage and bloodshed — of mutual ag- 
 gression and mutual suffering, — that such men, fa- 
 miliarised to crime and nurtured in rapacity, should 
 meet together and voluntarily surrender themselves 
 to a magistrate and a prison. We hear much of 
 fictions of law ; but surely no fiction was ever bolder 
 and more gratuitous than this. It may be assumed 
 as an universal law of nations as of individuals, that 
 they can never correct themselves. He who has 
 fallen by his own fault must be raised by the strength 
 and the sacrifice of another. And a people once 
 sunk in barbarism can only be civilised by some 
 external arm. 
 
 But in the nature of this voluntary surrender 
 lies the hypothesis of a contract. And it requires 
 to be examined. 
 
 A contract, then, implies the existence not only 
 of two w^ills, persons, or parties, between whom it 
 is made, but an equality, or seeming equality, in 
 their power. Where there is no equality there can 
 be no contract. It is a wonderful reflection, when 
 we think on the covenant between God and man. 
 But even in that covenant it is maintained by every 
 
178 THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 
 
 gift and attribute which is imparted to man by the 
 Gospel, and which raises him from earth to heaven. 
 That which man can take by his own arm he will 
 not consent to receive as a gift. What he can com- 
 mand is his own ; not, indeed, by the law of God, or 
 that law of morals which is an application of the 
 law of God ; but by that law of self-will and covet- 
 ousness, which, in a state of anarchy previous to the 
 formation of society, is supposed to exist, and to 
 suppress which it is said that society is established. 
 
 But the only principle upon which a contract 
 can be made is faith. It implies a reciprocal trans- 
 fer of power or of good, in which the surrender must 
 be made before the return can be received ; in which 
 therefore no security can be obtained but the pro- 
 mise or oath of the first receiver; and which pro- 
 mise or oath derives its whole credibility from the 
 faith of the person to whom it is pledged. Wher- 
 ever this faith is wanting, the contract really resolves 
 itself into an appeal to superior force. You purchase 
 a pair of gloves in a shop, and pay down the money, 
 knowing that if the shopkeeper refuses to give you 
 the gloves, after he has received the money, the ma- 
 gistrate can compel him. Or you lend money upon the 
 security of a third person, knowing that the law will 
 supply you with a physical force to obtain possession 
 of the amount, whether the borrower keeps faith 
 or not. But wherever this physical force, on the 
 side of the surrendering party, is wanting, if the 
 contract is to take place at all, it must take place 
 on the principle of faith. The terms of it may be 
 fixed by calculations of expediency ; but its realisa- 
 tion must depend either upon force or upon fiiith. 
 But the grand Social Contract, as it is termed, can 
 make no reference to force. Either the power 
 which is supposed to be lodged by it in the hands 
 of the rulers, is really the supreme ultimate power 
 
CH. XVI.] THK SOCIAL COMPACT. 179 
 
 of the nation, which must exist somewhere, and 
 which constitutes the government; or it is an infe- 
 rior delegated portion of it, and the supremacy is 
 still retained, the ultimate appeal is still reserved, in 
 the hands of the people. In the former case, no force 
 exists which can compel the fulfilment of the con- 
 tract, supposing it to be violated. You raise up a 
 government; you place it in possession of arms and 
 armies ; you surrender to it your own defence ; you 
 post it in your fortresses and citadels ; you strip all 
 its subjects of their means of resistance, and pro- 
 strate yourselves unarmed and helpless at its feet : 
 for if the ruler is created to repress crimes — crimes 
 of wiiich every member of the society is suspected 
 or is guilty — the criminals must be placed at his 
 disposal. Where, then, is the power which is to con- 
 trol himself? Quis custodial ipsum custodem 9 Not 
 upon earth, not in the nation, or in any part of the 
 nation ; for by the very terms and fact of the con- 
 tract, you have emptied yourselves of it. Only one 
 arm exists to overrule the human rulers, and to pro- 
 tect and avenge the subject — the arm of Providence. 
 Deum ultorem expectet. And to this arm you must 
 trust, when you make the surrender of your power. 
 I suppose that such a fact as a contract actually takes 
 place. That a multitude of savages, stained with 
 each other's blood, and burning with rapacity and 
 lust, meet together, as wearied out with crime, and 
 agree to appoint themselves a keeper ; an agreement 
 as easy to make and as rational to conceive as the 
 theory which usually accompanies it, that men with- 
 out language assembled themselves, and invented 
 a language by convention, communicated without 
 power of communication on the means of commu- 
 nicating in future. If the government which they 
 elect is really to be their keeper and their ruler,- 
 is to be any thing but a puppet and a tool in their 
 
180 THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 
 
 own hands, to be shifted and moved at their caprice, 
 they must give him supreme power. With the sur- 
 render of supreme power they are themselves power- 
 less ; and the only principle which can warrant such 
 a risk, is faith in his character and in Providence ; 
 and the only course which is marked out for them 
 in future, is a patient submission to his Mill, even 
 when he violates the terms prescribed to him before 
 his appointment. Deum ultorern exjiectet. 
 
 Even the social contract, then, ends in the same 
 necessity for faith and resignation which is required 
 by the monarchical principle. There is no escape. 
 
 But if its advocates are not content with this ; if 
 they take the other alternative, that in conferring 
 the powers of government they never abandoned their 
 own supremacy, then the social contract is at once 
 annihilated. There is no more contract between a 
 people and a governor thus appointed and restricted, 
 than between a king and a constable, or a man and 
 his walking-stick. Both are servants, instruments, 
 machines, to be wielded and disposed of by the hand 
 which is their master. And the government resolves 
 itself into a democracy. 
 
 And yet the theory of the social contract is not 
 so easily quashed. No theory which has obtained a 
 strong hold over mankind, at any period, can be 
 without its truths. It is true that, in a certain sense, 
 all men are equal ; true that they owe to each other 
 in all their intercourse, especially in their relations 
 of governors and subjects, reciprocal duties ; true 
 that subjects possess a right, a moral right, to be 
 well governed, just as kings possess a right to be 
 obeyed ; true that the people have the power, the 
 physical power, of destroying any government with 
 which they are dissatisfied. They may rise, and 
 burn, and massacre. The physical power must al- 
 ways be with the multitude ; and when it is properly 
 
CH. XVI.] THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 181 
 
 organised, it must be, for the time, triumphant. But 
 the words, 'right and power,' 'can and may,' have 
 been sadly confounded and abused. And tliey will 
 not be cleared from the most mischievous perplexity, 
 until we set before us the fact, so strange to our na- 
 tural moral expectations, and seemingly so irrecon- 
 ciieable with the justice and goodness of the Creator, 
 except by the spirit of faith, that the scales and 
 proportions of physical power and of material good, 
 in tins world, do not coincide, and cannot be adjusted 
 to correspond with the measures of moral goodness. 
 That good should be requited with good, and evil 
 with evil, is a truth of our conscience, eternal, im- 
 mutable, universal, with the reversal of which every 
 principle of morality must fall to the ground. That 
 physical power and material advantages are goods, 
 is a natural instinctive fancy, but not a truth. They 
 are not goods; not, at the least, such goods as Pro- 
 vidence would assign as its best reward of virtue here. 
 But those who think them goods will often think that 
 they are withheld, and unjustly, from those who 
 deserve them ; and man, who is " proud in heart," 
 and " whose ways are all clean in his own eyes," will 
 never acquiesce in their withdrawal from himself. 
 The possession of them becomes, in his view, a right ; 
 and a right so consistent with the primary law of 
 justice and with the will of God, that it must never 
 be allowed to rest in abeyance. But confess that 
 such tilings are not good ; or, at least, that they are 
 not intended by Providence to be distributed exactly 
 in proportion to moral goodness; and the claim to 
 them ceases to be made. The circle of our moral 
 rights diminishes in our own eyes as the circle of our 
 humility expands, till at last it is reduced to nothing. 
 Before Ood man has no rights whatever. And be- 
 fore the ministers of God he stands as before God 
 Himself, in all the ministrations which they exercise 
 
 R 
 
182 THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 
 
 in the name and by the authority of God. "Charity 
 seeketh not her own." 
 
 And yet the word ' right' is used in another sense. 
 It signifies claims which are sanctioned and may be 
 enforced by the positive laws of our country. Right 
 is that which is ruled and ordered — ruled, whether 
 by God or man. And upon the positive enactments 
 of man we must rest, and by them define our title to 
 external goods. Moral riglits and legal rights are 
 thus, in the eyes of men, frequently contradictory. 
 A. possesses legal rights to a vast estate, which he 
 wastes in encouraging crime. B. possesses a legal 
 right to close up a pathway, by which he causes 
 serious injury to his neighbour. C. is allowed to ac- 
 cumulate an enormous capital, which enables him to 
 monopolise a branch of commerce, and to impoverish 
 many families ; but no one may interfere with it. 
 D. hoards up wealth, which, if diff'used, would save 
 hundreds from starvation and vice. E. holds an 
 hereditary office for which, individually, he is unfit. 
 F. is honoured with a family title, without possessing 
 any claims to personal respect. All these are vio- 
 lations of that supposed law of equity — supposed, 
 not real — by which we expect that material good 
 will be proportioned to moral good. But yet they 
 are " rights." And they are sanctioned by the same 
 great Author and Founder of society who has given 
 to man power over His material world, and authority 
 to frame and to enforce laws, and a command to 
 him to act by precedent and prescription, to " stand 
 in the old ways, and walk in the old paths," and " to 
 meddle not with them that are given to change." 
 
 Moral rights and legal rights — distinguish them 
 well, and we shall not be misled into the crimes 
 which have been suggested l)y the "rights of men." 
 Moral rights to external goods we have none. All 
 that we possess we must receive, and hold, and 
 
CII. XVI.] THE SOCIAL COMPACT. 183 
 
 abandon, as lent, not givfn, to us by God. Legal 
 rights we possess only by the positive laws of the 
 country ; and no one must attempt to disturb them 
 by private aets, however inconsistent they may seem 
 witli our individual calculations of expediency, or 
 with our theories of moral justice. 
 
 And thus we reach all the truth which is con- 
 tained in the perverted proverbs, that " might makes 
 right," and "possession conveys a title," and "posi- 
 tive enactments are the foundation of justice." They 
 are foundations for our title to external goods. And 
 all external goods must be held by superior might, 
 because they are at the mercy of it. And possession 
 may be made to constitute a title, because the first 
 object of society is permanence and rest; and, under 
 certain restrictions, it must endeavour to prevent all 
 disturbances and changes in its system. But in all 
 this the question of moral right is left untouched. 
 It is reserved for a higher tribunal — for Him who 
 gives the talents — to judge and to punish their 
 waste and their abuse. And to Him alone the pos- 
 sessors, whether of property or of rule, are respon- 
 sible for the exercise of their power. 
 
 These principles are of vital importance in one of 
 the ciiief functions of government, the regulation and 
 distribution of social wealth. But they are touched 
 on here, only as they affect that theory of rebellion 
 and revolution, which is involved in the popular 
 watchword of the rights of man, and in the theory 
 of the social contract. 
 
 And having now traced out the general laws by 
 which the supreme ruler of the nation is pointed 
 out, and the society is bound together under his will, 
 we may proce(»d to examine the constitution of that 
 body which is to be associated with the individual 
 sovereign in the government, and which may be 
 properly called the State. 
 
184 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Tins State, as before shewn, is no fictitious or acci- 
 dental element in the composition of society. It is 
 a natural and necessary formation. Whether society 
 be created by a congeries of individuals pressing to- 
 gether, and forcing out of their own body smaller and 
 smaller combinations to execute the functions of 
 government, till they reach the single presiding unit, 
 or supreme will of an individual — as popular assem- 
 blies cannot act till they elect a council, nor that 
 council till it appoints a committee, nor that com- 
 mittee till it fixes a quorum, nor that quorum till it 
 nominates a chairman and casting-vote — or whether, 
 on the other hand, the crystallisation of the body 
 flows out from the head, as in the expansion of the 
 family ; and the monarch creates ofl^icers, and those 
 oflScers appoint subordinates, and those subordinates 
 gather under them the mass of the people, — what- 
 ever be the process, we are met alike by the natural 
 development of a body distinct from the monarch ; 
 possessing an independent will, and virtually armed 
 M'ith the chief physical power in the nation. The 
 ministers, counsellors, army, and police of a king ; 
 and the majority in the democratical assembly, ex- 
 clusive of the vote which turns the scale, — occupy 
 the same relative position, and in each case consti- 
 tute the State. 
 
 The functions of this body may be resolved into 
 four : — 
 
 First, to assist in forming and perfecting the will 
 of the sovereign, as by advice and counsel. 
 
CH. XVII.] THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 185 
 
 Secondly, to carry into effect the decisions of the 
 sovereign, as an executive. 
 
 Thirdly, to check and control the possible aber- 
 rations of his will. 
 
 And fourthly (a function most important to be 
 considered), to exercise and elevate as large a pro- 
 portion as possible of the people, by a participation 
 in the offices and habits of government. 
 
 All these functions are correctives to evils and 
 defects which are inseparably connected with the 
 individualism of the monarch. As an individual, his 
 reason must be imperfect, and his appetites liable to 
 deception. And he requires the wisdom and good- 
 ness of others to supply his own defects, and to give 
 unity to his own will, without which there can be no 
 permanent unity in the will and in the acts of the 
 nation. As an individual, again, he is powerless. 
 His arm cannot reach, or compress, or guide the 
 movements of the people. He must see with the 
 eyes and hear with the ears of others, to take in a 
 sufficient sphere of action. He must spread himself 
 through and over the whole body of society, by 
 grasping and attaching to himself a vast mass of 
 machinery of human ministers, as the bones and 
 nerves and muscles of the body are attached to the 
 brain, and form the framework on which the whole 
 body is moulded, impressed, and moved. As an in- 
 dividual, again, he will be subject to aberrations from 
 right ; and he must be surrounded with checks and 
 safeguards, for his own sake as well as for that of 
 others. And as an individual, lastly, if he absorbs 
 in himself all the offices of government, he drains 
 the vitality, energy, and goodness of the rest of the 
 community, leaving it without a field for noble 
 action, and without the highest discipline for its 
 virtues — those virtues which may mainly be resolved 
 into reciprocal obedience and command ; and to 
 R 2 
 
186 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 foster which this earth seems framed upon a system 
 of relations, of which inequality, and the duties flow- 
 ing from inequality, are the essential basis. 
 
 But in framing such a body, there is an obvious 
 peril. To perform its functions rightly, it must be 
 infinitely superior to the monarch, — superior in wis- 
 dom to advise, in strength to support, in virtue to 
 check his vices, in numerical and physical force to 
 contain within it a large proportion of the people. 
 It must possess a personality of its own, a will, a 
 thinking principle, a power of originating action. It 
 must occupy a vast space in the eyes of the people. 
 It must be independent, to be capable of strengthen- 
 ing, correcting, resisting, or governing. The pool 
 which is fed from a spring, and has no spring of its 
 own, cannot supply water to its source, when that 
 source is exhausted. We cannot lean upon an arm, 
 which leans wholly, for its own support, upon us. 
 We cannot seek for counsel in those, whose only 
 wisdom is derived from ourselves. Wlien the root 
 dies, the branch withers, unless it be laid into the 
 ground, and can draw to it life from fibres of its 
 own. And if the State be wholly the creation of, be 
 wholly dependent upon the monarch, it cannot aid 
 the monarch as he requires to be aided. 
 
 But with its independence, and distinct person- 
 ality, what is to become of the unity of the nation ? 
 How are two wills to be reduced to one ? How are 
 we to prevent perpetual conflicts between the mon- 
 arch and the State ? The State must still remain a 
 subject; otherwise society becomes a monster, a 
 body with a double will, and double principle of 
 motion ; under which it must be torn to pieces in 
 daily battles, until one is enslaved to the other. 
 
 Thus, then, we reach once more the fundamental 
 problem of soci(;ty, — how to create a body which shall 
 be distinct from the monarch, and yet inseparably 
 
en. XVII.] THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 187 
 
 connected with him ; superior to him in power and 
 goodness, yet interior to him ; a ruler, yet a subject; 
 independent, yet dependent. And once more the 
 Christian will be struck with the wonderful paral- 
 lelism between this political phenomenon and the 
 moral phenomenon of his own nature ; and still 
 more with the fundamental mysteries of his revealed 
 theology. There also, in his own nature, he recog- 
 nises the two persons, the spirit and the flesh lust- 
 ing and striving against each other, neither of them 
 to be annihilated, but both, by a holy discipline, to 
 be harmonised into one. And there also, in the 
 mysteries of theology, he is taught to profess his 
 faith in a Being " both man and God," inferior, yet 
 equal; of two natures, but one person; united with 
 His Church upon earth as with His bones and with 
 His flesh, yet seated on His throne in heaven ; and 
 ruling over all its movements by His Holy Spirit, 
 while He submits His own movements to be ruled 
 by the prayers of His people. Kingdoms of the 
 earth are, in all their essential analogies, framed as 
 tiie kingdom of heaven ; framed upon mysteries — 
 which are rather experienced in practice and ac- 
 knowledged in faith than to be distinctly explained 
 by reasoning. 
 
 There is but one mode of solving this problem, 
 of preserving two wills in unity without destroying 
 their distinctness and moral personality. It is by 
 subjecting one to the other in faith, reserving to the 
 subject a power, not so much of originating a coun- 
 ter movement, as of refusing to obey impressions ; in 
 other words, of passive resistance. If it has no power 
 distinct from that of its superior, it is a mere slave, 
 a tool, a machine. It loses its personality as an 
 apxi) 7rfj(it,eiog. If it moves against its superior, it 
 becomes a rebel. The power, therefore, and the 
 right of standing still, is all that is left; and it is 
 
188 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 perfectly sufficient. A parliament or a citizen who 
 would never raise an arm against the sovereign, and 
 yet would refuse to act at his command when his 
 commands were wrong, would retain their perfect 
 personality, without destroying the unity of the na- 
 tion by a conflict of two wills. 
 
 Secondly, it is obvious that a body which is ca- 
 pable of independently refusing to move, is able also 
 independently to attempt a counter-movement; and 
 when armed with such power as the State possesses, 
 armed in fact with power superior to any other in 
 the realm, it is beyond all control whatever but 
 the moral control of its own conscience. Nothing 
 but this can hinder it from trespassing on the au- 
 thority of the sovereign. It may be easy to prevent 
 a populace, but it is very difficult indeed to prevent 
 a parliament, from becoming a rebel, except by its 
 own self-command. 
 
 Thirdly, it may be observed incidentally, that if 
 any where the Social Contract is realised, it is between 
 the State and the monarch ; not between the people 
 and the monarch. The people are, by their very con- 
 dition of inferiority, excluded from the possibility of 
 contracting. They have nothing to give. Whether 
 in the hands of a majority of themselves, or under a 
 despot at the head of an army, they are alike in the 
 position of slaves. But the State and the monarch 
 are placed much nearer on an equality. And the 
 internal history of nations is, for the most part, a 
 series of struggles and compromises between these 
 two parties ; the justice or rectitude of which strug- 
 gles in no way involves the popular theory of the 
 " rights of men." They may be wrong even in par- 
 liaments, but their being right in parliaments will 
 not make them right in the people. To one is com- 
 mitted, by Nature herself, some portion of the func- 
 tions of government, to the other none, rarliaments 
 
CH. XVII.] THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 189 
 
 may refuse their consent to a tax ; but a subject has 
 no right to withhohl it, when parliament has granted 
 it. Whatever be the truth of an original compact, 
 the subject was no party to it. Not liis rights, but 
 tiie rigiits of the State, are violated, when tyranny is 
 attem])ted ; and though his own rights are involved 
 in those of the parliament, as the child's are involved 
 in the parent's, it is for the parliament not the peo- 
 ple, the parent not the child, to obtain redress. 
 
 But, fourthly, if it is difficult to secure the de- 
 })endence of the State upon the monarch, it is also 
 ilifficult to secure its independence, its rational and 
 wise independence. All society has an irresistible 
 tendency to merge itself in the hands of an indi- 
 vidual, and to accumulate power round him. This 
 is indicated by the miserable alternative to which 
 unchristian democracies are condemned, of shifting 
 their power from hantl to hand ; and of allowing no 
 one individual to retain it for any time, lest he should 
 establish an authority beyond the control of the 
 ])eo))le. Further, in a w^ell-constituted society, its 
 fundamental theory places the origin of all power in 
 the hands of the monarch. This tendency is realised 
 by it and indulged. And it seems impossible to 
 throw the subject thus entirely under his sovereign, 
 both physically and morally, and at the same time to 
 demand from him an independent exercise of his will. 
 He is, indeed, a rational being, and as such can- 
 not but exercise his judgment upon measures and 
 principles proposed to him. And he is responsible 
 to his Maker, as well as, and prior to, his sovereign. 
 And he is bound to pause before he obeys ; and to 
 examine if obedience to his earthly ruler involves 
 disobedience to his Lord in heaven. And in these 
 necessary appeals to reason and religion are gene- 
 rally phice(l the origin of the independence of the 
 subject. They are the true origin ; and they involve 
 
190 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 the necessity of cultivating in the State, and in the 
 people from amongst whom the State developes it- 
 self, habits of thought and sobriety, of piety and 
 Avisdom. Education, religious education, is the first 
 condition in the formation of a State. 
 
 And with these words, vague and indistinct as 
 they are, modern political philosophy appears to be 
 content. A few years since, it was thought sufficient 
 that the State should be able to rest its independent 
 action, and to determine and justify its resistance 
 to the monarch, upon principles of reason. But as 
 reason, severed from duty to a superior being, to a 
 moral person, terminates, as we have before seen, in 
 calculations of expediency ; and expediency in con- 
 trivances for animal and sensual enjoyment; and 
 those contrivances in violence and fraud, as the 
 easiest method of attaining their object, — even theo- 
 ries of expediency have been compelled to advance 
 farther, and to add, that education should be moral ; 
 that when the state exerts its privilege of independent 
 movement, it may be guided by considerations of 
 the right and the wrong, as well as of the pleasant 
 and the painful. But even this was not sufficient. 
 Independent reason and independent conscience were 
 found neither of them safe foundations on which to 
 rest the independence of the State. Ethical theories 
 rose up fully as startling as any in logic or meta- 
 physics, and even more obviously and immediately 
 destructive of society. And both sheltered them- 
 selves under liberty of conscience and liberty of 
 thought. It was found that independence could not 
 be admitted without law to control it; nor law exist 
 without a lawgiver; nor any lawgiver supreme and 
 universal, and irresistilde, be found for the indepen- 
 dence of the human will, but the great Lord and 
 Lawgiver of the universe. Education was now to 
 be religious. It was a great advance. But we have 
 
CII. XVIT.] THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 191 
 
 not yet reached a safe and solid ground. It is true 
 that, consistently with the peace and unity ofsociety, 
 no subject can be permitted to withhold obedience 
 from his sovereign, except on the plea that he owes 
 a prior and contrary obedience to his God. But if 
 he draws this contrary law from his own reasoning, 
 or from his own conscience, these are once more 
 made tlie rule of his action, and the standard of truth. 
 And as many crimes and rebellions will be perpe- 
 trated under the pretence of a Divine command as 
 under the plea of an enlightened philosophy, or of a 
 tender conscience. The law must be external. It 
 must be positive. It must be placed beyond the 
 reach either of reason or of conscience — to be con- 
 firmed by them, but not created by them. It must 
 be revealed. And education was then extended to 
 comprise Christianity. But, with the name of Chris- 
 tianity, instead of one positive, definite law, rose up 
 an infinite variety of creeds and sects, all claiming 
 alike the knowledge of God, and to be the deposi- 
 taries and interpreters of His will, and therefore to 
 be proper guides for the will of the subject, in his 
 relations to his earthly rulers, as in all other matters 
 of human life. What was to decide between them? 
 All alike appealed to the written w^ord of God, but 
 differed in their interpretation. And all rested their 
 several interpretations on the reason and feeling of 
 man — on opinion. Reason and conscience, so called, 
 once more became the standard of truth. And with 
 them for interpreters of the Divine Will, it mattered 
 little whether an infidel, with his own notions of ex- 
 pediency, or a sectarian with the Bible in his hand, 
 stood ready to object to, and to resist, the will of 
 his ruler. Each could bring out from his inquiries 
 any result wiiich he desired. 
 
 But among these sects, yet not of them, stands 
 another body, also bearing the name of Christi- 
 
192 THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 anity, but refusing any title which implies party 
 or dissension. It also carries in its hand, and 
 appeals to, the Bible. But it differs from all the 
 others in disclaiming an appeal to opinion. It pro- 
 pounds its system, not as expedient or good, but 
 as authorised and instituted by God. It maintains 
 its fundamental doctrines, not as educed by man 
 from human interpretations of Scripture, but as 
 historically witnessed to by the Church, and to be 
 subsequently confirmed by Scripture. It asserts its 
 authority, not as derived from man, but as conveyed 
 in an unbroken stream, from an external source, and 
 that source the Apostolical body, appointed by God 
 Himself. All its essential institutions are positive. 
 Its character is that of obedience. Its spirit is faith ; 
 and its historical testimony itself is made to rest on 
 the evidence of sense, as that which is least exposed 
 to deception — least liable to the perversions of 
 self-will — most open, most general, most perma- 
 nent, most positive and external, and therefore most 
 agreeable to the true principles of reasoning, of all 
 human elements of belief. 
 
 If, therefore, the State is to be independent of 
 the monarch, it must rest this claim upon a Divine 
 commission. And a Divine commission it finds, both 
 in the positive law of revelation and in the dictates 
 of conscience and reason, that it is to obey God 
 rather than man ; and therefore, that when man 
 commands what is contrary to the will of God, it is 
 bound to refuse submission. But to secure this 
 liberty from abuse, it must be rescued from the 
 caprice of opinion, and placed under the conditions 
 and restrictions of positive law. A subject must 
 not think that such and such a command is contrary 
 to the will of God. He must know it, and know it 
 from the mouth of God, or from the ministers of 
 God ; from some source external to man. He can- 
 
CH. XVII.] THE COXSTITUTION OF THE STATE. 1J)3 
 
 not find even the pretence to this external know- 
 ledge out of the limits of the Catholic Church. And 
 therefore the Catholic Church, with all its peculiar 
 principles, which, as we have shewn before, places its 
 authority and its doctrines out of the reach of human 
 opinion, is an essential and necessary element in the 
 composition of a State. The State must be the 
 Church, and the Church the State. I am speaking 
 not of the Clergy, but of the whole body of Chris- 
 tians contained within its communion. 
 
 Emancipate the State from the control of the 
 principles of the Church ; abandon them to any form 
 of Christianity in which a definite external creed 
 and positive external authority are wanting ; and 
 you will immediately find that it rises up in rebellion 
 against its Sovereign, under the right and true plea 
 of a Divine command to refuse to do wrong ; and 
 nominally under subjection to that law, but, in 
 reality, with its self-will let loose to follow out the 
 devices and imaginations of its own heart, under 
 cover of the right of private interpretation. This 
 constituted the English rebellion ; just as the licence 
 of reason apart from religion originated the French 
 revolution. And this forms that connexion between 
 dissent and sedition, and between Church princi- 
 ples and obedience, which has so often been ex- 
 hibited, and recently with such signal evidence in 
 our own manufacturing districts. It is the expla- 
 nation of the attempt now making to construct an 
 education for the people which shall be not only in- 
 tellectual, but moral; not only moral, but religious; 
 not only religious, but Christian; and not only Chris- 
 tian, but such as to make them true members of a 
 Catholic and Apostolical Church. 
 
194 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 In all this reasoning we have not yet departed from 
 the firm ground of indisputable facts. The existence 
 of the State as distinct from the Monarch is a fact. 
 It is not a thing which should be, but which must 
 be. And the existence of the Church — its duty to 
 gather under its wing, and to nourish in its principles, 
 the whole body of the people, but especially all those 
 who are called to any office of government ; and 
 its claim, and rightful claim, to the character of an 
 external, positive Institution, established by God 
 Himself, the depositary of His revelation, and the 
 historical witness to His laws — all this is likewise 
 a fact, as distinguished from any theory of analogy 
 or expediency. 
 
 But the "christian may be permitted to see, in 
 this primary constitution of society, a striking paral- 
 lelism to the constitution of the family. It is not 
 good that man should be alone ; and, by a natural 
 provision, there is wrought out in the person of the 
 State, a help meet for the individualism of the Mon- 
 arch. It is wrought out of the body of the nation ; 
 that body which, by an inevitable law, is bound up 
 and made one with the Monarch, to be governed by his 
 will, permeated by his movements, involved in all his 
 fortunes, whether of good or of evil; that body which 
 he is bound to love and cherish as his own flesh. 
 Again, "the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall 
 upon Adam, and he slept : and He took one of his 
 ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the 
 rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made 
 
CH. XVIII.] CHURCH AND THE STATE, 195 
 
 he a woman, and brought lier unto the man."' And 
 so, into the State, the help meet for the Monarch, an 
 independent life and being is breathed by the same 
 Spirit which gives vitality and power to the Monarch. 
 Both alike derive their authority from Heaven. And 
 on the independence of their separate authority rests 
 the closeness of their union. Make the State the 
 creature of the King, or the King the puppet of the 
 State, — let the wife be the slave of the husband, 
 or the husband be the subject of the wife, — and 
 nation and family alike fall into confusion. But the 
 woman is brought unto the man, to love him, to 
 honour, and to obey. And the law of obedience, in 
 like manner, is laid upon a Christian State, upon 
 the whole people — laid on them, as members of the 
 Church, by the voice of the Church herself, by its 
 great Head and Master, in direct commands, in 
 the analogies of the Jewish law, in the precepts of 
 Apostles, by the patience of martyrs, by the un- 
 worldliness of saints, by spiritual promises, by the 
 hopes of a nobler kingdom than any upon earth, by 
 the menaces against those who take the sword, by 
 every example and injunction, which can bind the 
 conscience and influence practice. 
 
 But in this view^, the circles of the Church and 
 of the State have been made identical. The whole 
 State is supposed to be contained within the body of 
 the Church, to be guided by her ministers, and to 
 acknowledge her laws. Even the Monarch himself, 
 not as monarch, but as man, is embraced within the 
 Church. What, then, is to become of a nation, in 
 which, as is the case with England now, a large 
 proportion both of the people and the rulers have 
 severed themselves from the Church, or have never 
 been brought within it? I answer, that, in propor- 
 
 ' Genesis ii. 21. 
 
196 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 
 
 tion as this is the case, in the same proportion the 
 unity, organisation, and perfection, of the Body 
 Politic is im])aired. In the same proportion the 
 State, being deprived of an external standard of 
 Divine law, will indulge its own theories of utility, 
 its own licence of conscience, and assume to itself 
 the privileges of the Monarch. Iti the same propor- 
 tion it will be impatient of control, arrogant in its 
 demands, presumptuous in its claims to omnipotence. 
 And, unless it be crushed by the strong hand of an 
 arbitrary Monarch, and its power be transferred to 
 an army, which itself will then become the State ; 
 or, unless it be won over into the bosom of the 
 Church by methods prescribed to the Church by 
 God Himself, it will end in absorbing into its own 
 body all the prerogatives of the Sovereign. The 
 Sovereign will be degraded into its servant. And 
 the popular voice having once been acknowledged 
 as the supreme power of the nation, when embodied 
 in a Parliament, the same voice will make itself 
 heard in other forms of popular assemblage, till a 
 perfect democracy is established. Such must be the 
 history of a nation in Avhich external Divine law 
 has been abandoned, and human opinion in religion, 
 and therefore on every other subject, has been sub- 
 stituted for positive enactments. And of this the 
 ancient empires of the world were well aware. , In 
 fear of this, they built themselves up under the 
 shelter and moral rule of vast hierarchies ; and ex- 
 cluded those hierarchies themselves from any direct 
 assujnption of civil power, while they permitted to 
 them absolute supremacy in spiritual matters. Con- 
 scious of this, even the democracy of Athens would 
 tolerate no innovation in religion, even from a So- 
 crates. And with this great nuixim held before it, 
 the Roman empire advanced from conquest to con- 
 quest, thinking more how to preserve an unity of 
 
CH. XVIII.] CHURCH AND THE STATE. 197 
 
 religion, and to exclude from it the licence of opinion, 
 amidst a diversity of nations and of creeds, than of 
 any other problem, in their wonderful policy of go- 
 vernment. And even in the cry for liberty of con- 
 science which is now raised around us, and among 
 the wildest advocates of latitudinarianism, the same 
 principle may be recognised. If men differ in re- 
 ligion, it is felt that they must differ in the whole 
 plan and spirit of their lives — differ irreconcilably, 
 — and that the State must be torn to pieces. To 
 exclude difference, to produce unity, it is pro- 
 posed that all differences should be cast aside as 
 unmeaning and injurious ; and a scheme of com- 
 prehension is exhibited, by which all classes of re- 
 ligionists may be brought together under some 
 vague, unsettled creed, of which the only fixed ar- 
 ticle is, the duty of denying every otiier article 
 which any other man may think proper to deny 
 himself. And if opinion is once let loose to indulge 
 its own caprices in society, we know that society 
 must be destroyed. And, therefore, to neutralise 
 opinion, to degrade it, to make it powerless, it is first 
 made paramount. As if we would hold up a drunken 
 slave to shame by exhibiting him in the attire and 
 on the throne of a monarch, free to expose himself 
 before tlie workl in the vagaries of tolerated insanity. 
 For, make opinion the standard of truth ; and all 
 opinions become equally true : and when all are 
 equally true, all must be equally false. You cannot 
 discriminate. And thus, the very doctrine which 
 gives to it supremacy strips it of every title to re- 
 spect. Occidit liherando. 
 
 How, then, it may be asked, is the nation, and 
 especially the State, to be brought once more within 
 the arms of the Catholic Church? I answer, by the 
 same n)eans, and none other, by which God has ap- 
 pointed that mankind in general should be made 
 s2 
 
198 CONNEXION BETWEEN THE 
 
 members of it, and retained within its fold. We 
 must search in the laws of Revelation, in the uni- 
 form practice of the Apostles, in the recognised 
 principles of Christianity, not in any worldly po- 
 licy, for the maxims to guide and accomplish this 
 great work. It is indeed a good and blessed thing 
 for the political philosopher, when he can find a 
 people thus already prepared to develop from their 
 body a true Christian State. But he cannot make 
 a Christian. He is himself powerless. None but 
 the Church can make children to herself, under the 
 blessing of God. To the Church he must look. He 
 may encourage her, assist her with resources, protect 
 her from contempt and injury, supply her with ex- 
 ternal things needed for her work. Especially he 
 may and must support her in maintaining those 
 fundamental doctrines which distinguish her institu- 
 tions as positive, her creeds as historical traditions, 
 her authority as apostolical, her government as epis- 
 copal, her sacraments as mysteries, her whole cha- 
 racter as an ambassador from (jod, not as a creature 
 of, or dependent upon, man and the opinion of man. 
 A statesman who cannot recognise the connexion 
 between such doctrines and the principles of civil 
 obedience and of the constitution of the State ; one 
 who should join with the popular cry in holding 
 them up to scorn, and in describing them as theories, 
 and dogmas, and opinions, not as Divine facts, must 
 be incompetent to understand the very nature of 
 society. He is unfit to govern. He cannot govern. 
 For government implies resistance ; and resistance 
 a solid ground on wdiich to rest belief in truth, and 
 faith in Providence. And when this solid ground 
 is abandoned by abandoning })Ositive Revelation, 
 none other can be found. He also is left, like the 
 most vulgar of the mob, to be blown about by every 
 wind of opinion. And his fall can only be made 
 
CH. XVIII.] CHURCH AND THE STATE. 199 
 
 more sad and more fatal by his struggles to save 
 himself from it, by some better principles of guess- 
 work, in his own heart. 
 
 But this great question, ' How to bring and pre- 
 serve a people and a State within the unity of the 
 Catholic Church?' falls under the general head of 
 National Education, and will present itself in a 
 future place. 
 
200 ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 I TURN now to another question, which follows 
 after establishing the fundamental relation between 
 the Monarch and the State ; or, supposing the State 
 to be thoroughly Christianised, between the Mon- 
 arch and the Church. 
 
 The first law of organisation, and the chief dif- 
 ficulty in analysing, is to establish correct divisions. 
 And political philosophy, like every other science, 
 commits its worst errors in drawing lines of distinc- 
 tion where they are not drawn by nature, and in form- 
 ing its groups upon arbitrary principles of classifica- 
 tion. We have before us the whole nation, which 
 has split itseif, by a natural process, into three ele- 
 mentary crystals — the People, the State, and the 
 Monarch. But the State itself is too vast a body 
 not to require still farther division. And history 
 presents us innumerable varieties of forms, into 
 which it has been cast by theorists, upon the princi- 
 ple, sometimes of wealth, as when offices of govern- 
 ment are regulated by a census ; sometimes of birth, 
 as in an aristocracy of rank ; sometimes of age, 
 sometimes of moral merit, sometimes of military 
 service ; or upon one or more of these combined. 
 The constitution of senates, councils, parliaments, 
 magistracies, ministries, and judicatures, all fall 
 under this head. But as a botanist would endea- 
 vour to frame his system, not upon a mere fancy 
 of his own, but upon some type and law established 
 by nature ; so a Cinistian will rejoice to find that, by 
 contemplating the State as a Church, he can at once 
 
CH. XIX.] ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 201 
 
 obtain a division divinely appointed by God Himself. 
 It severs itself into clergy and laity. And this di- 
 vision corresponds, in its principle, with the essen- 
 tial characteristic required in the State. For if 
 subjects, to exercise their independence rightly, must 
 exercise it in subjection to a Divine law; and if, to 
 prevent that law from being tampered with and 
 perverted into a mere expression of human opinion, 
 it must not only be committed to writing, but must 
 be guarded in its application and interpretation by 
 an external living authority, the body of the State 
 must contain in it a body of spiritual rulers and spi- 
 ritual teachers, distinguished from the members who 
 are to seek at their hands for knowledge and correc- 
 tion. And thus it is consonant to philosophy as well 
 as to history, that the clergy of the Church should 
 form one and a most important portion of the mem- 
 bers of the State, and that an ecclesiastical synod 
 should be recognised in it as well as a parliament. 
 
 But, upon the same principle, the Christian will 
 endeavour to trace some positive Divine distinctions, 
 by which to proceed in his farther analysis of the 
 clergy and of the laity respectively. And here, 
 once more, in the clergy he is provided with a recog- 
 nised classification into bishops and inferior clergy. 
 And though, as a Divine appointment, he has no right 
 to estimate or try this by any theory of expediency 
 of his own, he may still recognise in it the same cor- 
 respondence as before with the essential attribute of 
 the State. Episcopacy is the only form which ex- 
 hibits and secures the principle of positive external 
 law. Practically, the fact is proved by the rapid de- 
 clension and degradation, in which Christian com- 
 munities, which have cast off episcopacy, have sunk 
 into corruption of doctrine, and the worst forms of 
 heresy and schism. Abstractedly, it may be under- 
 stood by observing that, wherever a number of human 
 
202 ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 
 
 wills are brought together, and power is lodged with 
 them as in the hands of equals, they are left, strictly- 
 speaking, without any superior, — any power or 
 judgment but their own. The decision is, indeed, 
 entrusted to a majority ; but as a matter of compul- 
 sion, and for the very purpose of excluding the pre- 
 tensions of any individual to overrule the rest. It 
 matters little whether the body be large or small, a 
 popular assembly or a synod of presbyters. They 
 are left alike, all of them, to be guided by their own 
 reason, all claiming a supremacy to their own will. 
 And the principle of rationalism, and the authority 
 of opinion, being once established in the highest 
 place, it will inevitably flow down, and penetrate 
 into the whole mass of the society, and subject doc- 
 trine as well as law to its process of corruption. But 
 place an individual will at the head of a body, and 
 in this, at once, is incorporated the principle of ex- 
 ternal law. Not only do all the tendencies of a 
 monarchical form of government incline to unity, 
 prescription, control, and the exclusion of caprice 
 in the subject; but it realises — and no other form 
 can realise — that principle of subjection without 
 which there can be no adherence to rule, and, there- 
 fore, no fixed standard either of truth or morals. 
 The rule of one is absolute, ultimate, responsible to 
 God alone; and obedience to it must be practised 
 upon faith. And thus episcopacy and monarchy in 
 the state are correspondent exhibitions of the same 
 principle. And where episcopacy is destroyed, the 
 monarchy will soon perish. 
 
 I do not propose, however, to enter farther, at 
 present, into the organisation of the clergy, con- 
 sidered as a constituent part of the State. It is a 
 more diflicult task to ))ursue the analysis of the laity 
 upon a similar ))rinciple, and to trace out in them 
 those grand outlines and configurations into which 
 
CH. XIX.] ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 203 
 
 Nature and Providence have designed them to be 
 cast. 
 
 Yet seemingly these are obvious. To execute 
 the four essential functions of the State we require 
 to select from the people the wisest men, the 
 strongest, the most virtuous, the nu)st religious — 
 and all who can be trained in those combined habits 
 of obedience and of command, which are requisite to 
 tlie perfection of the man : the wisest to give coun- 
 sel ; the strongest to support the arm and execute 
 the will of the sovereign ; the virtuous and religious 
 to raise barriers against the aggressions of his indi- 
 vidual self-will ; and as many as possible of these, 
 and of those who are capable of becoming such, that 
 as large a portion as possible of the nation may be 
 disciplined and perfected. 
 
 But how are we to discern these qualities ? Who 
 is to be the judge? The Sovereign? But if he alone 
 elect and create the State — his advisers as well as his 
 servants — those who are to resist him when in error, as 
 well as those who are to execute his will — the State, 
 which is created, may also be destroyed by him. It 
 will become dependent on his caprice; a mere ma- 
 chine; and its vitality and value will be lost. But 
 the people ? We must not say that the popular 
 voice is not to be highly regarded in discriminating 
 character. It is appealed to by God Himself, even 
 in ecclesiastical elections, as a valuable and import- 
 ant witness. But it cannot be trusted indiscrimin- 
 ately ; and will require to be balanced by some other 
 power, lest the same kind of result as before should 
 follow, and the State become wholly the creature of 
 the people — ruled by its turbulent and impetuous 
 caprices, and be raised into direct opposition to the 
 Sovereign. But the clergy? They, by their very 
 position, are constituted in a peculiar manner "dis- 
 cerners of spirits." As teachers, they may properly 
 
204 ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 
 
 pronounce on the attainments of those whom they 
 have taught. As guards of the conscience, they 
 should possess an intimate knowledge of the heart. 
 As charged with the care of souls, it is their first 
 office to become acquainted with the feelings, the 
 vices, the virtues, and the talents of those of whom 
 they must hereafter give account. As the possessors 
 of an immutable standard of morals and of faith, as 
 the dispensers of the Word of God, they are appeal- 
 ed to on abstract questions of right and wrong, true 
 and false; and may therefore be fitly accepted as 
 judges of persons. And as removed by their ofiice 
 and obligations from the temptations of personal 
 aggrandisement, they constitute a neutral body, 
 whose impartiality and equity may be safely trusted. 
 Exactly in proportion as the clergy discharge their 
 duty, they offer a most important assistance in dis- 
 criminating those characters out of which the State 
 is to be constituted. It is true, that, as men, they 
 are fallible and faulty — that they also are open to 
 the charge of covetousness, of the lust of power, of 
 party spirit, of rebellious self-will — whenever the 
 self within them triumphs over their official obliga- 
 tions. And it is true also, that to place the appoint- 
 ment of civil officers and of legislators in their 
 hands, would throw too much weight into the spiri- 
 tual scale, naturally inclined to preponderate, and 
 would involve them too directly in the struggles 
 of those temporal interests, which they can never 
 control to good, without being personally detached 
 from them. Any such interference of the clergy, 
 as is witnessed in the Romish priesthood of Ireland, 
 must be destructive of the balance of the constitu- 
 tion, and of the clerical authority itself. But blended 
 with other voices, the voice of the clergy should and 
 must be heard in the nomination of the State. Where 
 they discharge their duty, they must possess the 
 
€11. XIX.] ANALYSIS OF THE STATE. 205 
 
 highest moral influence, and that influence must tell, 
 even if not purposely directed, upon every act of 
 the laity, especially when they are called on to ex- 
 ercise a right of election. 
 
 One more principle of election remains — co- 
 optation. And it is reasonable that those, who are 
 themselves worthy of trust and able to govern, should 
 be competent judges of characters to be placed in 
 the same situation. But the great danger, like the 
 great advantage, of this principle, lies in tlie tendency 
 to perpetuate and absorb power in the same hands ; 
 a tendency which, if indulged in, the State, already 
 by its very nature invested with more real force 
 than the Monarch, would soon destroy the balance 
 of government, by removing that check upon the 
 accumulation and aggrandisement of power in the 
 hands of subjects, which is maintained by dividing 
 their forces, and distributing their functions. 
 
 But in all these modes of choice there is an 
 element which the Christian will distrust, which he 
 will at least fear to make the basis of his division — 
 choice itself — choice entrusted to man. It must 
 be admitted in some form. It cannot be excluded 
 from the actions of a being, before whom good and 
 evil, blessing and cursing, are placed by his Maker 
 as the very condition of his moral life. But, as far 
 as possible, a Christian will exercise this power, 
 which is a duty rather than a privilege, in subjec- 
 tion to an external law. He will endeavour to dis- 
 tinguish what is fixed and positive, from what is 
 left undetermined by a superior authority ; and will 
 choose between these two — choosing always the 
 fixed before the undetermined ; and not conceiving 
 himself at liberty to decide arbitrarily and caprici- 
 ously, as if both lines of conduct w^re equally open. 
 Heresy, the l)rand and the beginning of all un- 
 christianism, means nothing but choice — arbitrary 
 
 T 
 
tIO() ANALYSIS OV lllK STAru. 
 
 choice, — choice winch luaki^s no reference to i)osi- 
 t'w'o hiw — choice >vhicl» S(>h'ets l)et\vtt>n doctrines 
 sinjply :is consonant or ai]jr(>(>al)h» to onr own coneen- 
 tions — not upon historical t>vi(lenet\ that one has 
 been externally (hn-lanMl hy (Jod, tlu> otlu r wroiis^ht 
 out by man. And so a ehoiee l)et\v(>rn man and 
 man, i^uided l>y our own judi^nuMJt (d'tluMr \vis(h)m 
 or i^oodnt^ss, will ap])ear in (lu< eyt^s of a (Mnislian a 
 tiMuptation, and almost a sin. 
 
 Bnt by what marks are we to diset<rn charaettM's 
 — such eliaracters as are fit to constitute th«» State, 
 if not hv our own opinion? Mow has ProvidtMiet* 
 itsrlf }U)inttMl thtMU out ? \ro theri» any external 
 positive indications of the Divine will, und«>r which 
 we nuiy shelter our own weakn«>ss and hliiidiu^ss ? 
 Or, to a]>ply a practical case, wlun a Christian is 
 called on to jjjive his vote for a uuMuhtM- of Parlia- 
 nuMit, how can he ijjuard himself from actini; entirely 
 on his own judixuient; and leave the selection, as tin- 
 as possible, in the hands of Providence? 
 
til. XX.] HfcLKCTION Of 'I H H hTATK. 207 
 
 CJIAPTKIt XX. 
 
 Now it. haw bf;f:fi oljs(;rvr;(i alrfradv, tJjat wliat^ vf-r 
 may b«r our own ('X[)»rctatioriH of tho moral govfrrrj- 
 iiHrit of C/of], it do<;H not i^ractically confine; powr;r 
 anri authority to tlio hanrlh ofthf- wis*; and th*; j^ood. 
 1'ho moral attril>iiti:s of (jod, as iii-Jiop liutW^r has 
 r(;rnark<:d, may p*rhapH at prcMtnt be only htrug- 
 gling, and tf;nding,a.s it w<t<;, to a future prjrfection, 
 through prf;,sf;nt hin(Jranc(;>*, p<-miitt<^d for Hom^i wise 
 purpose. Or if (rarthly power be not a good, even a 
 perfect moral hystem may not retpiire that it hhould 
 be dispensed in proportion to moral goodness. Or 
 it may be even necessary that man should liv<: under 
 a seemingly bad gr>vernmr;nt u}>on earth, that he 
 may be trainr^d to those liabits of faith, and [jatience, 
 and resignatif>n, and obedience to positive law, 
 which, as an imperf(^ct creature living urjder the 
 rule of a perfect Creator, it may be nfcessary that 
 he shoiild (-xercise ev(;n in the kingdom of Hcraven. 
 
 iJut whatever account may be given of the fact, 
 it is a fact that by the lawH of I'rovidence earthly 
 power is not corjfined to the wise and good ; and a 
 ChriHtian will no more be surprised at this in the 
 creation of the State, than in the appointnifnt of 
 the Monarch, or the df j^ignation of the head of a 
 family. 
 
 And in r-ach he will apply the same principh-s. 
 Iff will inqiiire rath(;r whom (/od has entrusted 
 with power, than whom man may consider trust- 
 worthy. And thus he will arrive at two external 
 
208 SELECTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 marks, by which, not exclusively, but primarily, he 
 will expect that the selection of the State should be 
 determined. 
 
 The first of these is property. Property is power. 
 Its distribution, though subject in a measure to hu- 
 man laws, is yet in a peculiar manner reserved to 
 the Providence of God. And it necessarily involves 
 a command over the labour and the conduct of 
 others. This is especially the case with property in 
 land. Its possession, therefore, is to be considered, 
 in a certain degree, as an indication of the will of 
 God, external to our own judgment, that the pos- 
 sessor is to be entrusted with power. And upon 
 this principle the Christian will do wliat all political 
 philosophers have been compelled to do ; and in 
 dividing and classifying the laity, he will take pro- 
 perty, especially property in land, as one of the first 
 bases of his system. He will do tins without any 
 danger of establishing that worst and most debasing 
 form of government, an aristocracy of money — 
 without any fear of severing the nation into that 
 most frightful of all schisms, a schism between the 
 poor and the rich. This is effected when money is 
 viewed as a good, as a means of selfish indulgence ; 
 and when political power is given to it solely for 
 the sake of its own preservation. And to this theory 
 we are rapidly tending in our own country. Where 
 government is supposed to be framed solely for the 
 guardianship of property, there it must be entrusted 
 to property. And there it will be exercised for the 
 benefit of property, till poverty is made a crime, 
 and wealth a virtue ; till the poor are driven to des- 
 peration, and the rich sit in their palaces surrounded 
 by clamours and menaces ; and there swells from day 
 to day, on one side, the mass of want and vice, of 
 vigorous want and living vice ; and on the other, the 
 mass of money, dead, and helpless, and defenceless, 
 
CH. XX.] SELECTION OF THE STATE. 209 
 
 and only potent in stimulating the rapacity of famine. 
 And then will come the end. 
 
 But the Christian will recognise in property a 
 trust, to be administered for the good of others — 
 a power of government, for which the possessor is 
 responsible to God. He w^ill think of its duties 
 rather than of its rights. He will regard it, and 
 teach others to regard it, as a school for those fa- 
 culties and virtues which are to be exercised on a 
 larger scale in the State ; and as a means, not of 
 personal enjoyment, but of communicating with and 
 influencing our fellow-creatures, either for good or 
 evil, life or death. From this will flow that caution 
 against encouraging vice by a licentious expendi- 
 ture ; that attention to accompany employment with 
 moral and religious guidance ; that benevolence 
 and charity ; that abstinence from avaricious ac- 
 cumulation ; that willing devotion to God of the due 
 proportions of wealth ; those habits of personal in- 
 tercourse and direction in regard to dependents ; 
 that interest in the well-being of the poor ; that 
 simplicity and self-denial in our own habits of life ; 
 that freedom from ostentation and vanity, — which 
 alone can prevent the circulation, and accumulation, 
 and even the possession of money from becoming a 
 curse and a torment; the nurturer of all the sins of 
 self-indulgence in the rich, and of violence in the 
 poor — inflaming and stimulating in the former all 
 the craving of selfish lust, and in the other the blind 
 passions of rage, jealousy, and malice ; and thus 
 ri])ening, as in a hot-bed, both the vices of the 
 moral nature of man, and setting one portion of it 
 against the other, to tear each other to pieces, and 
 with them man and society itself. 
 
 And, by the same principle, the poor themselves 
 will learn to regard wealth, not as a good reserved 
 for any one class, or a prize set up for the contentions 
 T 2 
 
210 SELECTIOX OF THE STATE. 
 
 of human coveteousness, but as an official trust, of 
 which God Himself disposes ; for the abuse of which 
 man is responsible to Him; which involves toil, and 
 weariness, and anxiety, as well as enjoyment; and 
 which they will no more think of grudging to those 
 to whom God has given it, much less of seizing 
 it by any rapacity of their own, than of rebelling 
 against the Sovereign whom God has set over them. 
 But, on the same principle, a Christian will not 
 fail to recognise another external mark of the Divine 
 appointment of the members of the State. And 
 finding the two combined in nature, he will carefully 
 combine them in his own practice. It is one of the 
 most remarkable attributes of God's moral govern- 
 ment, that it deals with men not only as individuals, 
 but in families ; and in families, not of one genera- 
 tion only, but of many. To that all-seeing Eye, to 
 which there may be no time or succession, or divi- 
 sion of past and future, cause and effect, human 
 nature, though scattered to our sight in a multitude 
 of distinct persons, seems to be gathered up, as it 
 were, and exhibited in perfection, only in a con- 
 tinuous series of distinct existences. As if the dif- 
 ferent stages in the growth of the individual man 
 could be marked and counted, and yet all together 
 made up but one life, and one responsible person ; 
 so the family seems to be regarded by God as one 
 being, having its several stages of growth in suc- 
 cessive generations, and with its fate not decided 
 until it reaches a certain maturity. " The Lord our 
 God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the 
 fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth 
 generation of them that hate Him ; and shewing 
 mercy unto thousands of them that love Him, and 
 keep His commandments."' And this is so essential 
 
 ' Exod. XX. !}. 
 
CH. XX.] SELECTION OF THE STATE. 211 
 
 an attribute, that it is proclaimed as a fundamental 
 article of the Creed revealed to Moses by the mouth 
 of God Himself. " And the Lord passed by before 
 him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, mer- 
 ciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in 
 goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
 forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and 
 that will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the 
 iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon 
 the children's children, unto the third and fourth 
 generation."^ Thus Abraham was to be blessed in 
 his seed.- Thus the man that gave his seed to Mo- 
 loch was to be cursed, he and his family.*^ Thus the 
 rebellious Jews were to pine away, in their iniquity, 
 in their enemies' lands — "in the iniquities of their 
 fathers shall they pine away with theni.""^ Thus evil 
 is brought not only against Ahab, but his posterity.^ 
 Thus David was punished by the death of his child. 
 And the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah 
 are, in their whole course, a remarkable illustration 
 of the same law. "I have seen the foolish," says 
 Job, " taking root, but suddenly I cursed his habi- 
 tation. His children are far from safety, and they 
 are crushed in the gate; neither is there any to de- 
 liver them."^ " Blessed is every one that feareth the 
 
 Lord, that walketh in His ways Thou shalt 
 
 see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel."^ 
 "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a wi- 
 dow\ Let his children be continually vagabonds, and 
 beg ; let them seek their bread also out of their 
 
 desolate places Let his posterity be cut off; 
 
 and in the generation following let their name be 
 blotted out. Let the iniquity of his fathers be re- 
 membered with the Lord, and let not the sin of his 
 
 ' Exod. xxxiv. 6. " Gen. xxii. 18. ^ Lev. xx. 5. 
 
 ■* Lev. xxvi. 39. ^ 1 Kings xxi. 2L ^ Job v. 3. 
 
 ' Psalm cxxviii, (i. 
 
212 SELECTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 mother be blotted out."' " I have been young, and 
 now am old, and yet never saw I the righteous for- 
 saken, nor his seed begging their bread." 
 
 But it is needless to multiply passages, or to 
 trace out the wonderful analogy between this law 
 of moral retribution and the whole of that Divine 
 system, in which, as " by one man's offence, death 
 reigned by one, even so by the righteousness of 
 one, the free gift came upon all men unto justifi- 
 cation of life ;"~ and in which that free gift is be- 
 stowed by the same act which begets us unto God 
 in Christ as little children — even by the laver of 
 regeneration. 
 
 Nor will I stop to remark, how this law of con- 
 tinuity in the family repeats the same phenomenon 
 which has been so frequently insisted on, — the 
 union of many distinct persons in one substance. 
 Distinctness and plurality of generations, held to- 
 gether in the unity of family life, make up the chain 
 of human existence. And the more perfectly both 
 characteristics are preserved, the more complete is 
 the development of mankind. 
 
 It is more practical to observe, that it is sup- 
 ported by two universal, overruling instincts in the 
 human heart; so powerful, that no conventional 
 system can suppress them, or prevent them from 
 ultimately severing society into two classes by a 
 natural operation ; with which the organisation sug- 
 gested by the revealed attributes of the Divine 
 Being exactly coincides. One of these instincts is 
 parental love, by which the parent sees himself in 
 the cliiUl, and endeavours to perpetuate his own exist- 
 ence by pr('S( rving to the child his own possessions. 
 Or, to leave tliis theory of selfishness to the lower 
 classes of mankind, it is that instinct by which the 
 
 ' Psahn cix. 9. " Rom. v. 16. 
 
CH. XX.] SELECTION OF THE STATE. 213 
 
 parent fixes his affection not on himself, but on his 
 child, as the natural object of his care, and endeavours 
 witli equal zeal to secure to it all the good within 
 his reach, without any thought of self. Whatever 
 be the working of the instinct, it tends to the same 
 result of hereditary succession. And with this co- 
 incides the other instinct of filial love, by which, 
 whether in gratitude or in selfishness, the child also 
 sees himself in his parent, prides himself on the virtues 
 and superiority of his ancestors, derives to himself 
 a portion of their excellence, and is recognised by 
 others as ennobled by their nobility. No act can 
 crush this feeling. And no convention or philosophy 
 could prevent the child of a king or a sage from 
 being regarded by mankind at large with more 
 respect and interest than the son of unhonoured 
 parents. 
 
 Such will be the Christian's view of the doctrine 
 of hereditary succession. And he will carefully re- 
 tain it in combination with the principle of property. 
 He finds it thus combined in Revelation. He gives 
 scope, in this manner, for the development of the 
 justice of Providence in the dispensation of tempo- 
 ral goods, even upon earth, — a development which 
 seems to require time, and a certain length of action 
 and trial. A good family will flourish and prosper ; 
 if not in one generation, at least ultimately. A bad 
 family will be impoverished and extinguished; if not 
 in the person of its founder, at least in that of his 
 descendants. And thus, by selecting families, and 
 not individuals, we may learn, far more correctly, 
 who are the favoured of God, and who bear an ex- 
 ternal mark and impress of authority set on them by 
 Himself. For this external mark is not the mere 
 momentary possession, but the perpetuation of pro- 
 perty : just as the proof of virtue is not the single 
 act, but the confirmed habit. Wealth is, in a re- 
 
214 SELECTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 markable manner, tost about, broken into shifting 
 masses, carried along and deposited in various forms 
 and places, by a succession of currents, seemingly 
 at random, but really under the direction of Pro- 
 vidence. And it is not, when in motion and tran- 
 sition, that we can judge of its providential des- 
 tination, any more than we can estimate the riches 
 of a gambler at any one moment of his game. We 
 must observe where it rests and fixes; just as, to 
 decide when the struggle must cease between a 
 legitimate sovereign and a usurper, and when the 
 usurper becomes entitled to our obedience, as under 
 a divine dispensation, we must wait till his authority 
 is confirmed by time, and all opposition has been 
 crushed. Power and lionour must go hand in hand. 
 They cannot be separated. And \vealth is power. 
 But to invest temporary wealth with honour, — to 
 give rank to a fortunate adventurer, or a commercial 
 speculator of the day, — would be as idle as to bow 
 down before a king upon the stage, who, the next 
 moment, will be stripped of his robes, and appear 
 as a beggar. And to withdraw lionour from its 
 ])Ossessor when under some temporary visitation of 
 poverty, would be as unjust and shortsighted as to 
 despise a saint for a single fault. 
 
 "There be just men unto whom it happeneth 
 according to the work of the wicked : again, there 
 be wicked men to whom it happeneth according to 
 the w^ork of the righteous."^ And yet, " though a 
 sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be 
 prolonged, yet surely 1 know that it shall be well 
 with them that fear God ; but it shall not be well 
 with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, 
 M'hich are as a shadovv."- 
 
 ]'amilies, then, are the constituent elements of 
 
 ' Eccles. viii. 14'. " ver. 12. 
 
CH. XX.] SELECTION OF THE STATE. 215 
 
 political society. From good families, the State, 
 therefore, must be formed. But good families (as 
 the popular usage of the term implies) are fauiilies 
 which have emlured in power for several generations. 
 God Himself has set upon them this mark of His 
 approval, or at least of His destination for the office ; 
 and therefore the Christian politician will form the 
 chief division of his laity by the principle of heredi- 
 tary property, and especially property in land. 
 
 And before we pass on to inquire how this law 
 may and must be corrected by an antagonist princi- 
 ple, that it may not generate a system of castes and 
 exclusions, let us observe, as in so many other in- 
 stances, how the positive law of Revelation, and the 
 instincts of nature, however seemingly paradoxical, 
 lead us to the very objects which the most enlarged 
 views of expediency would endeavour to attain. We 
 desire that those only should possess power who also 
 possess goodness and wisdom to prevent its abuses. 
 But this exclusive selection is not possible. The tares 
 must be mingled with the wheat. We must, there- 
 fore, be content to see those invested with authority 
 and honour who are most likely to deserve it. Pro- 
 bability is all that we can attain. We cannot dis- 
 cern those who will certainly profit by favourable 
 circumstances of education ; but we can discern who 
 have been placed in those circumstances, and select 
 these as members of the State. This is all (if we 
 may so speak reverently) which the Divine Being 
 Himself attempts in the formation of His Church. He 
 does not select for it only the good, only those who 
 will certainly profit by the blessings and privileges 
 of their baptismal covenant. But He brings within 
 it all classes ; and of these He forms His kingdom 
 upon earth, as distinct from the heathen nations 
 over whom it is designed to rule. 
 
 And what, then, are these favourable circuni- 
 
216 SELECTION OF THE STATE. 
 
 stances for the implantation and development of ex- 
 cellence ? 
 
 Here, also, the Christian is not left without a 
 remarkable analogy in the positive institutions of 
 God. God Himself has commanded that those who 
 are to be reared to form the stones of His spiritual 
 temple, and to be entrusted with His most glorious 
 privileges and functions, shall be reared under a 
 sj'stem which invests them from their infancy with 
 nobility and honour — reared as His heirs and children. 
 He ennobles them, not for any acts or worth of their 
 own, but wholly for the merits of another, their 
 great Progenitor. He commands them to make this 
 derived nobility the motive and rule of their actions. 
 He stimulates them to walk worthy of the vocation 
 wherewith they are called, as already crucified, and 
 dead, and buried, and risen, in Christ their Lord, 
 by the baptism into His spirit ; as delivered already 
 from the power of darkness, and translated, by His 
 own free gift and unmerited grace, into the kingdom 
 of His dear Son;' as men whose conversation is in 
 heaven ;^ or — to draw forth the analogy more strik- 
 ingly — who are already members of the body politic 
 or state in heaven, civ to 7ro/\/7-fu/.to iy ovpavolg vTrap^et. 
 Upon this remembrance of gifts already given, emi- 
 nence already attained, privileges already inherited, 
 is based the whole superstructure of Christian vir- 
 tues. But it is essentially connected with the denial 
 of any personal merit of our own. And upon the 
 same two principles we may rest the doctrine of 
 hereditary succession, as a discipline for the virtues 
 of the citizen. It is right that they who are to be 
 entrusted with great offices should be accustomed, 
 from their earliest childhood, to a certain dignity 
 and honour. They thus become familiarised to its 
 
 ' Col. i. 13. 2 Phil. iii. 20. 
 
CH. XX.] HEREDITARY ARISTOCRACY. 217 
 
 enjoyment. They learn to value it at its due worth. 
 It ceases to be the toy and rattle for full-grown chil- 
 dren, which so often breeds frivolity and pettiness 
 in its first possessors. It loses the fascination which 
 would tempt to unworthy sacrifices for its attain- 
 ment. It generates no contempt for others ; since 
 what we undisturbedly possess, we cease to pride 
 ourselves upon as an exclusive badge of superiority. 
 It elevates a standard of conduct which demands 
 the highest exertions ; and it consecrates that stan- 
 dard by connecting it with domestic affections and 
 associations. It inspires pride, a noble and gene- 
 rous pride, without which there can be no energy, 
 no shame, no lofty aspirations, no enlarged benevo- 
 lence ; while it extinguishes that personal vanity and 
 conceit which is a source of all that is mean and 
 enervating. It generates no jealousies and rivalries, 
 no malice or suspicion, no anxious timid questioning 
 calculations of success, which embarrass and distract 
 a struggle for contingent advantages. Without self- 
 respect there can be little attempt to deserve the 
 respect of others. And without previous respect from 
 others there can be little respect for ourselves. Re- 
 spect, therefore, for external goods must precede the 
 formation of respect for personal merit. And this is 
 the universal law of God's dealings with man. He 
 gives, and commands us to preserve ; not offers, and 
 tempts us to attain. Thus, at His bidding, we plant 
 in the mind of the child the whole summary of 
 Christian truth, which afterwards the child does but 
 develop. Thus we supply him with the most gene- 
 ral principles of morals, in the form of the ten com- 
 mandments, that he may apply them subsequently 
 in practice. Thus language was not wrought out ef 
 inarticulate sounds, nor religion out of atheism, nor 
 morals out of calculations of prudence, nor science 
 out of experiment, nor society out of barbarism ; but 
 u 
 
218 HEREDITARY ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 language was first given supernaturally, and then en- 
 larged by man ; religion was first revealed, and then 
 revelation was confirmed by reason ; virtue was made 
 a duty by positive command, and was then found to 
 correspond with conscience and to be identical with 
 wisdom ; science was evolved from the primary prin- 
 ciples of reason, and experiment was then applied 
 to illustrate them; and society was established by 
 God, and barbarism poured in upon it only when 
 that establishment was overturned by man. Ex 
 nihilo nihil Jit. Nothing can be generated out of 
 nothing. " To him that hath shall be given ; and 
 from him that hath not, shall be taken away even 
 that which he hath." ^ 
 
 And we may thus reconcile two parables which 
 seem to indicate opposite principles in the dealings 
 of Providence. It is true that authority and power 
 are to be distributed according to our works. He 
 that gains ten talents is to be placed over ten cities, 
 and he that gains five over five.^ But it is also true 
 that the labourers in the vineyard, they that were 
 hired at the eleventh hour, and they who have borne 
 the burden and heat of the day, may both receive 
 their penny, without any infringement of justice. All 
 the apparent advantages which one man may pos- 
 sess over another, without having purchased them 
 by toil, is a free gift from God, " who does what 
 He wills with His own." He dispenses His talents as 
 He chooses : to some ten, to others five, to others 
 one. But when the distribution has been made. He 
 will reward according to the use which has been 
 made of them. 
 
 ' Luke xix. 2(>. " Luke xix. 12. 
 
CU. XXI.] PROMOTION OF INDIVIDUAL MERIT. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 But while Providence thus binds up families toge- 
 ther, involving the individual in the fortunes and 
 characters of his progenitors, so that houses and not 
 individuals form the elementary atoms of Society ; 
 and by houses, rather than by individuals, should 
 be distributed the fundamental distinctions of its 
 ranks ; still here, as in so many other instances, there 
 is an antagonist principle, which is equally to be 
 kept in view. The individual is not lost in the 
 family, though he is involved in it : he still retains 
 his own unity — his personal responsibility — his 
 distinct faculties. And, though it is hard to trace 
 the way in which the Divine Justice reconciles the 
 seeming contradiction, we know that it is recon- 
 ciled. " The fathers may have eaten sour grapes, 
 and the children's teeth be set on edge." ^ And 
 yet " the soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son 
 shall not bear the iniquity of the father ; neither 
 shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The 
 righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him ; 
 and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon 
 him."^ Once more the same problem meets us, of 
 unity in plurality, and of plurality in unity ; of the 
 individual and the society. And if either element be 
 absorbed and lost in the other, we may be assured 
 that we are running into error. 
 
 And, in strict analogy with that dispensation 
 of free grace, which wills that all men should be 
 saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth — 
 
 ' Ezek. xviii. 2. 2 Ezek. xviii. 20. 
 
220 PROMOTION OF 
 
 and with that dispensation of Nature, which maketh 
 " the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and 
 sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust;"' and 
 with that covenant of our blessed Lord, which is 
 no respecter of persons,^ which hath broken down 
 the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gen- 
 tile, " for to make in Himself of twain one new man, 
 so making peace ;'^ and in which there is no more 
 " Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, 
 for all are one in Christ Jesus ;"^ — in strict analogy 
 with this system of equalisation, and indifference 
 to external circumstances, the faculties and virtues 
 which fit men for offices of government are sown 
 and scattered, almost, as it might seem, at random, 
 over the whole face of society. Jewels which might 
 form the crown of kings lie hid in caverns of the 
 sea; and blossoms which might perfume a palace 
 " waste themselves on the desert air." It is this 
 irrespectiveness of rank and birth which constitutes 
 in Christianity that element of equality Avhich has 
 so frequently been perverted into a democratical 
 spirit, even under the gospel ; and which, in poli- 
 tical society, gives truth and justice to the claims 
 of the poorest peasant to stand upon a level with 
 nobles. Wherever it is not felt and acknowledged, 
 there a great element of strength and wisdom is 
 deficient, whether in the religious or the political 
 system. But it must be taken always as balanced 
 and corrected by its antagonist principle of here- 
 ditary and family rank. 
 
 To preserve it and give it scope is as necessary 
 for the maintenance of an hereditary nobility, as 
 for the due elevation of the inferior classes; for if 
 virtues and talents are scattered among the people 
 beyond the pale of any caste, or exclusive body of 
 
 1 Matt. V. 4o. - Acts x. 34. 
 
 3 Ephes. ii. 15. ^ Galat. iii. 28. 
 
CH. XXI.] INDIVIDUAL MERIT. 2*21 
 
 hereditary rank, in the same manner vices and 
 follies are scattered witiiin that pale ; and unless 
 fresh life-blood be poured into it from time to time, 
 its ranks recruited, and its character supported 
 by new supplies of goodness, with an effete and 
 despised nobility will soon fall the whole fabric of 
 the State. As the bees, those wisest of political ar- 
 tisans, would cut out the old rotten combs from day 
 to day, and replace them with fresh ; so man must 
 do the same. But it is chiefly necessary because 
 one great object of society is to nurse and invi- 
 gorate every spring of goodness throughout the 
 whole body of the nation — to multiply virtues — 
 to enlarge faculties — to discipline souls — wherever 
 they exist within its reach. This earth is a vast 
 quarry, and in it the hand of Providence is hewing 
 out stones, which are hereafter to be fitted together, 
 " without sound of hammer or axe, or any tool of 
 iron,"^ in another world. And external earthly 
 circumstances are no sure criterion by which to 
 judge of the value of these stones, or of the place 
 which they are to occupy hereafter, since that 
 " may be rejected by human builders which God 
 has destined to become the head stone of the 
 corner." 
 
 Or, to take another analogy — a cultivator will, 
 indeed, be bound to set apart his fields for regular 
 crops, and to fix those crops in certain successions ; 
 and yet he must watch the changes of the seasons, 
 and take advantage of peculiarities of soil, and 
 jjrepare to foster and encourage every healthy seed 
 M'hich springs up of its own accord even by the 
 way -side or on tiie neglected common. They indi- 
 cate a secret power of growth and fertility — they 
 may prove treasures of wealth if duly cultivated. 
 
 ^ 1 Kings vi. 7. 
 u 2 
 
222 PROMOTION OF 
 
 What, then, are the arrangements of society best 
 calculated to give scope and expansion to these 
 wide-scattered seeds of good, which are strewed 
 promiscuously over its surface? The first is — a 
 careful provision for the sound organisation, the free 
 expansion, and the healthy atmosphere of the family 
 throughout every rank of society. Wherever the 
 family is rightly formed and constituted, there is a 
 nursery for all those talents and excellences which 
 may be employed by the State in its own service, 
 and must be required by the Church in the king- 
 dom of heaven. The sphere is smaller, the occu- 
 pations different ; but the habits nurtured in them 
 may be the same. This is one of the main links 
 between the Christian restoration of the female cha- 
 racter to its right elevation, and that due develop- 
 ment of the principles of equality and liberty which 
 forms the chief distinction between the empires of 
 Heathenism and of Christianity. The home acquires 
 by it purity and dignity ; it becomes a safe and 
 happy shelter and repose for private life; the affec- 
 tions are fostered and developed in it ; the heart 
 is able to rest in it, and thus becomes independent 
 of the larger interests and occupations of the State. 
 And with this sense of independence arises a man- 
 liness and freedom of thought, which pervades the 
 whole character and temper. Few minds, as a 
 general principle, can be safely entrusted with poli- 
 tical affairs but those which can find their happiness 
 independently of them; others will embark in them 
 too vehemently, with too much of private and per- 
 sonal ambition, with that restless excitement which 
 threw the Athenian the whole day into the market 
 asking for news. He who would govern well must 
 be unwilling to govern ; and he who would maintain 
 his freedom must not be desirous of power. 
 
 Secondly, the functions and offices of the State 
 
CH. XXI.] INDIVIDUAL MERIT. 223 
 
 should be ramified and extended through all ranks, 
 down to the very lowest. Without framing too com- 
 plicated a system, or introducing any element of dis- 
 cord or counteraction, every citizen, as far as possi- 
 ble, should be made to take a part in the machinery 
 of government. A village-constable may possess 
 and exercise talents which may fit him for the com- 
 mand of an army ; a juryman may develop the 
 faculties required in tlie judge; the assessor of a 
 parish rate may exhibit honesty and ingenuity 
 worthy of a president of finance ; even the village- 
 school is a little world, and the master sits there as 
 a sovereign, and rules with the rod, as kings ad- 
 minister justice with the sword. And thus, from 
 the narrowest spheres of action may be drawn forth 
 minds prepared to act in the largest; and even if 
 they live and die without any extension of their 
 earthly duties, they are fitted by their own internal 
 habits for that vaster range which will be opened to 
 them hereafter. 
 
 Thirdly, it is necessary that no rigid impassable 
 barrier should be raised between ranks and classes. 
 There must be no castes. It is in the principle of 
 castes that the chief viciousness of slavery consists. 
 That beings in the form of men, but sunk by their 
 own faults to the state of brutes, should be placed 
 under severe restraint, should be compelled to 
 labour against their wills, should be even thrown 
 into chains, should be deprived of all power, and 
 subjected to the stern control of others ; this is 
 but a necessary provision for the safety of society, 
 and an execution of the justice of Nature; else why 
 have we prisons and treadmills ? That beings weak 
 and helpless should also be made dependent on 
 those who are strong and wise — that they should 
 not be thrown upon their own free will, which can 
 only lead them into ruin — that they should be 
 
224 PROMOTION OF 
 
 placed under such a coercion as may restrain them 
 from evil, and under such subjection to others as 
 may bind their own interests permanently to the in- 
 terests of their masters ; this, also, is not cruelty and 
 injustice, but the same merciful provision which 
 places the infant in the cradle at the mercy and 
 disposal of its parent, without will or voice of its 
 own. 
 
 But that lines and barriers of birth should be so 
 rigidly drawn as to prevent the seeds of good which 
 God has sown in the hearts of all men from spring- 
 ing up and bearing fruit; to condemn for ever to 
 impotency and ignominy souls as capable of energy 
 and nobility as that of the king upon the throne; to 
 freeze and petrify the free atmosphere of society, 
 so that the purer and healthier elements which are 
 found even nearest the earth cannot find a passage 
 and rise up to their natural elevation above it ; this 
 is to reverse the law of Nature, and to extinguish in 
 the human heart that expansive and aspiring spark 
 of hope, which, duly nurtured, is the life of a noble 
 and holy ambition, as it is the antiseptic principle 
 provided against the decay and corruption of all 
 human things. 
 
 It is no essential evil to be born a slave, for Nature 
 has made us all slaves at our birth. No slavery can 
 be conceived more complete than that of an infant, 
 dependent for food, for clothing, for ideas, for life, 
 for motion, for every thing, upon the will of another; 
 and coin])elled in every act to abandon its own will, 
 without understanding the reasonableness, or feeling 
 the enjoyment of the course prescribed for it. Yet 
 in this very subjection lies its discipline for good, 
 and the security for its happiness. 13ut to have no 
 power of becoming free, no opening to escape from 
 its prison, no vent for that spring of power which 
 struggles within it to the last, and cannot be para- 
 
CH. XXI.] INDIVIDUAL MERIT. 225 
 
 lysed — this is real slavery, real misery, real iniquity 
 in those who create such a system. 
 
 Children, therefore, are trained to assume by 
 degrees a fitting and manly independence ; and 
 those whom weakness, or even folly and vice, have 
 placed at the disposal of their fellow-creatures, 
 should be watched over and nurtured as beings ca- 
 pable of recovery, and the means of manumission in 
 due time should be placed within their reach. And 
 so M'ith the poorest peasant ; he should be invested 
 with self-respect, with capability of exertion, with 
 encouragements to an honourable ambition, with 
 worldly means, with something of a superfluity — 
 something beyond that minimum of subsistence 
 which is wholly absorbed in the support of the 
 animal, and nurtures nothing but the animal ; that, 
 if it should so please Providence, he may, by honest 
 industry, accumulate the means of raising his posi- 
 tion in society. Wherever the poor are reduced to 
 a minimum of subsistence, this advance is wholly 
 impossible; and wherever gambling speculations and 
 mere commercial covetousness prevail, there wages 
 must be lowered to this point ; and with so-called 
 freedom of trade and liberty in government we 
 insure the slavery — the most abject and hopeless 
 slavery — of the great bulk of the population, even 
 as we are now doing in this country. 
 
 What is true of the poor is true also of all classes 
 of the commonalty. To all alike should be open 
 means and opportunities of elevating themselves in 
 the social scale. There should be a power of con- 
 ferring permanent nobility on those who distinguish 
 themselves as individuals ; yet not without a due 
 attention to anti(iuity of family, and the permanent 
 possession of hereditary property in land. There 
 should be honourable professions open to all, in 
 which personal worth may be exhibited and tried, 
 
226 PROMOTION OF INDIVIDUAL MERIT. 
 
 and the foundation laid for new houses, to become 
 hereafter the materials for recruiting an exhausted 
 nobility. As this progression mainly depends upon 
 a power of accumulating wealth, and this accumula- 
 tion upon the possession of a superfluity — (we need 
 not pause at present to shew how this principle must 
 be corrected, that it may not sink into covetousness) 
 — a wise politician will check all those habits of ex- 
 pense and vulgar rivalry which induce families to 
 live up to the full extent of their income, or even 
 beyond it. As no accumulation can be safe or pro- 
 fitable which is not the result and the indication of 
 that patience, frugality, self-denial, integrity, and 
 Christian liberality, without which the possession of 
 wealtii is only a snare and a curse, he will also dis- 
 courage all habits of speculation and gambling ; all 
 modes of obtaining wealth by extortion, by oppres- 
 sion, by chance, by mean and paltry gains, by the 
 encouragement of vice, by ministering to luxury, 
 by fraud, by miserly habits. It is not possible to 
 prevent the growth of wealth in some hands more 
 than others. It is not wise to endeavour to suppress 
 such afield and discipline for some of men's greatest 
 virtues. It is equally impossible to prevent wealth 
 from representing and conl'erring power ; or power 
 from assuming an authority in the affairs of State. 
 But it is possible to distinguish between wealth hon- 
 ourably and legitimately acquired, and unhallowed 
 hoards of rapacity and fraud. 
 
CH. XXII.] THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 227 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 And let us pause here to venture a few suggestions ; 
 little, I fear, in harmony with prevailing notions of 
 the day. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most remarkable features in 
 the organisation of society in this country is the 
 constitution of the great professions of the law, the 
 navy, the army, the medical profession, the great 
 mercantile businesses, the official departments of 
 the Government, and the Church ; placed as they 
 are between an hereditary nobility and landed 
 gentry, and the great body of the lower classes. 
 They act as organs of secretion, constantly absorb- 
 ing into them large portions of the inferior orders, 
 and gradually transmitting them into the higher 
 ranks. ^^They effect this quietly and insensibly ; 
 animating and invigorating the energy of the very 
 poorest citizen by prospects of honourable advance- 
 ment, and by so much consciousness of equality with 
 the nobles as is contained in the possibility of being 
 equalled ; and at the same time feeding the per- 
 manent aristocracy with fresh supplies of personal 
 merit, and preserving a balance and evenness of 
 temperature, and freedom of circulation, in the whole 
 atmosphere of society. It is impossible to over- 
 estimate the value of this constitution, or the im- 
 portance of these middle classes, considered in this 
 point of view. In them lies the practical exempli- 
 fication and working of the freedom of the British 
 Constitution ; because through them the poorest- 
 born may, by habits of industry and honesty, rise, 
 
228 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 or see his children rise, to the highest position in tlie 
 state, and become founders of a noble family. And 
 this is a freedom which is not a fallacy and a 
 snare. It is not freedom to live without law, or to 
 be governed by our own caprices : no tyranny can 
 be more terrilile. But it is freedom, honourable 
 freedom, freedom encouraged and sanctioned by 
 God Himself, not to be shackled and impeded by 
 man in those honourable exertions which would de- 
 velop and exercise our faculties in as wide a sphere 
 as Providence may permit us to occupy. 
 
 But there are certain cautions to be observed in 
 the regulation of these great professions, and cer- 
 tain errors now prevalent. 
 
 Is not this one, — that the profession of the 
 clergy is to be admitted as one of these organs for 
 enabling the lower orders to penetrate permanently 
 and to establish themselves among the higher ranks ? 
 Amongst the various defences of an Established 
 Church, few have been more frequently and boldly 
 put forward by its political supporters than this. And, 
 in one sense, indeed, the Church is the great organ 
 for this purpose. Perhaps it is, ultimately speaking, 
 the only organ ; because, without the spirit which it 
 diffuses, and the lessons which it inculcates, no ad- 
 vancement in external prosperity can be safe or good. 
 And it is also true, that no profession can or ought to 
 absorb so large a proportion of the poor, or can so 
 easily transmute them into an aristocracy of mind. 
 Practically the Church in England has thus acted 
 for years. But it is one thing to infuse that Chris- 
 tian spirit of gentleness, courtesy, self-respect, rever- 
 ence, and love, which forms the true temper of a 
 gentleman — to infuse this into the son of the poor- 
 est peasant — to draw daily from the village-school 
 children, who, by their talent and goodness, may 
 hereafter be placed as rulers over the Church; and 
 
CH. XXII.] THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 229 
 
 practically in this manner to equalise the dispropor- 
 tions, and to soften the differences of society; — and 
 it is another thing to contemplate the station of 
 the clergyman as a stepping-stone of rank — as an 
 advancement in worldly aggrandisement — as an op- 
 portunity of founding a family. What such a view 
 becomes, when adopted on a large scale, is seen in 
 the effect of nepotism in the Romish Church, or even 
 in those instances among ourselves — rare, indeed, 
 and visited by general reprobation — where large for- 
 tunes have been accumulated, and families founded, 
 upon the revenues of bishoprics. But on a smaller 
 scale, and with consequences less glaring, yet more 
 mischievous, the principle, it is to be feared, is 
 operating throughout the English Church, impo- 
 verishing its resources, debasing its purity, ])aralys- 
 ing its energies, and detaching from it the affec- 
 tions and respect both of the rich above and of the 
 poor beneath. A Church to command those affec- 
 tions must itself be poor — not poor in its command of 
 wealth, but poor in the appropriation of its wealth to 
 its individual clergy. Its property is the property of 
 the poor; and all which beyond a necessary mainte- 
 nance — a maintenance of the simplest kind — is ab- 
 stracted for the support of a family, is withdrawn 
 from its right destination. But this is not the place 
 to enter on the social organisation of the clergy, and 
 the right principles of their maintenance. 
 
 There is another disposition prevalent, — to bring 
 these great professions too closely into contact with 
 both the higher and lower classes. It is often la- 
 mented that the education required for them is so 
 expensive, that the poor are necessarily excluded 
 from the chance of entering them ; and, on the other 
 hand, individuals who have become eminent in them 
 are frequently ennobled, without either a due provi- 
 sion of property to support a family in its new rank, 
 
 X 
 
230 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 or those habits and associations which would become 
 it. But every advance in society should be slow 
 and gradual. It cannot be safe, as a general prin- 
 ciple, to admit any rapid elevation. What is said 
 by the wise man of them " that trust to their hands" 
 — the carpenter, the smith, and the potter — will be 
 true, for the most part, of their children. One gene- 
 ration is imbued with the spirit of the other. The 
 child, to a very great extent, inherits the disposition 
 of the parents ; and, to use an ordinary expression, 
 " there is much in blood." Without them, indeed, 
 " cannot a city be inhabited ; but they shall not 
 dwell where they will, nor go up and down. They 
 shall not be sought for in public counsel, nor sit 
 high in the congregation : they shall not sit on the 
 judge's seat, nor understand the sentence of judg- 
 ment ; they cannot declare justice and judgment, 
 and they shall not be found where parables are 
 spoken." ^ There are, indeed, rare exceptions, when 
 the child of the peasant may be safely raised to a 
 profession far above his father's craft ; or one who 
 is distinguished in a profession be placed among 
 nobles. But, for the most part, it is wiser to allow 
 the family to grow by slow advances, and to evolve 
 each grade of society from that which is immediately 
 beneath it. The chance of incongruity is thus dimin- 
 ished, the dislocation of family connexions is avoided, 
 and the mind is prepared and matured without any 
 sudden shock, which few have the strength to with- 
 stand. Peerages for life may be granted to great 
 lawyers and victorious generals ; but hereditary peer- 
 ages should be confined to families already establish- 
 ed, and accustomed to habits of command, and to the 
 enjoyment of dignity. 
 
 Once more. If these great professions are the fit 
 organs for elevating all that is capable of elevation in 
 ' Ecclus. xxxviii. 32. 
 
CH. XXII.] THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 231 
 
 tlie lower classes, and giving scope for the development 
 of individual excellence, as distinct from permanent 
 family rank, how ought they not to be regarded and 
 dealt with as schools of a noble discipline ! How 
 ought even their lowest grades to be pervaded with a 
 high spirit, and their whole system of instruction and 
 practice to be placed under the control of the sound- 
 est philosophy and the purest religion ! Would it not 
 well become a wise politician to provide some better 
 system than is now prevalent for the education of 
 medical students, especially in the lower depart- 
 ments of the profession ? Should not the inferior 
 branches of the law be elevated by some more strin- 
 gent superintendence from the higher branches, so 
 that they should no longer be identified in popular 
 opinion with low chicanery and cunning? Might 
 not even the army and the navy be formed into ad- 
 mirable schools and nurseries even for the common 
 soldiers, and a connexion be established between 
 them and civil offices of a higher grade, so as to 
 allow the brave, the sober, and the honest, an op- 
 portunity of establishing himself in an advanced 
 position, instead of treating him as a mere machine, 
 to be cast off and left without a hope as soon as he 
 becomes incapacitated for service ? These are ques- 
 tions of practice and detail ; but they enter promi- 
 nently into consideration when we look upon society 
 itself, not as an accidental arrangement for the pre- 
 servation of individual interests, but as a grand 
 nurse and parent of all virtues and all happiness in 
 its subjects. 
 
 One more suggestion may be made. With all 
 the importance duly attached to liberal professions, 
 and the necessity of elevating and purifying them 
 by every means in our power, they are still not to 
 be regarded, as some are now disposed to regard 
 them, as the spring and moving power in the State. 
 
232 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 Practically, indeed, at this time in England it is so. 
 Their numbers and their wealth have so swelled; the 
 weight given to our towns in the elective franchise so 
 far preponderates ; the internal affairs of the country 
 have become so involved by a system of credit, and 
 by the multiplication of laws ; and the Church, till 
 within a few years, had so retired from the lead and 
 control of public opinion, — that the middle classes 
 have drawn into their hands a very large propor- 
 tion of the power of government. The election of 
 the House of Commons is to a considerable extent, 
 either directly or indirectly, within their hands. And 
 as a body of check, of balance, of conservation, their 
 functions are most valuable. But woe be to that 
 country which can look no higher for the mainte- 
 nance of its principles, and the lead in its conduct. 
 Burke, that greatest of modern statesmen, foresaw 
 from the beginning of the French Revolution this 
 fatal mistake in its policy, and prophesied its results. 
 
 There are many reasons why the liberal profes- 
 sions, however honourable, are not the fittest school 
 for minds designed to take the lead in the govern- 
 ment of nations. 
 
 They are, in the first place, regarded as means 
 of elevation and advancement. And man cannot 
 be emptied of his selfishness — cannot be emanci- 
 pated from the restraints of timidity and worldly 
 calculation — cannot be nerved to uphold truth and 
 right through all risks, when he is beset with the 
 temptations of personal aggrandisement. 
 
 Secondly, those who engage in them have rarely 
 been born in the situations to which they aspire. 
 They are climbing a ladder; and to have been ori- 
 ginally stationed at the bottom is no good discipline 
 for maintaining steadily a position at the sunmiit. 
 They who are to exercise power well should be ac- 
 customed to it from childhood. " Even from the 
 
CH. XXII.] THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 233 
 
 flower till the grape was ripe," says the wise son 
 of Sirach, " hath my foot delighted in wisdom." 
 "When I was yet young, or ever I went abroad," 
 — " I have had my heart joined with her from the 
 beginning, therefore shall I not be forsaken."^ 
 
 Thirdly, they are practical professions. They 
 engage the mind in details; in particular applica- 
 tions; in the interests of individuals ; in the con- 
 tingencies of life. And though they thus foster 
 habits of prudence and experience, they tend to 
 withdraw attention from the great and high abstrac- 
 tions of general truth which constitute wisdom, and 
 without which practice must sink into empiricism, 
 and nations be made the prey of experiment and 
 conjecture. 
 
 Fourthly, they do not command that faith and 
 reverence from the people which is paid instinctively 
 to hereditary rank. And their habits are not such 
 as to procure it, without risking obloquy and envy. 
 External splendour, a spirit of command, that confi- 
 dence in self which is required to ensure confidence 
 from others, the assumption of authority, without 
 which obedience will rarely be paid, — these things 
 in men not born to rank, and whose position in so- 
 ciety depends upon their personal labours, are re- 
 garded with jealousy, and even with contempt. And 
 they can scarcely be attempted without risking some 
 incongruity or vulgarism, which betrays that they 
 arc not natural. 
 
 And other reasons might be added. But these 
 may be suflficient to suggest, that while the middle 
 classes and liberal professions of a nation form one 
 of its greatest safeguards against oppression ; one 
 of its strongest guarantees for the general welfare of 
 the people ; one of its best witnesses and advisers 
 
 ' Ecclus. 11. 13. 
 X 2 
 
234? THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 in practical questions of expediency ; a safe diffuser 
 of real libertj' ; a steady ballast in the vessel of the 
 State ; yet the rulers and leaders of the State must 
 be sought among minds withdrawn from the bustle 
 of life and from the perplexities of its details, fami- 
 liarised from their childhood to command, possessed 
 by birth of high and noble instincts, and by charac- 
 ter of the grand element of abstract wisdom ; in one 
 \vord, among the nobility and the Church. 
 
 And it is upon this same principle that the wise 
 political philosopher, in constructing his arrange- 
 ments for the nurture and education of the great 
 body of the people, as distinguished from the here- 
 ditary nobility, would make it, if possible, a funda- 
 mental condition that all, without exception, should 
 be brought up in the bosom of the Church, as bap- 
 tised Christians; and as entitled by their baptism 
 to all its privileges, as ' children of God, members 
 of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.' 
 This is the best nursery, after all, for minds which 
 may be required to take a share in the government 
 of empires, though not originally called to it by 
 the worldly position of their parents. An inherited 
 spiritual nobility, grf^ater and more glorious than 
 that of any earthly monarch, will well supply the 
 place, and more than infuse the elevated spirit, of 
 a temporal birthright. The spiritual union of the 
 Christian in one mysterious body with his blessed 
 Lord will give that social principle, — that attach- 
 ment to a class, — that sober and tempered exclu- 
 siveness, — that consciousness of joint power, — that 
 pride in the possession of high privileges, corporate 
 and not personal, — that desire to exercise power for 
 the benefit of others less favoured by nature than 
 ourselves, which are the natural growth of an ele- 
 vated corporate character; and which only become 
 vanitv and selfishness when the line of exclusion is 
 
CH. XXII.] THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 235 
 
 drawn arbitrarily by ourselves, not fixed irrevocably 
 by tlie hand of nature without merit of our own. 
 And to be inheritors of a spiritual kingdom, when 
 faith has realised the promise, may well inspire a 
 more earnest desire than any earthly birthright to 
 prepare for the discharge of its duties by self-com- 
 mand, by energy, by patience, by devotedness and 
 love ; in one word, by all the same habits which are 
 required in the rulers of this world to fit them for 
 their task of government. 
 
 And whether minds thus trained are called or 
 not to execute any temporal functions, it then will 
 matter little. With this Christian discipline and 
 Christian nobility, or rather royalty, conferred upon 
 the meanest peasant, they need no other school. 
 What the great philosophers of heathenism required 
 as an essential condition for the right formation, or 
 rather for the salvation, of the soul — that it should 
 be made a member of a glorious city, be imbued 
 from infancy with all the great forms of truth, be 
 inspired with a deep sense of its own nobility, be 
 admitted to high functions in the government of the 
 polity, — this, without which they deemed it impos- 
 sible for the human mind to attain its full stature 
 and perfection, but vvhich, with them, could only be 
 enjoyed by the rich and the noble, is now Avithin the 
 reach of the beggar. " To the poor the gospel is 
 preached." What shall we think of Christian states- 
 men who would lay the foundations of their political 
 constitution in an hereditary peerage, — lay them in it 
 wisely and truly, — yet forget that hereditary nobility 
 of Christianity which they may diffuse among the 
 poorest classes, and spread over the whole nation ? 
 What shall we think of a religious system, which, 
 acknowledging Christianity to contain in it the great 
 antiseptic principle to national corruption, and en- 
 deavouring to difiuse and promote it for the preser- 
 
236 THE MIDDLE CLASSES. 
 
 vation of the State, yet forgets or undervalues, as a 
 mere dogma or speculative question, the privileges 
 of the baptismal covenant, the practice of infant 
 baptism, and the truth of baptismal regeneration ? 
 Who shall say that there is no connexion between 
 such doctrines of revealed truth and the constitution 
 of States ? between a revival of the old principles 
 of the Catholic Church and a restoration of the true 
 system of the monarchy ? 
 
CH. XXIII.] CONSTRUCTION OF PARLIAMENTS. 237 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 We have now reached two elementary divisions in 
 tlie constitution of the State ; one a permanent he- 
 reditary aristocracy, and the other a fluctuating 
 body of personal and individual excellence, evolving 
 itself promiscuously and precariously from the great 
 mass of society through the agency of the liberal 
 professions. And where the nation is large, and the 
 State, in order to perform its most important func- 
 tions of legislation, must be condensed into a small 
 space, there we must provide a representation of these 
 two elements in the form of a national council. This 
 is the true origin of parliaments. And in this coun- 
 try the two elements are adequately exhibited in the 
 Houses of Lords and Commons. But there are seve- 
 ral important questions which here meet us. 
 
 In the first place, these elements are distinct ; 
 they are almost antagonistic to each other. One is 
 impressed with the character of stability, repose, ex- 
 clusiveness, dread of innovation, adherence to pre- 
 scription. It is bent more on the honourable than 
 on the useful ; is an assertor of general principles ; 
 is arrogant perhaps, yet not without virtue and be- 
 nevolence in its pride ; contemptuous of mere money, 
 and of occupations connected with gain ; a favourer 
 of agriculture, as linked with the possession of land, 
 and this with territorial jurisdiction ; jealous of the 
 Church, when the Church would rival its own tem- 
 poral prerogatives, yet attached to it as a supporter 
 of order, and as inspired with a spirit analogous to 
 its own. It maintains the monarchy, not merely as 
 
238 CONSTRUCTION OF PARLIAMENTS. 
 
 an expedifint political arrangement, but as involving 
 its own principle of hereditary ranks; and still more 
 from that habitual reverence for others which is 
 nurtured in those who are objects of reverence 
 themselves. And its feeling towards the classes 
 beneath them, if mixed with jealousy and disdain 
 of the more aspiring and presuming, is chastened 
 into liberality and benevolence towards their de- 
 pendants and the poor. 
 
 The other element is full of activity. It is en- 
 terprising, bold, sanguine, fond of advancement and 
 change, slighting antiquity, contemning forms and 
 positive institutions, measuring distinction by per- 
 sonal excellence, hasty in its plans, prone to specula- 
 tion, vague and diffusive in its benevolence, devoted 
 to the acquirement of wealth, attached more to the 
 monied than to the agricultural interest, a schemer 
 in education, incapable of understanding the import- 
 ance of religious establishments, confounding posi- 
 tive creeds with philosophical dogmas, the advocate 
 of opinion as opposed to traditional revelation, a 
 clamourer for liberty in doctrine as in trade, a foe to 
 all the ceremonials of society, an opponent of every 
 thing which is not simple, uniform, centralised, per- 
 spicuous, and unbalanced. 
 
 These two distinct characters are the natural 
 result of circumstances. One body is located and 
 guaranteed in the possession of privileges from their 
 birth ; the other is engaged in the pursuit of them. 
 One has to maintain, the other to acquire. And 
 when brought together into the one body of the 
 State, how are they to be harmonised? 
 
 Once more we must recur to the fundamental 
 law of nature, unity in plurality, and plurality in 
 unity. S('])arate the two elements entirely, and you 
 place them in constant and direct collision ; in which 
 the more active euei'getic element must finally pre- 
 
CII. XXIII.] CONSTRUCTION OF PARLIAMENTS. 239 
 
 vail over tlie more quiet and more weak. A House 
 of Commons which sliould be created solely out of 
 the popular element, must, in a very short time, 
 triumpli over a House of Lords which had no strength 
 but tliat of hereditary rank. On the other hand, at- 
 tempt to fuse them together in one chamber, and 
 they would soon separate themselves again. And 
 the conflict would only be postponed, and become 
 more fierce, because it would be carried on within 
 the same walls. It remains tiiat they should be 
 kept apart in two distinct bodies, and yet should 
 be blended together by a certain infusion into each 
 of the predominant spirit of the other. Passages 
 should be opened from the Commons into the Lords. 
 Some recognition of hereditary rank and hereditary 
 property should be made in the Commons ; some of 
 the stirring, enterprising qualities of popular advance- 
 ment be communicated to the Lords. And, without 
 the Avails of parliament, there should be great landed 
 hereditary proprietors, and an inferior order of no- 
 bility, created and recruited at intervals from the 
 great body of the commonalty, who may form a con- 
 necting link between the two classes, partaking of the 
 character of each, and thus able to break and soften 
 the collisions which must take place between them. 
 That is the best arrangement of parts in which the 
 eye recognises, at once, an essential distinction and 
 separation between the two extremes ; and yet passes 
 from one to the other, through so many impercep- 
 tible shades, sliding into each other by degrees, that 
 it can scarcely mark a line of severance ; but owns 
 that they are many, yet one, and one, yet many. Nor 
 is tlie preservation of this distinction and antagonism 
 without its importance both to the monarch and the 
 lower orders. 
 
 It is necessary, in the first place, to provide an 
 ally and support to the monarch against the superior 
 
240 THE MONARCH THE 
 
 strength of the State itself. The monarch must be 
 weak, must be powerless, without the assistance of 
 the State ; and therefore the State can, at any time, 
 overrule and even destroy him, as the Roman senate 
 destroyed their kings. When, indeed, a king is 
 supported by an independent Church, of which the 
 Roman kings were destitute, the spiritual and moral 
 influence of that Church will be of a certain avail in 
 maintaining obedience and loyalty, and in compress- 
 ing, by an internal law of conscience, the aggres- 
 sions of the State. But, in human affairs, we must 
 not trust to moral influence alone. A machinery 
 must be provided to enforce where we cannot per- 
 suade. Churches are, indeed, the first thing to be 
 built in a land ; but, by their side, we must build 
 prisons. And clergy are the best preachers of obe- 
 dience; yet we cannot dispense with armies and 
 police. And, odious as the principle may sound, 
 of dividing in order to rule, it is necessary in the 
 organisation of the State. The Nobles and the 
 Commons — the popular principle and the aristo- 
 cratical — must be placed in some degree of collision 
 and counterpoise against each other, that the whole 
 body may not, by its joint force, overpower the 
 Monarch. Two elements cannot be harmonised, 
 cannot be held in union, except by a third. Tri- 
 plicity is the primary law of all repose. It is the 
 type of all organisation, the form and idea of beauty. 
 And the Christian knows, from the first, that so it 
 must be, because it is the form and idea of that great 
 Being who created and organised the world. 
 
 And thus the internal history of European king- 
 doms has been, for the most part, a series of man- 
 oeuvres, in which the Monarch strove to secure and 
 aggrandise his own authority by holding the balance 
 between the people and the nobility, — now creating 
 a popular interest by municipal corporations and 
 
CH. XXIII.] EVOLVER OF THE STATE. 241 
 
 commorcial bodies, — now throwing himself on his 
 aristocracy to defend him against the aggressions of 
 his commons ; and thus, from time to time, blending 
 himself with each, and, by his supreme informing 
 power, giving strength and development to their 
 respective systems, according as either required sap- 
 port, and could render it again to himself. 
 
 But here recurs again the question relating to 
 the composition of that portion of the State which 
 is not hereditary. By whom are its members to 
 be selected ? Shall the body be evolved from the 
 monarch or from the people — from one extremity 
 or the other ? If wholly from the monarch — if 
 the monarch may choose his advisers, his officers, 
 his ministers, his controllers (for so far as power of 
 negation extends, the State must control the king), 
 advice and control become nugatory. If the peo- 
 ple possess this privilege, and the representative 
 system, as it is generally understood, be thoroughly 
 carried out, then the people become the source of 
 power, and the monarchy is swallowed up. Once 
 more we are met by two contending principles ; and 
 how are they to be reconciled? Not by excluding 
 either, but by retaining both. From the king must 
 the State be evolved ; he is the source of all power, 
 the fountain of honour, the germ of the social tree ; 
 and from him practically and historically our own 
 constitution has been developed. Whatever be the 
 original of a monarchy, whether elective or heredit- 
 ary, it is impossible that unity can be preserved in 
 the system without conceding in fact, and maintain- 
 ing in theory, that the whole authority and power, 
 the very being and essence of the nation, in all its 
 parts and functions, is concentrated in the person of 
 the monarch. Once admit another centre of organi- 
 sation, and a battle is opened, and the nation must 
 be torn to pieces, till one party has overpowered the 
 
242 THE MONARCH THE 
 
 other, and unitj' is once more restored, partial and 
 seeming unity, by absolute slavery. Thus the king 
 confers tlie patent of nobility. He gathers round him 
 the most illustrious of his subjects, and forms them 
 into a council. He requires advice and informa- 
 tion touching the commonalty of the realm, and as- 
 sembles a House of Commons. He is the dispenser 
 of justice; and because he cannot sit in person, he 
 creates judges and magistrates. He is the defender 
 of the realm, and therefore levies armies, gives com- 
 missions, cashiers, promotes, distributes honours, acts 
 as the sole lord of the military force. 
 
 All temporal prerogatives and jurisdictions ema- 
 nate from him. Hence even the Church itself, inde- 
 pendent as it is in its spiritual privileges, of which 
 no monarch can deprive it — yet the moment it be- 
 comes involved in temporalities must sue for them to 
 the crown, and exercise its powers at the mercy and 
 by the permission of the crown. Even the property 
 of the whole nation is his. And hence, notwithstand- 
 ing the checks imposed upon the exercise of this right, 
 our law is full of provisions which recognise his ul- 
 timate title. Nay, more, the very lives and persons, 
 and character and comfort of his people are his also ; 
 and an injury to them is avenged, not so much as 
 inflicted on the sufl^ering individual, as perpetrated 
 'against the peace of our sovereign lord the king, 
 his crown and dignity.' 
 
 Nor is this a fiction of law. Law does not 
 deal in fictions. It cannot maintain itself on fiction. 
 No system can be based upon a lie. But there are 
 grand and vital truths, so far removed from vulgar 
 practice, so deeply imbedded in the innermost re- 
 cesses of profound wisdom, that to common eyes 
 they are as falsclioods : just as the being and nature 
 of the soul, witli all its mysteries and problems, is 
 a falsehood to him who knows of nothing but his 
 
CH. XXIII.] EVOLVER OF THE STATE. 243 
 
 body. It is not a lie, that somewhere or other in 
 the body politic there must reside a supreme phy- 
 sical power, which we may endeavour to suppress, 
 to hide, to break up, and to disperse, as we would 
 dissipate a noxious tumour ; but which, the moment 
 the nation begins to assume its national functions, 
 and to act as a body, must come out. It is not a lie 
 that this supreme power must be deposited, though 
 only for a minute at a time, and for single separate 
 acts, in the hands of an individual. And it is not 
 a lie that the supreme physical power involves in it 
 the absolute command of all temporalities and ex- 
 ternals, and through them a wonderful control over 
 the mind, though only incidentally. It is not be- 
 cause law, and precedent, and prudence, and con- 
 science, and the balance of counteracting springs, 
 may prevent this absolute power from thus assum- 
 ing the omnipotent command and possession of all 
 things, that therefore it does not exist. A giant 
 possesses the power of crushing a child, though he 
 uses his power like a lamb. And if there be any 
 doubt of the stringency of those moral considera- 
 tions which restrain him, the nurse of the child will 
 act as if the power were likely to be exerted. The 
 whole business of life is carried on upon a similar 
 fiction — upon the assumption that powers exist, 
 wiiich, nevertheless, will not be brought into action. 
 The only approach to fiction is the voluntary sub- 
 mission of the people to some one selected indivi- 
 dual marked out by birth, and guaranteed for life in 
 the supreme command. 
 
 i^ut liaving once made this determination, wisely 
 and righteously made it, the theory must be strictly 
 adhered to. And how can it be prevented from ex- 
 posing the State to all the caprices of an individual 
 will, if the individual will creates, and therefore can 
 destroy, the State ? And what is to become of the 
 
244 PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENCE. 
 
 people, thus left without the protection of any in- 
 termediate body? 
 
 It is by the adoption of another principle — the 
 principle of permanence. The organisation of the 
 tree is carried on by the gradual accretion of extra- 
 neous particles, which, when once incorporated with 
 it, become fixed and consolidated, and form chan- 
 nels for conveying the vital principle farther on. 
 This fixity and consolidation forms the tree. In the 
 same manner any rational agent, in commencing a 
 work, lays down for himself certain lines of action, 
 from which he resolves not to deviate. He confines 
 himself within certain bounds ; he throws up bar- 
 riers against his own caprices. He retains, indeed, 
 the physical powers of removing and altering them 
 at will; but unless he imposes a check upon his own 
 freedom, he becomes involved in a chaos of fluctuat- 
 ing contingencies. Certainty, regularity, self-com- 
 mand in adhering to self-imposed laws, and the 
 toleration of obstacles raised by our own hand, is 
 one of the great virtues of human action, as it is 
 the wonderful phenomenon most prominent in the 
 operations of the supreme creative Will. " He laid 
 the foundations of the earth, that it should not be 
 removed for ever." ^ " He commanded, and they 
 were created. He hath also stablished them for 
 ever and ever : He hath made a decree which shall 
 not pass." - 
 
 This principle of permanence in the develop- 
 ment of the State from the will of the monarch takes 
 this general form — that oflftces once created must 
 not be destroyed — grants made must not be recalled 
 — privileges conceded must not be withdrawn — 
 power conferred must not be denied. Every thing 
 is to be carried on upon custom, usage, prescrip- 
 
 1 Ps. civ. 5. - Ps. clxviii. 5,6. 
 
CH. XXIII.] PRIXCIPLE OF PERMANENCE. 245 
 
 tion, "according to ancient practice from time im- 
 memorial ;" by common rather tlian by statute law. 
 Those who search into the philosophy of the Bri- 
 tish constitution will be surprised to observe how 
 thoroughly it is permeated in all its parts with this 
 princi})le, seemingly so unmeaning, often so opposed 
 to obvious expediency and inclinations. 
 
 In this manner the British monarchy has shaped 
 and developed itself by throwing up out of its own 
 substance, as it were, and by the spontaneous action 
 of its own free will, a variety of organs and instru- 
 ments by which it works, but which also act as 
 barriers and checks to its own caprices. The king 
 created parliaments ; but having created, he cannot 
 dispense with them. He appoints judges; but having 
 appointed them, he cannot remove them without the 
 gravest cause. He gives a charter; but the arbitrary 
 recall of charters was one of the crying crimes of 
 James H. He nominates to commissions in the 
 army, to magistracies, to peerages, to pensions, to 
 privileges of various kinds ; but they are not revo- 
 cable at will. In theory he was the original pro- 
 prietor and donor of all property; but he dare not 
 touch a straw in the hovel of the meanest beggar, 
 or resume a single farthing against the will of the 
 present possessor. 
 
 Upon this principle the great charters of Bri- 
 tish liberties take the form of declaratory laws. 
 They claim the privileges of Englishmen as birth- 
 rights, as the usage of the constitution. And even 
 in the creation of temporary offices, for occasional 
 purposes, the greatest jealousy has been shewn in 
 confining what is in its nature an exception to rule, 
 an accidental and extraordinary emergency, to regu- 
 lar laws: just as in the wonderful analogy of the 
 Divine operations, miracles themselves, whicji super- 
 sede all laws, are subjected to laws of their own. 
 Y 2 
 
246 PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENCE. 
 
 This principle of permanence acts in a variety 
 of ways. 
 
 It operates, first, to impress upon the movement 
 of the governing will that character of regularity 
 and uniformity, without which, even with the best 
 intentions, it must become a tyranny. For there is 
 no tyranny like caprice. True slavery is subjection 
 to a rule, to which it is impossible to conform our 
 will, because nature has established between them 
 an irreconcilable contradiction. We can emanci- 
 pate ourselves from any seeming slavery, where we 
 can bring our will into conformity with our circum- 
 stances. But caprice prevents us from seeing the 
 law, and yet binds us under its yoke. 
 
 Secondly, it gives to the people that confidence, 
 that power of prospective prudence, that sense of 
 repose and quietude, without which they cannot en- 
 gage in any work of magnitude or value. 
 
 Thirdly, it renders the governing will cautious 
 and thoughtful in establishing precedents, in creat- 
 ing powers and organs, which afterwards may em- 
 barrass and obstruct its own movements. 
 
 P'ourthly, it thus restricts this creation in a great 
 degree to organs of absolute necessity. Just as the 
 vital principle in the body throws itself out uncon- 
 sciously only into the formation of those instruments 
 of sense and motion, without which it cannot deve- 
 lop its functions, so that the body is, as it were, an 
 expansion of the soul, and the soul is an epitome of 
 the body ; and no organ is formed in the body for 
 which there is not a corresponding faculty or want 
 in the spirit: so, when thoughtfulness and self-com- 
 mand prevail in the movements of the sovereign 
 power, he will not create in the body politic any 
 superfluous or incongruous machinery. He will be 
 unwilling to create any at all ; and nothing but the 
 ])ressure of necessity, in other words, the imperious 
 
ClI. XXIII.] PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENCE. 247 
 
 dictates of Nature herself, will induce him to do so ; 
 and tiius Nature herself, the wisest and best of all 
 artisans, will become the modeller of the State, and 
 the State will become, like the human body, only the 
 expansion and incorporation of the natural soul. 
 
 Fifthly, if any false organisation has been ad- 
 mitted, the only mode of correcting it is by main- 
 taining and leaving it to Nature. " The powers that 
 be are ordained ofGod."^ Whatever authorities and 
 privileges have once been created, leave them to 
 themselves; and if noxious, they will die out and 
 perish of themselves. By stirring the embers we 
 only increase the flame. " In returning and rest shall 
 ye be saved ; in quietness and in confidence shall 
 be your strength."- " Their strength is to sit still." ^ 
 It is so, because, as was once before shewn, there is 
 a healing poAver, a vis medicatrix in Nature, in the 
 body politic as in the material frame, which can 
 cement fractures, and slough-off tumours, and fill- 
 up wounds, and, in some cases, even restore mutila- 
 tions, while the body is kept at rest. Once admit 
 the principle of change ; allow every one who feels 
 an inconvenience to meditate and plan its removal ; 
 encourage in this manner a sensitiveness and sus- 
 ceptibility to evils ; let loose all the wandering ima- 
 ginations of the human heart ; unsettle the con- 
 fidence of society in the stability of institutions; 
 exasperate minds against each other by the sense 
 of injuries which can be, and should be, redressed, 
 but are not redressed ; and how, in this fevered and 
 unhealthy atmosphere of thought, can any real ame- 
 lioration be made in the condition of a nation ? 
 
 But accustom minds to patience and endurance; 
 throw them in upon themselves for energy to correct, 
 by their own improvement in virtue, what cannot 
 
 ' Rom. xiii. 1. * Is. xxx. 15. ^ Is. xxx 
 
248 PRINCIPLE OF PERMANENCE. 
 
 be improved in their outward circumstances; teach 
 them to regard those circumstances as trials, and as 
 discipline ordained for them by a merciful Provi- 
 dence; let those who are already invested with power 
 feel assured and undisturbed in its possession ; diffuse 
 a general confidence and quietness over the whole 
 society ; suspend the restless impatience and craving 
 for change ; and, by degrees, all things will fall into 
 their place ; if the places themselves are not altered, 
 yet minds will become fitted to them ; irritation 
 will subside, views will be cleared, true evils and 
 their causes will become more apparent; and, with 
 the removal of jealousy and suspicion, there will arise 
 greater willingness to remove such evils, voluntarily 
 and gradually, and with such mutual toleration as 
 almost to prevent the movement from being really, 
 or being felt as, a change. Even a democracy thus 
 managed must soon lapse insensibly into a monarchy. 
 Turbulent and fretful spirits would retire from pub- 
 lic afiairs. All would he willing to give up power 
 and privileges which they could not turn to their 
 own advancement, and which, in the hands of others, 
 would not be turned against themselves; and whe- 
 ther the outward form of a plurality of governors 
 was retained or not, such a unity of law and action 
 would be introduced into the whole body, that the 
 natural evils of a democracy would scarcely be felt. 
 And in all this no mention is made of Providence, 
 which, even without the working of Nature, can 
 bring good out of evil, and light out of darkness, 
 when the human will is once reduced to obedience, 
 quietness, and faith. 
 
CH. XXIV.] POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 249 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Now it is obvious that no such principle of re- 
 gularity and permanence could be maintained, if 
 the crystallisation of the orj^ans of the State issued 
 from the people ; because, with a plurality of wills 
 must come disorder and incongruity. The very 
 essence of will without law is caprice and confu- 
 sion. To the monarch, therefore, only we can look 
 for that informing, originating power which is to 
 develop the organisation of the State. 
 
 But how, then, is the popular voice and the re- 
 presentative system — a system which, with all its 
 perversions and extravagances, is founded on Nature, 
 and approved by expediency — to find a place in the 
 government of nations? — or, if admitted, how is 
 it to be reconciled with the unity of the Supreme 
 Will ? A Christian may turn for instruction to the 
 polity of the Church as divinely appointed, and as 
 one which in the most positive form repudiates mere 
 popular rule — \vhich is monarchical, and founded on 
 prescription — and of which the whole mechanism 
 radiates uniformly and uninterruptedly from the 
 person of its presiding Head — its Bishop ; and 
 yet in which, according to primitive practice, the 
 popular voice finds a place even in the election of 
 its rulers. 
 
 Again, he may look to the moral government of 
 the universe ; to the kingdom of God as exhibited 
 in the natural relations of man to his Creator. All 
 power is in the hands of the one supreme Creator. 
 From Him flow all appointments. He setteth up, 
 
250 POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 
 
 and putleth down. " Not from the east, nor from 
 the west, nor yet from the south, comes promotion," 
 but from Him only. " By Him kings reign, and 
 princes decree justice. By Him princes rule, and 
 nobles, even all the judges of the earth."^ And yet 
 men. His subjects — His blind, wayward, sinful sub- 
 jects — are admitted to take some part in the go- 
 vernment of the world. And obedience and loyalty 
 to God, — that loyalty which refuses to lift even a 
 thought or a murmur against His will, — is yet con- 
 sistent, or rather, it is necessarily involved in an 
 active participation in this rule. Man is a fellow- 
 worker with God Himself. 
 
 To solve this problem, it must be ascertained 
 what functions can be legitimately discharged by 
 the people, — what originating active power can be 
 entrusted to them without violating the unity of the 
 ruling will. In what cases may the voice of the 
 people become, in any sense, as the voice of God, 
 and require us to conform to it? 
 
 These cases appear to be chiefly three; corre- 
 sponding with the three obvious uses of the re- 
 presentative system, of which the acknowledged 
 object is, to prevent oppression, to secure fit go- 
 vernors, and to exercise that free agency which is 
 necessary to raise a people from the consciousness 
 and the degradation of slavery. 
 
 In the first place; the popular voice may well be 
 consulted when the subject of inquiry is their own 
 wants and grievances. No one can be so well ac- 
 quainted with these as the people themselves. If not 
 regularly brought before the monarch, they will often 
 be overlooked. The mere o])portunity of legitimately 
 expressing them soothes irritation, and gives vent to 
 passions which, j)ent up, may ferment into flames. 
 
 ' Prov. viii. 15. 
 
PH. XXIV.] POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 251 
 
 Prayer is the fit attitude of human nature, whether 
 in individuals or in a nation. It humbles, without 
 degrading — rather, it ennobles, while it softens. It 
 is an act of energj^ without encouraging pride, or 
 impairing faith. And, therefore, in every State, 
 there should be created an organ of prayer ; and it 
 should be elected by the people, and legitimated by 
 the king. This was, in fact, one of the chief ori- 
 ginating causes of popular representation in parlia- 
 ments. They met to obtain a redress of grievances; 
 and the very laws took the form of petition to the 
 monarch. And in all this there is no breach of 
 unity, no creation of an independent, counteracting 
 power — no trespass on the supremacy of the sove- 
 reign. 
 
 Secondly ; although Almighty God, both in na- 
 ture and in Revelation, does forbid us to walk by 
 the light of our own eyes, and to judge after " the 
 devices and desires of our own hearts" — although (to 
 repeat the warning) the very act of choice, cupearig, 
 heresy, is so fraught with peril and evil, in the pre- 
 sent blindness and corruption of our natures, that 
 we pray against it, as a deadly sin, and as the germ 
 of all error and mischief, — still choice cannot be ex- 
 cluded from our acts, so long as we are free agents, 
 placed in a state of temptation. " I call heaven and 
 earth," says the holy Moses, " to record this day 
 against you, that I have set before you life and 
 death, blessing and cursing ; therefore choose life."' 
 And the whole appeal of the gospel to man is an 
 appeal to his free choice. How is this seeming con- 
 tradiction to be reconciled ? 
 
 Again ; by distinguishing between the different 
 operations of choice. There are cases where we 
 are bound to choose, and cases where choice is sin. 
 
 ' Deut. XXX. 19. 
 
252 POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 
 
 We have no right — we have no means of wisely 
 exercising a power, to choose between objects merely 
 of our own desire. We do not know, and we cannot 
 even calculate, without an act of faithlessness and 
 presumption, what line of conduct, or arrangement 
 of circumstances, or opinion and doctrine, will be 
 most pleasant, or most expedient, or most agreeable 
 to our own will. Wherever choice takes this direc- 
 tion, it is, in matters of practice, wilfulness, and, in 
 matters of doctrine, heresy. It is sin and folly; sin, 
 because it sets aside the absolute supremacy of the 
 one Divine will ; folly, because neither our own feel- 
 ings nor our own opinions at any moment can be 
 standards of truth or safe guides to action. 
 
 But we may and must choose between an object 
 of desire and an object of duty ; between what is 
 agreeable and what is commanded. And since duty, 
 and command, and law, imply a lawgiver external 
 to ourselves; and since, for that lawgiver to be ac- 
 knowledged and to have power, he must be visible 
 and present with us ; and since man is placed by 
 the Almighty under no other visible ruler but man ; 
 therefore this act of choice resolves itself mainly into 
 a discernment and confession of our appointed rulers. 
 It implies and requires, in some degree, a right 
 discrimination of their characters, but chiefly of the 
 external marks of their authoritative commission. 
 And thus our blessed Lord, when He presented Him- 
 self to the Jews, and His Church, when it stands 
 before the world, do not submit to the judgment 
 and choice of men, either the doctrines which they 
 preach, as divinely communicated to them, or the 
 polity which they establish ; but they do require their 
 hearers to determine whether they are messengers 
 of God, commissioned by Him, and bear the marks 
 of such a commission. Christ demands of the Jews 
 that they should believe in Him — in Himself per- 
 
CH. XXIV.] POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 253 
 
 sonally. He calls on them to receive Him as their 
 Messiah. He knows that if the right spirit be in 
 them, they will recognise and discover Him, even 
 shrouded under the mystery of the flesh. " My 
 sheep hear my voice : but ye believe not, because 
 ye are not of my sheep."' "If God were your 
 Father, ye would love me." ^ " Every man, there- 
 fore, that hath heard, and hath learned of the Fa- 
 ther, Cometh unto me."^ 
 
 And so throughout the whole system of life, the 
 great trial of man consists not in what, but in whom 
 he chooses — not in deciding upon doctrines, but in 
 discerning his right teachers; and in discerning 
 them not by their correspondence with his own 
 notions, but by the external marks of a commission 
 from above. 
 
 And now to apply this fact to the present ques- 
 tion. It implies that the whole body of the people 
 may be called on, under certain precautions, to wit- 
 ness to the character of those who form the State, as 
 at the coronation they are called on to acknowledge 
 the title of their sovereign. For a similar purpose an 
 appeal is made to them in the appointment to spiri- 
 tual offices, in the divine constitution of the Church ; 
 where, nevertheless, no power whatever is given to 
 them in the appointment itself. They witness to the 
 character of a priest, but they cannot ordain him. 
 Upon the same principle, a jury is formed out of the 
 inferior ranks; and tliey are called on to decide on 
 matters of fact, resting on the credibility of witnesses; 
 and, therefore, to decide, mainly and primarily, on 
 the witnesses themselves, — while it would be idle to 
 expect that they should be competent to pronounce 
 upon the question of law, or often even upon the 
 facts submitted to them ; as when a physician gives 
 evidence on the nature of poison, or a seaman on 
 
 ' John X. 26. 2 John viii. 42. " John vi. 4/5. 
 
 Z 
 
254 POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 
 
 the laws of managing a vessel. They judge of the 
 character of the witness on the external evidence 
 of his veracity. In the same manner, in embracing 
 any opinion, or in joining any party, men do and can 
 pronounce upon the character of men, while they 
 profess an entire ignorance of the questions which 
 they discuss. 
 
 There is an internal sense, a faculty of vision, a 
 clearness and correctness of perception in this point, 
 where the heart is right, and even, to a certain de- 
 gree, after it is corrupted, which manifests itself 
 even in children ; and which extends not only to 
 palpable and broad indications of character, but to a 
 thousand little secret hints and intimations, often not 
 subjected to the consciousness, and which separately 
 may be valueless ; which yet when collected and com- 
 pared, and summed up by the voice of numbers, give, 
 for the most part, a correct conclusion. So it is in 
 physiognomy : we judge of the movements of the 
 unseen mind by the vibration of a muscle, the quiver- 
 ing of the lip, a change of colour, a faltering voice, 
 a variation in the angle of a line, a shifting in the 
 little drop of light which plays in the eye. Nature 
 has formed all these into a wonderfully expressive 
 language, and has enabled even the child to read them 
 by a secret instinct. Otherwise, how could mind, 
 buried as it is within the body, communicate with 
 mind ? And though we often err, the error chiefly 
 arises from some bias of self-will, and of personal 
 interest — which is fully as likely to prevail in one 
 human mind as in another, and is more likely to 
 prevail in one than in the common act of many. 
 
 Upon these principles, there seems to be nothing 
 at variance with Christian obedience, and abhor- 
 rence of popular caprice, nor with the unity of the 
 governing will, in calling on the people to take at 
 least a part in nominating those who are to deliberate 
 
CH. XXIV.] POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 255 
 
 on the affairs of the nation. The representative 
 principle is sound and good, when confined to the 
 selection of fit persons to act and to judge for the 
 people in matters regularly submitted to them. And 
 virtually it should be attended to in the nomination 
 to all offices. No wise ruler will ever defy public 
 opinion in the character of his appointments. And 
 the more the people can be consulted in them, with- 
 out surrendering the appointment itself, or con- 
 founding a capricious fondness for a sober attestation 
 of prudence and goodness, the stronger the govern- 
 ment will be, and the more elevated the people. 
 They should be consulted also, not on peculiar quali- 
 fications — not, for instance, whether the commander 
 of a fleet is a good sailor, or a general is skilled in 
 tactics, or a judge acquainted with law, — knowing 
 nothing themselves either of navigation, or tactics, 
 or law, they must be incompetent to judge of such 
 points, — but of the general outlines of character — 
 of probity, benevolence, sobriety, talent, fidelity in 
 the discharge of trust, disinterestedness, freedom 
 from temptations, general cultivation of mind, and 
 habits of command, — of these they are competent 
 witnesses, when opportunities have been given of 
 observation. Upon these, all men, whether young 
 or old, educated or uneducated, good or evil, must 
 daily be called to judge in the private aff'airs of life. 
 Wherever trust is to be reposed (and trust must be 
 reposed every hour in some one or more of our fellow- 
 creatures), there we must pronounce a decision on 
 those points. And therefore Nature herself has fur- 
 nished us with an instinctive perception of them, and 
 has so arranged, that no art or hypocrisy can, for a 
 long time, succeed in concealing them. 
 
 Such was the representative principle of the 
 British House of Commons, so long as the members 
 elected were sent by their constituents as fit persons 
 
256 POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 
 
 to deliberate and to act independently for the whole 
 nation, without any subsequent appeal to the con- 
 stituents themselves. It has now been secretly 
 abandoned for another and very different form, con- 
 cealed under the same words. The meml)er is now 
 supposed to represent the wishes, the voice, the 
 power of his constituents; he is to be amenable 
 to them, is called to account for every vote which 
 he gives in opposition to their wishes. When he 
 oHends them, he surrenders his trust into their hands; 
 and, if the principle be consistently carried out, this 
 he must do on every question, — for on none can he 
 be without some party to differ from his opinion. 
 When he sues for their suffrages, he rests his claim 
 not upon his general character and fitness for the 
 duties of legislation, of which the populace in his 
 own vicinity may form a very correct judgment; 
 but upon his accordance Avith their own opinions 
 in matters of finance, of war, of peace, of jurispru- 
 dence, of policy, of religion, in every one of which, 
 by the very constitution of human nature, the voice 
 of the majority told by the head, to which he must 
 for the most part appeal, must be wrong. And as 
 their opinions must be formed by their wishes, and 
 their Avishes, by the very principles asserted, must 
 be confined to their own personal interests — (for 
 not the good of the whole body, but the good of 
 each individual, is made the object of government, 
 when government is referred to the people) — and 
 as their personal interests, from their position in 
 society, must, for the most part, be of the lowest 
 and vulgarest kind, lience a canvass is carried on by 
 promises of relief from taxes, by hopes of improved 
 prices, by all the scurrility and libellous malignity of 
 personal jealousy and iil-will. And when votes are 
 thus purchased by ])romises of personal benefits to 
 be conveyed through the medium of legislation, it 
 
CII. XXIV.] POPULAR REFRESENTATIOX. 257 
 
 becomes an obvious and a shorter mode of securing 
 the same end, to obtain, without such a circuit, some 
 tangible advantage at once. Whether a constituent 
 gives his suffrage that he may obtain his loaf cheaper, 
 or sell his corn dearer ; or, instead of gatliering up his 
 contemplated gain by driblets of pence and farthings, 
 accepts at once a sum of money, in principle differs 
 little. Bribery cannot be checked, — it can scarcely 
 be condemned, at least, as inconsistent with the 
 theory of the constitution, so long as the modern re- 
 presentative principle is upheld. And with bribery, 
 what becomes of the character of the subject ? What 
 can follow but tyranny in the ruler? 
 
 The tiiird legitimate exercise of the popular will 
 is, the giving to the acts of the ruler a free and 
 willing assent. And this is maintained in the very 
 wording of our own statutes, which are enacted by 
 the King by the advice and with the consent of his 
 parliaments. But, although obviously needed, it in- 
 volves one of those moral problems which occur so 
 frequently in examining the workings of the human 
 mind. It seems difficult in theory, and is most dif- 
 ficult in practice, to reconcile the perfect subordina- 
 tion of the subject, and his incompetency to originate 
 any movement of himself, with his power of render- 
 ing acts of his ruler invalid by refusing his consent 
 to them ; and when this power is wantonly abused, 
 the effect must be, at times, to stop the whole ma- 
 chine of government, and to render it necessary for 
 the su])reme ruler to interfere with some extraordi- 
 nary prerogative, which will derange it still more. 
 Or, on the other hand, it Avill end in crushing the 
 supreme ruler himself, and transferring the whole 
 power to the hands of the people. 
 
 And yet, strange as it may seem, this is not un- 
 like the constitution of the Divine kingdom upon 
 earth. The moral commandments even of the Al- 
 z2 
 
258 POPULAR REPRESENTATION, 
 
 mighty Creator Himself do not take effect with man 
 without the free and willing assent of man being 
 given to them ; and they are tendered to man by the 
 ministers of the Ahnighty, to be received or rejected 
 by us as we choose. There is no compulsion. They 
 take effect with our consent. And the jDower thus 
 assigned to us is perpetually abused, grossly abused, 
 and the whole machinery of the moral government 
 of God is in this way perpetually thrown into the 
 most dreadful disorder, till the world seems at times 
 to be little more than an abode of sin and misery ; 
 and yet the Almighty does not interfere with mi- 
 racles to remedy every infraction of His laws. Pa- 
 tience, forbearance, long-suffering, are the character 
 of His dealings. If the law which He proposes to 
 our hearts is rejected once, He waits for another 
 opportunity, when the affections may be more soft- 
 ened, or the conscience more awakened. He brings 
 it before us in another shape, by the hands of other 
 ministers ; or a remedy, it may be, for the mischief 
 of our rejection is provided by recurring to some 
 other natural law; or the full tide of evil is allowed 
 to take its course, until our own eyes and the eyes 
 of others are opened to our folly, and we are either 
 made a spectacle of terror and warning to futurity, 
 or come with a humble and bitter repentance to sue 
 for pardon, and to bind ourselves more closely to 
 His service from the remembrance of past transgres- 
 sions and deserved punishment. And thus the moral 
 goodness of man, and the moral perfection of the 
 creation, is wrought out from the midst of obstruc- 
 tions and of evils, not by a compulsory obedience 
 from which it could never be evolved, but from free 
 agency, and a seeming balance and even conflict of 
 power between the Creator and the creature. 
 
 And such must be the system of an earthly 
 polity. An earthly ruler must not disdain to act 
 
ClI. XXIV.] POPULAR REPRESENTATION. 259 
 
 with the same indulgence, the same self-denial, the 
 same concessions to the infirmities and faults of his 
 subjects, the same submission to thwartings, oppo- 
 sitions, and delay — even to contempt and injury — 
 which, as if the mystery required the strongest pos- 
 sible enforcement, are, in the scheme of Christianity, 
 gathered round the person, and exhibited in the 
 character of our Lord, till to any other eyes than 
 those of faith, the Deity is almost lost in the humili- 
 ation of the man. To suffer, appears on earth to 
 be a necessary condition for ruling; and he who 
 would stretch out his arms to embrace any portion 
 of this world within his love and care, and to bind 
 it together in one body, must stretch them out like 
 our Lord to be nailed upon a cross. There can be 
 no greater exemplification of real power, than to 
 withhold its exercise under great provocation ; no 
 stronger proof of love, than to forgive offences ; no 
 wider field for wisdom, than to gain ends by means 
 and by contrivances instead of by brute force ; no 
 better encouragement to patience, forbearance, strict 
 justice, and charity, and obedience, than for an om- 
 nipotent king to exhibit towards his weak subjects 
 the same virtues of toleration which he requires in 
 their conduct to him. Bring in the strong arm of 
 power at every counteraction, and the free agency 
 of the subject is destroyed, and the goodness of the 
 ruler has no scope or opportunity of action. And 
 these are sufficient reasons why, in any perfect 
 scheme of civil polity, the will of the ruler should, 
 as much as possible, demand and wait for the con- 
 sent of the ruled. 
 
260 RESTORATION OF THE TRUE 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 And here it might seem the place to examine the safe- 
 guards and limitations of that popular election, which, 
 it has been seen, constitutes an essential element in 
 a well-organised polity. Round this question, in the 
 present day, have been gathered the most, and the 
 fiercest, of our political conflicts. But if the prin- 
 ciples which have been suggested are correct, there 
 is little necessity for entering into it. Place the 
 theory of representation on aright footing, — restrict 
 it to the expression of grievances, to advice, to con- 
 sent, to consultation with the Sovereign, for the 
 general good of the whole body, — and there is 
 little temptation to seek either the right of suffrage 
 or the office of representative. And, with the re- 
 moval of such temptations, we remove also the syco- 
 phancy, rivalry, corruption, and intrigues of candi- 
 dates, and the violence and caprices of the people. 
 A right spirit is infused into the system ; and this 
 spirit, of itself, will either generate or render un- 
 necessary the proper external restrictions of custom 
 and law. By manners, not by statutes, is a body 
 politic to be regulated ; and where manners exist 
 not, statutes are useless. 
 
 On the other hand, it is never to be forgotten, 
 that, with the admission of the present received 
 theory of representation, all safeguards, however 
 they may be tolerated for a time, must ultimately 
 be broken through. There is no end but universal 
 suifragc. Universal suffrage is its just and its logical 
 conclusion; and just and logical conclusions will 
 
CH. XXV.] REPRESENTATIVE PRINCIPLE. 261 
 
 force their way, like water through a sponge, how- 
 ever the final issue may be delayed. If the repre- 
 sentative be sent into the great council of the nation 
 not to deliberate independently on the general weal, 
 but to exhibit and enforce the opinions and interests 
 of the section by which he is elected, — if, in this 
 character, he resigns his office as soon as he differs 
 from his constituents, — if he rests his claim to elec- 
 tion not upon his general fitness, but on his ac- 
 cordance with the doctrines of a party, — if the 
 public deliberations are thus reduced to a conflict 
 of personal interests; — then every member of the 
 nation is entitled to have his interests represented, 
 aiul his inclinations consulted alike. The beggar 
 has a right as strong as the noble to be protected 
 and benefited. He has, in all Christian charity — in 
 the common sympathies of our nature — a stronger 
 right ; for he is weak, and needs it more. Neither 
 money, nor rank, can confer an exclusive title to a 
 share in the battle of selfishness, and in the spoils to 
 be won in it. The poorest, the meanest, the most 
 destitute, are those who ought to possess the loudest 
 voice in the national council. So humanity and 
 equity will decide. And however individuals may 
 smother such feelings in their private aff'airs, in 
 nations and in masses these will act with extraordi- 
 nary power. 
 
 Nor can the franchise be restricted upon the 
 principle of education, or of intellectual fitness. We 
 have seen o])inion, the opinion of the individual, 
 installed as the judge of truth — its only judge — 
 as much by the doctrine of expediency as by the 
 avowed sopiiistry of self-will. The opinions, there- 
 fore, of every man are equal. There is no mode 
 of deciding between them but a majority of voices. 
 Truth and right must be calculated by the head. 
 And if there is one point in which the opinion of 
 
262 RESTORATION OF THE TRUE 
 
 the individual may be entitled to respect under such 
 a system, it is in pronouncing on his own personal 
 good and happiness. The poorest peasant, the most 
 ignorant clown, the mere child, the weakest of wo- 
 men, each have their own feelings, and their peculiar 
 appetites, into which no one can enter but them- 
 selves. You have no more right to propose acting 
 and deliberating for their good, without consulting 
 themselves, than for the most educated of the no- 
 bility. Each alike will prefer and maintain his 
 claim to think and judge for himself on a question, 
 in which, without the arbitration of a strict external 
 revealed law, it is both unjust and impossible that 
 any other should judge for him. And you must 
 concede the right. You may stave off the claim for 
 a time. You may endeavour to palliate, to delay, to 
 compromise, to concede by degrees, to break the 
 fall, — but the fall must come. You may be enabled 
 as yet to resist by the strength of a party, or by the 
 quiescence of the lower orders, or by the temporary 
 preponderance of a monied influence, or by the vis 
 inertice of established institutions, — but every hour 
 the strength of poverty is increasing : its cries are 
 becoming louder ; its force more organised ; its 
 theory (the theory which even the so-called Conser- 
 vatism of the country has admitted) more logically 
 evolved, and more extensively accepted; and, on 
 the other side, all moral strength is wasting away. 
 The ground is maintained solely by self-interest. 
 And self-interest never can support a contest of the 
 few against the many. The few must perish. 
 
 And from this impending end there is but one 
 mode of escape. Not any arbitrary restriction of 
 the franchise, which it should be the object of the 
 legislator to extend as widely as possible, while he 
 diminishes its tremendous responsibility, — not laws 
 against bribery, which will never be enforced, or 
 
CH. XXV.] REPRESENTATIVE PRINCIPLE. 263 
 
 will be easily evaded, and must be contradictory to 
 the very essence of a democratical representative 
 theory, — not ingenious and intricate contrivances 
 for filtering the stream of popular corruption through 
 a series of electoral chambers, — not secrecy in vot- 
 ing, which only panders to cowardice, and cloaks 
 iniquity, and gives fuller scope to corruption, — not 
 even securities against the turbulence and intimi- 
 dation of mobs — securities which cannot reach the 
 worst forms of outrage and menace, such as pursue 
 the voter into his private life: — all these are but 
 palliatives or quackeries, which endeavour to efface 
 the symptoms, while they leave the disease un- 
 touched. But reject the theory of a balance of con- 
 flicting powers in the constitution. Cease to regard 
 the Commons as a vent for popular rapacity, legiti- 
 mately placed there to struggle for its own self- 
 interest against the crown. Restrict it to its natural 
 functions, — functions which would be permitted to 
 it by the voice of Heaven itself: and acknowledge 
 that voice of Heaven, and not the opinion of man, 
 as the criterion of truth and right, political as well 
 as moral, — and then you may throw open the fran- 
 chise to every class of citizens, but those who are 
 branded with some notorious crime ; and yet trust 
 that they will send into the senate the best and 
 wisest of their fellow-subjects; — or, at least, not 
 fill it with mountebanks from a popular stage, or 
 with adventurers, whose only distinction is the ex- 
 travagance of their lawlessness. 
 
 And when it is asked, how such a revolution of 
 doctrine is to be effected, the answer is, once more — 
 by the same means through which a people may be 
 taught patience, sobriety, self-denial, loyalty, peace- 
 ableness, obedience, and all other the virtues of their 
 condition; and by the same means by which, in place 
 of a sophistical logic, based (if base it can be called) 
 
264 RESTORATION OF THE TRUE 
 
 upon mere opinion, we may substitute in the minds 
 of a nation, a firm and blessed adherence to fixed 
 and immutable truth. And these means are not 
 mere words, or outward teaching, or written books, 
 but personal influence and example. And the per- 
 sonal influence here, required is not the vague energy 
 of individuals, but the authority of an organised 
 body. And that body, to oppose opinion, must not 
 rest its own authority on opinion. It must claim, 
 and be able to exhibit, a delegated, transmitted, 
 hereditary commission, and doctrine, from the 
 source of all authority — from a power external to 
 man. It must assert a religion, and a religion with 
 an Apostolical Succession in its ministers, and an 
 Apostolical Creed in its teaching. It must stand 
 before the country as independent of the State ; for 
 the State cannot correct itself. A diseased frame 
 cannot work out its own cure. It must be armed 
 with a higher power, and be able to infuse more 
 than an earthly spirit, to cope with and overpower 
 its antagonist. And it must be neither Popery, 
 which would crush all popular expansion, nor Dis- 
 sent, which would let it loose from law; neither one 
 nor the other, since both alike subvert the external 
 authority of tradition, and establish the supremacy 
 of opinion, — one by the infallibility of a Pope, and 
 the other by the infallibility of the individual ; but it 
 must be a true branch of the old Catholic Church, 
 such as exists in England, and in the ofl'-shoots 
 w hich have been propagated from it. And to this 
 Church a Christian will look, not perhaps hopefully 
 and sanguinely, but yet not all in despair, in this, as 
 in so many other disordei's of society, seemingly far 
 removed from her influence, but subjected to her 
 in the same manner, and by the same laws, under 
 which tlie slij^litcst movtnnent of the man is con- 
 
 nected with the affection of his mind ; as the bios- 
 
CH. XXV.] REPRESENTATIVK PRINCIPLE. 265 
 
 soming of a daisy, at a certain moment, is depen- 
 dent on the revolution of the heavens; as every 
 variation of thought and act must fall, when traced 
 to its source, under some high and general category 
 of abstract truth. 
 
266 THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 And now, having dotted out the general outline of 
 the constitution of political society, it follows, to 
 inquire into its duties. For duties it evidently has. 
 Corporate persons have a real and true existence, 
 as well as individuals. They are charged with par- 
 ticular functions in the system of the world. They 
 have their virtues and their vices, their characters 
 and fortunes, their moral responsibilities, — above 
 all, their punishments and rewards. If individuals 
 are regarded and dealt with by that fine eye and 
 hand of Providence, that wonderful minuteness of 
 observation, which feathers the wing of an insect, 
 as it launches the planets in their course ; yet na- 
 tions and societies seem alike, perhaps seem even 
 more, the object of His care. It is to the Church, 
 and of the Church, and with the Church, far more 
 than to, or of, or with the individual, that the Bible 
 is addressed, and speaks, and is concerned. Indivi- 
 duals are regarded mainly as parts and portions of it. 
 And this question, in the present day, occupies 
 no little space in political discussions. On it must 
 ultimately turn the relation of the State to religion ; 
 and, mixed up as religious sects must be with poli- 
 tical parties, it involves the stability and safety of 
 every administration, and even the integrity of the 
 empire. And, briefly stated, it takes this form : — 
 Has the nation, in its corporate character, a moral 
 conscience, and therefore a religious responsibility ? 
 or, is it merely a conventional association, like a 
 
CH. XXVI.] THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 267 
 
 joint-stock company, whose care is restricted to the 
 temporal interest of its members? 
 
 To a Christian there can be no doubt. If the 
 nation be, in any degree, designed or formed upon 
 tlie ])rinciples hitherto suggested ; if it be really an 
 incorporation of the Divine spirit, an expression of 
 the Divine image, an instrument of the Divine will, 
 employed in rearing and training up the whole man, 
 ami especially in aiding and nursing the spiritual 
 Church — then religion can be no accident, no by- 
 play, of the legislator or the ruler. It must constitute 
 his first object. In a thousand forms and exigencies, 
 it is essential to the very existence of the body 
 politic. 
 
 And yet there is no little mystery connected with 
 the assertion of a national conscience. Conscience 
 is an attribute of mind, and can no more exist apart 
 from it than whiteness or hardness can be separated 
 from body. And, as an attribute of mind, it must 
 reside in some individual mind; as the individual 
 mind must reside in, and constitute, the individual 
 man. There can be no abstract, corporate mind, 
 composed of a multitude of individuals ; and there- 
 fore, if a conscience and moral responsibility exist 
 any where in the nation, it must be found in some 
 one person. It is this mystery, and a failure to 
 analyse minutely the real constitution of society, 
 which has perplexed, and even thrown ridicule on, 
 the whole theory of national responsibility. And 
 it can only be maintained by recurring to the view 
 before suggested, in which the movements of every 
 body politic, however it may be constituted, and 
 however swayed by a majority, are still determined 
 by some one individual, whose single voice must 
 turn the scale ; and, in which view, therefore, every 
 individual voter, who possibly may turn the scale, is 
 subject to the same obligations and responsibilities 
 
2G8 THE DUTIKS OF THE STATE. 
 
 as if he certainly would turn it. Let us renieniber 
 the three esseutial eleuKMits into which every cor- 
 porate l)0(ly must resolve itself, — the minority, the 
 majority, and tlu^ unit who d(>t(>rniines the ujajority; 
 and Ave shall then understand the true theory of a 
 national conscience. It is the conscience of each 
 individual who is called on to take any ])art in sway- 
 ing the movements of the body. In this country, 
 for instance, it is the conscience not only of the 
 Monarch — not only of each member of tiie legis- 
 lature or of the ministry, — but of every subject, 
 however low in rank, w ho is intrusted with tiie fran- 
 chise, and whose voice may determine the election of 
 the member, Avhose voice again may determine the 
 decisions of the legislature. He is, and he is bound 
 to regard himself as, the ruler, the lord and master 
 of the whole emj)ire, and to act accordingly. And 
 his duties, in such political actions, i\ro regulated by 
 the same laws of moral right and wrong to which he 
 is subject in his jirivate life. He ow(>s duti(\s to his 
 Maker, duties to his neighbours, duties to his de])en- 
 dants, duties to himself, iluties to every being with 
 whom he is connected in any moral relation what- 
 ever. And he is no more released from these w hen 
 carrying with him, in his acts, a whole nation, than 
 when acting for and representing a family. They 
 become even more binding, far more biiuling, with 
 the frightful extcMit of ids ])()ssible influence, and with 
 the magnitude of the questions with which he is 
 called upon to deal. 
 
 There are, indeed, certain considerations which 
 modify such actions ; not by immediately afiecting 
 the duties, l)ut by limiting the })ower. No one is 
 tied to more than he is able to ])erform. And the 
 ])ower of a voter in a majority is not absolute and 
 permanent, like that which the will ])ossesses over 
 the private movements of the individual, but is 
 
(U. XXVI.] TJfK liV/riEH OF TJIK hTATK. 'JC/J 
 
 lirnitffJ cliii fly by four c-ircurriHtanceM : — First, by its 
 (\(]nti(hiifU'. on thr; body of that nuijority, of w hich 
 \i(' hinis«lf niJiy, or (Jof-.s, r-ori'^titutf; thr- hf^ad ; hc- 
 r-orifjly, by th<; possibif; fliictuatiori.s and uncf^r- 
 tainty <A' that body ; thirrlly, by th(; roiuctancy 
 a/ifl ojjposition of thf minority w}iir-h \u: ovc.'rpowf;r»; 
 and, foiirtldy, by the irnpos.sibibty of exr^rciHing 
 r:ontroi bf^yond fxtf-rnal actionn. Those* circum- 
 stanooM an? the proper explanation of those seeming 
 modifications of moral duty, whieh experience and 
 common sense are compelled to tolerate in the ex- 
 (;rci.se of political functions; and of which a low 
 theory has taken advantage to deny thr; existence <,{' 
 any political morality whatever. 
 
 In the first [>lace, as a voter can possess no power 
 except by the concurrence of at least half of the 
 wlH>le bofly of voters, he is bound to usr- all legiti- 
 mate mf;aris to secure their concurrence and perma- 
 nent co-o[)eration. Iv'pon this is founded not merely 
 the need, but th(; duty, of party in political life; 
 and thf; necessity, therefore, of occasional conces- 
 sions, indulgences, and compromises, without which 
 that party cannot be ht-ld together. It is not in 
 f)olitics as in th(; Church, where the virtue and unity 
 of thf; body and its functions in the world depend on 
 the f;xclusion of fjarty. The Church, in its profH-r 
 organisation, has no po[)ular app<;al, no democratical 
 f;n(;rgy invested with a p(;rmanent right to be con- 
 sulted, and (;ven U> exercisr; a veto, in the dr;cisions 
 of its rulers. Obediencf; to its heads, the bishops, 
 and advice in occasional fjii(;stions of ecclesiastical 
 f)olicy, are nearly all that is rerjuired from tJK; iii- 
 i'«rior members of the body, 'i'here is no per[>f;tual 
 hgislation, no perifianent organ of th(; j)Opular voice, 
 no fluctuating (dements of discord and contention, 
 which cannot be held together, or rediiCfid to any 
 '''•grr;e of order, excej)t by the cohesiori of party. 
 
 A A 2 
 
270 THE DUTIES or THE STATE. 
 
 Party is tlio very essence of a body wliicli is con- 
 stantly in action, and acts l)y a majority. And 
 therefore party is an essential feature in any ])()li- 
 tical constitution which admits in any de<;ree wluit 
 all wise constitutions do admit, and which legalises, 
 a fixed popular element. 
 
 To what extent the compromises rendered ne- 
 cessary by the necessity of party may be carried, 
 without al)andoning the rectitiide of the individual, 
 is a (juestion only to be determined, like other moral 
 contin<j;enci(>s, by the ordinary laws of casuistry. 
 They do not preclude the duty of o])enly witnessing 
 to truth, of urging its adoption in its fulness, of re- 
 fusing to take part in any evil, of endeavouring to 
 bind the party together, not by calculations of ex- 
 pediency, but by the highest motives and affections. 
 But wdien this has been done, they do ])ermit us 
 to remain contented, for a time, with less than the 
 whole good wiiich we wish ultimately to achieve. 
 They may require the abandonment of ])eculiar j)ro- 
 jects ; such, at least, as can be traced up to our own 
 opinions, or personal feelings, and are not })ositively 
 commanded by a comi)etent authority. They en- 
 force our co-0})erati()n with others in jjlans to which 
 personally we may be indifferent, or even perceive 
 objections. And they recjuire such a tem])erate ba- 
 lance and adjustment of contentling diliieulties, as 
 Christianity encourages in us all, by the sj)irit of 
 meekness, charity, humility, and ])atience. 
 
 Secondly, — there are many eases, in which it 
 would be our duty to act in a ])articular way, ])ro- 
 vided we could ensure the permanence of our power, 
 and in which it is etjually our duty to abstain from 
 so acting when our ])()wer is precarious, and may be 
 of short duration. There are medicines which a 
 physician is bound to try, >vhen the trial can be 
 continued for months, which it nniy be not only idle 
 
CH. XXVI.] THK DUTIES OF THE STATE. 271 
 
 l)ut noxious to employ, whf;n tho patient i.s under 
 his care only for a day. And then; an; cases of re- 
 ligious error wliieJi a Christian wouM be bound to 
 expos<: and correct, if" time were iriven him to instil 
 the truth as well as to lay bare the falsehood, but 
 vvhieli it may be wiser, and more charitable, to leave 
 untouched in a single conversation. If we have 
 space and o})portunity to l)uild up a new and better 
 house for the inhabitant of a hovel, we may venture 
 to pull the hovel down ; but to pull it down only, 
 and leave its occupant houseless, is neither benevo- 
 lence nor goodness. It is a consideration like thi.s 
 which justifies a certain adherence to the measures 
 of our predecessors in power, even when they are, 
 in themselves, objectionable ; which prohibits many 
 attempts at improvement refjuiring a long course of 
 watchful care' to bring them to perfection, and such 
 as, if left unfinished, would prove only wasteful or 
 detrimental. It confines, indeed, and hampers, and 
 at times almost paralyses, the hand even of a settled 
 government; and this in (!xact proportion to the 
 weakness or want of coherence in the party by which 
 it is supported. It is one source of that impotency 
 for good, which is felt in all democratical bodies. 
 And yet even this impotency is better than that 
 rash impetuosity which, under the plea of conscience, 
 begins without calculating the probability of living 
 to finish, and which pulls down an unsightly build- 
 ing, to leave in its place nothing but a ruin and a 
 waste. And thus, not the rluty, but the power of 
 action, may be materially affected and limited by 
 the fluctuations, or possible fluctuations, of the ma- 
 jority. And the hand may be tied, not by caleida- 
 tions of expedie-ncy, but by a positive rule of right, 
 from attempting that which is right in itself, and 
 that to whieli our tongue niay be bound to witness, 
 while our arm is withheld from performing it. 
 
272 THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 Thirdly, — the determining voice of a majority 
 must be considered as controlling and overpowering 
 a reluctant minority. And this also materially affects 
 its power, and therefore restricts its duty. It affects 
 its power, because the submission of the minority 
 depends only upon a voluntary concession, scarcely 
 secured by compact. And this submission is en- 
 dangered by every thing which exasperates and of- 
 fends, by every chance of success, by every wavering 
 of the balance of power, by the mere caprices of the 
 popular voice, by the contingencies of circumstances, 
 especially by the natural irritability and impatience 
 of political conflicts. And with the refusal of volun- 
 tary submission there comes the necessity of com- 
 pelling it, — a necessity involving, in its last ex- 
 tremity, the horrors of intestine war, and even in its 
 most mitigated form, the miseries of civil discord, 
 the sullenness of an extorted and stinted obedience, 
 and the chicanery of passive resistance. 
 
 It is not the mere power of commanding a cast- 
 ing vote, — it is not even the certainty of finally 
 overpowering resistance by superior physical force, 
 which will justify in a popular, or in any government, 
 the adoption of measures which are likely to irritate 
 and offend, whatever be their intrinsic excellence. 
 Diminish, weaken, convert, win over the minority ; 
 but while the minority continues in strength, its 
 power, and the consequent limitation of our own 
 freedom and responsibility, is to be calculated, not 
 by an aritlimetical balance of numbers, but by an 
 infinity of moral considerations. Nor does this ap- 
 parent submission to expediency in abstaining from 
 good justify, in the slightest degree, a similar sub- 
 mission in perpetrating evil. We may hesitate to 
 enforce a salutary law under the risk of a violent 
 opposition. But not even the fear of civil war can 
 oblige us to pass a measure which we acknowledge 
 
CH. XXVI.] THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 273 
 
 to be evil. Acquiescence in bearing evil may be a 
 duty ; activity in producing it never can be. 
 
 And lastly, — the power of the Government, 
 when l^rought to bear upon a reluctant minority, 
 must be regarded as chiefly physical; and therefore 
 as extending only to external acts. I suppose that 
 all its indirect influences, the weight of example, 
 the subsidiary employment of moral authority, both 
 in its own person and in the person of the Church, 
 all fail in producing unanimity — that nothing is 
 left but the sword. And the sword itself will be 
 powerless, and ought not to be employed, in cases 
 where, morally considered, external acts are valueless, 
 and where the internal state of the heart and mind 
 ought to be the paramount object. It is powerless 
 in religion. It is powerless in diffusing goodness, 
 or faith, or loyalty. The most rigid police, and the 
 most sanguinary penal laws, cannot touch the mind. 
 And that legislator knows little of his duty who 
 would be content, in points like these, with binding 
 the hands, while he left the thoughts and feelings 
 uncorrected. Here again is a restriction upon our 
 power; and the restriction will not only justify, but 
 compel, a degree of toleration, which, at first sight, 
 will appear weakness, and will alarm a scrupulous 
 conscientiousness. 
 
 All these considerations, indeed, are in them- 
 selves alarming. They seem to offer so many pal- 
 liatives of positive wrong — so many excuses for 
 timidity, compromise, lukewarmness, negligence, and 
 all the worst features of that expediency school of 
 political empiricism (for philosophy it cannot be 
 called) under which this empire, for so many years, 
 has been floating down the current of a vulgar 
 popular opinion, and is now rapidly approaching 
 the falls. They will be despised and thrown aside 
 by the bold energetic law of principle, which, from 
 
274 THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 the one extreme of compromise, is recoiling into the 
 opposite vice of temerity. But it is never to be for- 
 gotten, that, excepting where Revelation has laid 
 down for us certain positive commands of deter- 
 minate acts, all questions of moral right and wrong 
 are open to the same temptations, and are surrounded 
 by the same calculations. The precise path of duty 
 lies amidst doubts, and can be found only by a sort 
 of guess-work, in which, short as we may fall of 
 strict correctness, we yet exercise and strengthen 
 our moral faculties, and may be regarded with in- 
 dulgence by Heaven, so long as we honestly strive 
 to avoid the error which lies upon each side. We 
 advance, with a vibrating movement, upon a zigzag, 
 between two lines of landmarks. And though the 
 process resembles the deliberations of expediency, 
 in the doubts and contingencies with which it is 
 conversant, it differs from it in the vital point, that it 
 is searching for the right, and for the will of Provi- 
 dence ; while expediency is searching for the useful, 
 and for the pleasure of the individual. But, before 
 we can ascertain our duty, we must ascertain the 
 real relations in which we stand to other beings; and 
 when these are fluctuating and obscure, there the 
 right must, in each instance, be subjected to calcu- 
 lations, and require a balance of contingencies, which 
 will often be charged with compromise, and often 
 degenerate into it really ; and which, nevertheless, 
 when guarded by a rigid adherence to all positive 
 commands, and by a stern law of self-denial, will 
 bring us as near to goodness as is practicable for 
 the frailty of human nature. 
 
 With these limitations and provisions, it may 
 now be reasserted, that the duties of the State, or 
 rather of the statesman, are the same, precisely the 
 same, and fully as binding upon the conscience, as 
 the duties of the private individual. The same law 
 
CH. XXVI.] THE DUTIES OF THE STATE. 275 
 
 of conscience is laid upon each. Wherever a moral 
 person exists, there a moral relation springs up, and 
 moral affections are engendered, and moral acts 
 prescribed. And the obligation, and fearfid respon- 
 sibility, increases with the magnitude of the interests 
 which we affect, and of the trust which we exercise. 
 Instead of diminishing with the transfer of our ac- 
 tivity from a private to a political sphere, — instead 
 of appalling us when we are regulating a family, 
 and dying away into nothing when we are swaying 
 the movements of an empire, the process is just re- 
 versed. 
 
 The statesman, in every act wdiich draw s the em- 
 pire with him, owes a duty to his God, which must 
 regulate his legislation on religion ; a duty to his 
 neighbour, which defines the law of nations ; a duty 
 to the majority, which acts with him, and to the 
 minority which acts against him ; a duty to that 
 part of the community w hich is precluded from any 
 share in the public deliberations ; and a duty also to 
 each separate member of the body politic, whether 
 individual or corporate. But of all these duties, the 
 first and foremost, — the one without which no other 
 can be determined or practised, or, if practised, 
 would possess any value, — the one which alone 
 can bring down blessings from Heaven, blessings, 
 whether natural or supernatural, — the one on wiiich 
 every legislator, heathen or Christian, possessing the 
 slightest pretensions to wisdom, has laid the greatest 
 stress, and rested on it as the palladium of the em- 
 pire — is his duty towards God. It has been left for 
 the nineteenth century of the Christian era to dis- 
 cover, that this duty is a delusion, and that religion 
 forms no part of the concern of a statesman. And 
 it cannot be long before we shall learn experimen- 
 tally the operation of this astounding theory. 
 
 The circumstances under which this singular 
 
276 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 phenomenon has sprung up are well worthy of con- 
 sideration. They may be resolved into three — the 
 weakness, both moral and physical, of the Church ; 
 the growth of heresy and schism, under the names 
 of dissent and popery ; and the simultaneous deve- 
 lopment of the popular element in the Constitution 
 beyond its proportionate size. And if the causes of 
 these are to be traced, they may easily be found : 
 not, as some few might infer, in the assertion of the 
 independence of the British Church at the Refor- 
 mation, but in the circumstances under which that 
 assertion was most righteously and most necessarily 
 made. We do not judge the cause of the martyr 
 by his sufferings or his death. We do not recom- 
 mend a dishonourable and treacherous peace because 
 a just war may leave our country a wreck and ruin, 
 though still alive. And even the weakness and losses 
 of the British Church — even its being cut down to the 
 ground, and burnt with fire, leaving nothing but a 
 solitary shoot to spring forth in vigour in some hap- 
 pier times — is neither so sad a sight, nor so evident 
 an indication of the anger of its Lord, as its enjoy- 
 ment of a false peace, under a usurpation, at once 
 corruptive of Divine truth and destructive of the 
 appointed system established by a Divine hand, for 
 His glory and the salvation of man. And yet its 
 history, for the three last centuries, has been sad 
 and cheerless. Impoverished and despoiled at the 
 Reformation — stripped of those organised bodies, 
 which, if restored to a rightful form, might have 
 proved its greatest strength — reduced, for a time, 
 too abjectly under the civil power — compelled, by 
 the necessity of struggling against its formidable 
 foreign antagonist, to embrace the State too closely, 
 and nearly strangled in the embrace — then cast out, 
 root and branch, in the rebellion — then, when its 
 vigorous energy was beginning to revive, exposed 
 
CH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 277 
 
 to the still more noxious influence of the Revolu- 
 tion, and to tiie corruptions of political party, — what 
 wonder if the nineteentli century found the Church 
 debilitated, and almost paralysed, under the poison of 
 the same evil principles which had infected the very 
 atmosphere which it breathed ? — what wonder if the 
 Church itself had forgotten to enforce its own high 
 claims to reverence, its most vital and evangelical 
 doctrines, its sterner law of duty, its unbending 
 transmission of truth, its Apostolical commission, 
 and its sacramental efficacy, when all around was 
 unbelief and coldness ; and when, in the first reviv- 
 ing struggle against coldness, the recoil had fallen 
 naturally into an enthusiasm, which confounded es- 
 sential with accidental forms, and, in endeavouring 
 to restore life, thought lightly of the outward chan- 
 nels through which that life was to be conveyed ? 
 
 And while the Church had thus suffered, the 
 Civil Power had been equally tempted, and had 
 still more grievously fallen. In its rightful struggle 
 against Popery for its own internal supremacy and 
 for the integrity of national life, it had accustomed 
 itself to regard religion chiefly in its political phase. 
 Popery was virtually treason ; and as treason it was 
 punished, not as a doctrinal error. Even the penal 
 laws were not directed against heretical opinions, 
 but against those practical rebellions which, for the 
 most part, accompanied them, and were almost in- 
 separably entwined together in the one root of mis- 
 chief — the papal supremacy. But the State having 
 once lost sight of truth as its guiding object, ceased 
 soon to be afraid of error, and favourably regarded 
 any form of religion which could join in the com- 
 mon battle against the one great enemy. It excused, 
 and justly excused, the foreign presbyterian commu- 
 nions, which had lapsed into a self-invented form of 
 Church-government, not by choice, but by necessity ; 
 
 B B 
 
278 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 and then it confounded with them others whose lapse 
 had been arbitrary and wilful. And having learnt 
 to regard the Church in England rather as a politi- 
 cal engine than as an independent Apostolical Spi- 
 rituality, whatever form of Church-polity was esta- 
 blished in any other state was regarded with equal 
 favour. And thus, not without remonstrances, and 
 misgivings of conscience, and vain attempts to dis- 
 guise the act almost by trickery and chicanery, the 
 union with Scotland was effected ; and the head of 
 the British Empire pledged himself to the mainte- 
 nance of schism, by the establishment of Presbyte- 
 rianism in one part of his dominions, and of Catholic 
 Episcopacy in another. This was the first overt 
 act, from which has flowed the current of evil which 
 is now threatening our ruin. And so long as this 
 act of union stands upon our statute-book (and 
 stand, apparently, it must, unless the present break- 
 ing-up of the Scotch establishment be a providential 
 preparation for its removal), so long the present 
 course of events must have its way, and the Civil 
 Power must proclaim itself the creator of schism, 
 the abettor of heresy, and the sower of general infi- 
 delity, before the face of its Christian subjects. 
 
 While, indeed, the great bulk of the English 
 population was retained in its Church-membership, 
 the evil remained dormant. But when a sudden 
 growth of the manufacturing interest had gathered 
 an enormous population round centres where the 
 Church was unknown or powerless ; and our towns 
 had fallen under the control of an inferior middle- 
 class, for which the Church had provided neither 
 education nor connexion with herself; and the 
 power thus engendered had been called into extra- 
 ordinary activity by the spread of a democratical 
 spirit ; and the root of popery in Ireland, crushed 
 for a time by tlie penal haws, but not eradicated in 
 
CH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 279 
 
 the only way by which it can be eradicated, by the 
 ministrations of an efficient, highly-organised, highly- 
 instructed, and highly-popular Church, had sprung 
 up with fresh vigour ; and colonies had thrown 
 themselves out, composed of the same discordant 
 elements, which had been fostered in the seat of 
 empire; — then the Civil Power found itself almost 
 suddenly in the condition of a parent, who, having 
 wedded two wives of diiferent religions, should be 
 surrounded by a progeny of conflicting sects, each 
 clamorously demanding support against the other, 
 and only joining in a common denunciation of the 
 individual most favoured and defended. Or, to use 
 words more awful, but not too awful, the legislature 
 may bethink itself of that incestuous mixture typi- 
 fied by the poet in hell, and of 
 
 Those yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry 
 
 Surround her hourly conceived, 
 
 And hourly born, with sorrow infinite 
 
 To her ; for when they list, into the womb 
 
 That bred them they return, and howl, and gnaw 
 
 Her bowels, their repast ; then bursting forth 
 
 Afresh, with conscious terror vex her round. 
 
 That rest or intermission none she finds. 
 
 Before her eyes, in opposition, sits 
 
 Grim Death, her son and foe, who sets them on. 
 
 Nor must it be supposed that the reasoning which 
 would drive the Civil Power from the maintenance 
 of an established religion is without its cogency. If 
 the Church in England be, as it is supposed, a sect ; 
 that is, if, in either of the senses of the word sect, it 
 be either a self-formed society, following a human 
 leader of its own choice, or a section of Christians 
 which has severed itself, or has been rightfully severed, 
 from the body of the Catholic Church; if its creeds 
 are either imagined by itself, or educed by its own 
 interpretation from the Scriptures, without authority 
 from a higher source ; if its commission to teach 
 
280 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 and to administer sacraments be a human expedi- 
 ent, not a Divine appointment ; or if its claim to 
 support be the accordance of its system with the 
 opinions and interests of man, not the authority ex- 
 ternally conferred on it by Heaven ; if, in one word, 
 it rests its strength on any thing but external his- 
 torical testimony to the reality and the maintenance 
 of its externally revealed and externally transmitted 
 truth, — then the foundation of the Church rests 
 upon o])inion, the opinion of fallible men ; and for 
 opinion there is no available criterion but numbers. 
 And a government derives no right to pronounce 
 judgment from its possession of power, since power 
 is no test of truth ; nor from its alleged superiority 
 of wisdom, since this also must be reduced to a ques- 
 tion of opinion. And neither has it any right to 
 draw a line of distinction by itself between essential 
 doctrines of Christianity, which it resolves to retain, 
 and supposed non-essential forms, which it is will- 
 ing to abandon. No one, in a matter of Revelation, 
 may presume to say what is important, and what is 
 unimportant, where all alike is enforced by a positive 
 institution of the Almighty. The State which has 
 once receded from the strict externally-established 
 order of episcopacy, and has framed or tolerated a 
 novel form of Church-government upon the ground 
 of opinion, cannot take its stand upon doctrine, or 
 defend any truth whatever, even the vital fact of 
 Revelation itself. If opinion be valid against one 
 positive institution, it is valid against all. If, on the 
 other hand, external Revelation and appointment 
 be binding for an article of faith, it is binding for 
 episcopacy. And thus, step by step, from outward 
 form to inward principle; from the outskirts, as it 
 were, of Christianity and of all religion, to its inmost 
 heart and citadel, a State which has once abandoned 
 its adherence to Apostolical tradition must be ne- 
 
CH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 281 
 
 cessarily driven back — compelled to cast away, frag- 
 ment by fragment, whatever offends any considerable 
 section of its subjects — not logically justified in re- 
 taining any thing — and, at last, strij)ped of all its 
 truth, its arms bound down, its tongue paralysed, 
 and all its influence, if influence it can possess, turned 
 in the defence and propagation of falsehood, blas- 
 phemy, and unbelief. 
 
 And how will the Christian meet such reason- 
 ing? He will deny the primary fact. He draws 
 the distinction between the Church and other de- 
 nominations of Christians, not by his own preference, 
 or by any criterion of mere opinion, but by its ex- 
 ternal positive institution. He repudiates for it the 
 title of a sect, as that which annuls its authority, 
 and destroys its very existence ; and he avows that 
 he maintains it in the land, — not because it is ex- 
 pedient, or because he personally approves its doc- 
 trines, or because he is bound by a compact, or 
 because to disturb it would unsettle the foundations 
 of property throughout the nation, or with any 
 thought that while its doctrines are affirmed to be 
 true, doctrines which oppose it need not be charged 
 witli error, — that is, he maintains it not upon any of 
 the false or futile grounds employed by statesmen of 
 the day, but on the broad, plain, uncompromising 
 declaration, that its doctrines and its ministry have 
 alike been externally instituted by God ; and that, 
 as such, he dares not criticise, much less reject them, 
 for mere inventions of man, like the tenets and prac- 
 tices of sectarianism, whether Protestant or Romish, 
 whether it choose for its leader a bishop of Rome, 
 or a Wesley, or a Whitefield, and for its doctrines a 
 spurious modern tradition, or an avowed rationalism. 
 
 And yet, here he Mill be met by an objection, 
 which it is necessary at once to examine. Grant- 
 ing, it is said, that the acknowledged supremacy of 
 
282 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 opinion is thus fatal, how is it more excluded by re- 
 ferring to the private judgment the question of an 
 external revelation and tradition, than the question 
 of its internal fitness and goodness? In each case 
 the individual must pronounce a judgment. Whether 
 he pronounces on the reasonableness of the Athana- 
 sian creed, or on the fact of its containing Apostoli- 
 cal doctrine, and being constantly sanctioned by the 
 confession of the universal Church, in each case he 
 exercises private judgment. And private judgment 
 once admitted, where is it to be arrested ? How is 
 its right exercise distinguished from mere opinion ? 
 And how can it be excluded from the acts of a re- 
 sponsible moral being, whose intellect, in this world, 
 is given him for the very purpose of discriminating 
 between truth and falsehood? The answer (and 
 it is one far more deeply connected with our daily 
 questions of life than would appear to one who does 
 not perceive that the understanding and its primary 
 laws are entwined with the foundations of our whole 
 being, and that, therefore, a Christian Logic is an 
 indispensable accompaniment of Christian Politics) 
 — the answer is analogous to that which has already 
 been given to a similar objection on the subject of 
 choice or heresy. Private judgment, in the intellect, 
 is like the exercise of the will, or choice, in the affec- 
 tions. And it is to be regulated by the same laws. 
 We can no more exclude choice from the appetites, 
 or judgment from the intellect, than we can exclude 
 the appetites and intellect themselves from the na- 
 ture of man. But over one must be maintained an 
 external positive law, which it must obey ; and over 
 the other an external positive reality, to which it 
 must conform. And it is by the omission or sup- 
 pression of those, that appeals to private choice and 
 private judgnunt generate heresy and unbelief, and 
 destroy both molality and trutii. Set before a child 
 
CH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 283 
 
 questions of action, or questions of reasoning ; and 
 allow him to believe that he has nothing to consult, 
 in the one case, but his own inclinations, and, in the 
 other, but his own perceptions; abandon him, in the 
 one case, to his passions, and, in the other, to his fan- 
 cies ; deny to him the existence, or the possibility of 
 ascertaining, either a rule of duty or a criterion of 
 truth, distinct from his own mind ; and you make 
 him a heretic and an infidel. But accustom him in 
 every doubt to search for and adhere to an external 
 standard, independent of his own fancies, and you 
 create in him the principle of virtue and the spirit 
 of truth. 
 
 But this purely external standard is found only 
 in the Divine Nature and Mind ; and this can only 
 be made known to us by Revelation. And Revela- 
 tion itself, to be exempted from every internal bias, 
 and made purely external, must be conveyed to us, 
 not through the opinions or feelings of man, but 
 through that outward world of sense which stands 
 over us, and surrounds us, and acts upon us, un- 
 shaken and immutable as a rock, whatever be our 
 internal sensations. It must be conveyed through 
 the world of sense, in forms " which we can hear and 
 see." What " we have heard and seen," what " we 
 have touched and handled," what has been realised 
 to us as a part of the material world, in other 
 words, external facts cognisable to the senses, to the 
 common ordinary senses of mankind, must form 
 the great evidence of a revelation. Hence the 
 necessity of miracles. And when this revelation, 
 once given, is to be transmitted and preserved 
 in its identity through successive ages, still the 
 same kind of external evidence must be employed ; 
 and what has been heard and seen, not what has 
 been thought or felt, must guarantee its transmis- 
 sion. Hence the necessity of tradition ; the necessity 
 
284 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 that the faith once preached to the saints should be 
 consigned to writing, as well as orally perpetuated 
 in the memory, and that those writings and those 
 oral creeds should be publicly and constantly pro- 
 mulgated together ; that they should be embodied, 
 as far as can be, in public acts, monuments, and 
 ceremonies; that even the child should be able to 
 witness to them from his cradle, and say, " This was 
 the faith which I received from my parents, and this 
 I am to transmit to my children as an unaltered and 
 unalterable inheritance of truth from the earliest 
 generations." And whenever the question of truth 
 or falsehood can be submitted to the mind in this 
 form, whether such or such be an external fact, then 
 we need not fear to evoke any unhallowed spirit of 
 private judgment. We do not deny the existence of 
 independent external truth ; we rather assume and 
 enforce it in our appeal to the intellect. We point 
 out to it its duty and its work. We shape the ex- 
 ercise of the reason, so as to improve and strengthen, 
 not distort it. We incur little risk of being left 
 without a true result, because where personal incli- 
 nations and fancies are excluded, the senses, even 
 of the most uneducated, seldom play them false ; 
 and may easily be corrected by mutual comparison. 
 And when error is the result, the responsibility rests 
 not upon those who question, but upon those who an- 
 swer. We are no parties to it. We have not put the 
 lie into their mouths ; as when we encourage them to 
 think that they may read truth by the light of their 
 own eyes only, and without searching for it in a 
 world external to themselves. 
 
 And thus, when a statesman rests his support of 
 his Church upon external revelation, guaranteed by 
 external historical testimony to things which have 
 been " heard and seen," he does not rest it upon that 
 form of opinion, or ])rivate judgment, which is the 
 
CH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 285 
 
 parent of heresy, and the subverter of all truth. He 
 appeals only to that faculty which every respon- 
 sible human being is called on by nature, and is 
 compelled, to exercise. He appeals to it precisely as 
 the laws appeal to an uneducated jury upon a ques- 
 tion of fact ; to uneducated witnesses, to common 
 popular testimony, on any matter of history what- 
 ever. His belief of the truth of his creed, and of the 
 Divine mission of his Church, is like his belief that 
 there exists, on the other side of the British Channel, 
 a country called France, governed by a king, though 
 he has never seen him ; or that a battle was fought 
 on the plains of Marathon between Greeks and 
 Persians ; or that such or such a practice is part 
 and parcel of the common law of the land ; or that 
 an hereditary monarchy is a maxim of the British 
 constitution ; or that certain rights and privileges 
 have been perpetuated in any branch of the legis- 
 lature. He knows it by external tradition ; or, 
 if ears unacquainted with the meaning of the word 
 startle at its use, by external transmission — trans- 
 mission so attested, so multiplied, so sealed and 
 countersigned, so secured in writing, and written on 
 the memory, so balanced, and corrected, and acknow- 
 ledged by every variety of mind, that he who rejects 
 it must reject the most accredited fact in history; 
 and he who refuses to examine it is "sinning against 
 light." When a judge charges a jury, he does not 
 bid them decide according to their fancy ; he places 
 the facts before them, and insists on their abiding by 
 them. When a right of road is questioned in a court 
 of justice, or a privilege of parliament is debated in 
 the senate, no one proposes to settle it by opinion, 
 but by prescription, by testimony to facts. And if 
 the testimony be uncertain, then, as soon as possible, 
 the legislature interferes to erect an external law to 
 meet the case; because they know that when human 
 
286 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 opinion is left free to wander and battle amidst 
 vagueness and doubts, society must be torn to pieces. 
 But when the question of religion is opened, then 
 one and all agree to throw it open to this same 
 opinion, as one on which no certainty exists, and in 
 which it is presumptuous to pronounce. " I think," 
 " I feel," " I approve," " I admire," " I have esta- 
 blished, or propose to establish ;" or, " I am ignorant 
 and doubtful, and know no distinction between truth 
 and falsehood," in a matter where truth and falsehood 
 are the life or the death of the world, — this is the 
 language to which we are now accustomed, even 
 from those whom we are compelled to regard as, 
 humanly speaking, almost the last hope of saving 
 the whole empire from apostacy. 
 
 Nor is there any excuse in the plea, that this 
 subject of historical tradition is one difficult of re- 
 search. So is any question of constitutional law, or 
 of private property. And yet neither judges nor 
 ministers venture to decide on such matters by the 
 words, " I think and I feel ; but I have never ex- 
 amined the facts." 
 
 But let us go still further. It is not difficult of 
 research. It is written in a few pages of history, 
 legibly and palpably. Or rather, it requires no re- 
 search, for the answer is avowed in the very face 
 of the tribunal which professes itself incompetent 
 to examine it. Habemus confitentes reos. And the 
 confession is voluntary. And yet we refuse to say, 
 we declare it impossible to ascertain, whether the act 
 confessed has been committed. Dissent confesses 
 of itself, that it does not adhere by tradition. It 
 despises every criterion of truth but the judgment of 
 the individual. Rome does the same. She guards, 
 as the very apple of her eye, the power of altering 
 and enlarging tradition — that is, of destroying it. 
 She exempts even the tradition which she does main- 
 
PH. XXVI.] RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 287 
 
 tain from tlie vital conditions for accrediting it, by 
 the changes which she has wrought in the polity of 
 the Church. The Church of Enghmd alone, in this 
 country, even professes to preserve tradition, to ad- 
 here strictly to Apostolical creeds, to maintain un- 
 broken the chain of an Apostolical ministry, to warn 
 her posterity against any deflexion from the ancient 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 It is as if three parties came into a court of 
 justice, laying claim to an estate. One argued, that 
 he thought and felt himself entitled to it, but could 
 produce no vouchers. Another brought vouchers 
 into court, but full of erasures and alterations, and 
 avowed that he had made them himself, and had a 
 right to make any which he pleased ; because he 
 alone was acquainted with the secret intentions of the 
 testator. A third produced vouchers and witnesses, 
 and appealed to the jury upon the simple question of 
 external fact. And yet, when the judge gave his 
 judgment, he gave it, not as a judgment upon the 
 fact, but as an opinion upon probability or expedi- 
 ency, wholly irrelevant to the fact ; or declared, that, 
 in a matter of such difficulty, and requiring so much 
 research, he cannot pronounce at all, and must leave 
 the parties in full possession of their doubts and 
 litigations for ever. 
 
 O Statesmen of England ! O Conservatives, as 
 you presume to call yourselves, of the constitution 
 of society ! you who look to fame as your reward 
 in another generation ! you who fancy that you 
 stand in the great torrent of popular aggression, 
 stemming its fury and directing its channel ! what 
 must be the curse and the scorn awaiting you, when 
 the tower which you are undermining falls upon 
 your head I and what an awful retribution is to come 
 in that day, when He who committed to you, as 
 Christians, His Revelation and His Church, wrapt 
 
288 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF THE STATE. 
 
 up in the one great talisman of His revealed faith 
 — His one eternal, unalterable faith — demands that 
 faith at your hands — and, with it, the souls of the 
 blind, whom you have blinded like yourselves, and 
 led into the pit ! 
 
 Let us pause to consider, what is the real nature, 
 and what must be the end, of such acts in political 
 society. It may better prepare us to inquire how, 
 under a blessing from Heaven, they may yet be 
 avoided. 
 
CH. XXVII.] A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 First, then, a statesman who declares his incapa- 
 city to pronounce upon the one truth of religion in 
 the midst of contending sects, and, still more, one 
 who maintains a religion on any other ground than 
 its exclusive truth, at a single blow both breaks him- 
 self, and instigates a nation to break, the whole of the 
 first table of the law. He places himself in direct 
 opposition to Almighty God in no fewer than five of 
 His first commandments. What God commands, he 
 forbids — what God asserts, he denies : and he does 
 this in the face of the nation, and, as it were, from 
 a tlirone, where every voice he utters weighs upon 
 the destinies and acts of a whole empire. 
 
 The Almighty, in His first law, as the very foun- 
 dation of all others, reveals the one unaltered, un- 
 divided truth of His nature, and commands us to 
 maintain it. The statesman denies its existence, or 
 the possibility of ascertaining it, or its paramount 
 and primary obligation : he sets it aside. The 
 Almighty, in His second law, warns us, by an awful 
 menace, against permitting our own fancies and 
 opinions to shape forth any idea of His nature dif- 
 ferent in the slightest degree from that which He 
 has set before us. The statesman proclaims that 
 fancies and opinions are the only standards by 
 which we can image forth the God of truth, and 
 offers them unlimited scope and indulgence. The 
 Almighty, in His third law, denounces guiltiness on 
 those who take His name in vain — who employ it, 
 that is, as a means to any inferior object — who make 
 c c 
 
290 A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 
 
 it secondary to any thing — who trifle or tamper 
 with it. And the statesman declares that religion 
 is supported by him solely as an instrument of police, 
 or as a bulwark of human society. The Almighty, 
 in His fourth law, lays on us a positive enactment, 
 and in this establishes the principle of all positive 
 commands and institutions; sanctioning them in the 
 most solemn manner by the example of the Sabbath. 
 And the statesman presumes to draw an arbitrary 
 line between positive institutions and moral pre- 
 cepts: he makes light of episcopacy — of the minis- 
 terial succession — of apostolical usages — of sacra- 
 ments — of Church orders; he sets them all aside 
 as things indifferent, provided we reserve what he 
 presumes to distinguish as the essential doctrines of 
 Christianity; and thus he gives to the winds all the 
 external system which a Hand Divine has framed 
 for the preservation of His truth. He shatters the 
 lamp, that he may keep alive the light. And the 
 Almighty, in His fifth law, blesses with an especial 
 blessing, — with the blessing of long life and perma- 
 nent abidance, — reverence towards parents. And 
 parents in His eye are not merely the authors of 
 families, but the authors and progenitors of nations, 
 and the fathers of His Church. And these — the 
 whole line of glorious ancestry through which our 
 national being, with all its interests and honours, and 
 our spiritual life, with all its array of martyrs and 
 saints, has come down to us — these the statesman re- 
 pudiates and scorns, as an antiquated encumbrance, 
 as men to whom he is unable to refer for either 
 knowledge or guidance, and whom he scarcely dares 
 to recognise, lest he should be mocked and taunted 
 for prejudice and servility. 
 
 But having thus shivered to fragments the first 
 table of the law, the statesman resolves to maintain 
 firmly the second. Truth — Divine truth — and 
 
CH. XXVII.] A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 291 
 
 Divine institutions, he thinks, may be discarded, 
 without affecting the welfare of society ; as he 
 might tiiink that reason may be lost, and yet the 
 maniac remain in health. But theft, murder, adul- 
 tery, false witness, are obviously and directly destruc- 
 tive. He would punish and prevent them. By what 
 means? By positive law? But if the positive laws 
 of God have been made null and void, who will re- 
 gard them when laid down by man? But by man- 
 ners ? What manners and what morals can remain 
 in men who have been taught by their legislators 
 to despise truth — to apostatise from their faith — 
 to deny their God and His laws — to dishonour their 
 parents? But by the sanction of punishment? 
 What punishments is man entitled to inflict, who 
 can lay no ground for his actions except in the 
 sands and quagmires of his own opinion and his 
 own self-will? But by prudence — by the maxims 
 of an enlightened self-interest? And are we in- 
 deed so blind as to think that self-interest is or ever 
 can be, a law of human actions, when opposed to 
 the passion or the appetite of the moment? If 
 self-interest could rule and govern us, then, by the 
 common confession of sinners, no man would sin. 
 The threats and the certainty of hell are power- 
 less against the desire of the moment, even in the 
 most calculating intellect. How nmch more the 
 contingencies of fortune, which are all that a human 
 legislator can point to in hope as the rewards of 
 virtue ! 
 
 Let us not deceive ourselves. The first table 
 and the second table are closely bound together, — 
 as closely as truth and right — the head and the 
 heart of man — his thoughts and his feelings — his 
 feelings and his actions. One cannot be broken 
 without the other. He who is guilty of one breach 
 is guilty of all. And nations, like individuals, who 
 
292 A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 
 
 have cast off their true faith in God, will also cast 
 off their duty to man. Of the same days it is said 
 in prophecy, " When the Son of man cometh, shall 
 He find faith upon earth?" And in the last days, 
 " men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, 
 boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, 
 unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce- 
 breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers 
 of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, 
 lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."' And 
 as if summing up the only means of guarding against 
 this torrent of evil, the Apostle, in speaking of these 
 awful days, thus concludes, with a command to 
 abide by those very principles which the legislators 
 of this day have discarded : " Therefore, brethren, 
 stand fast ;" stand fast in the whole faith of the 
 gospel ; yield neither to the madness of the people, 
 nor to the waverings of doubt or unbelief. And 
 give no place to opinions, whether fancies of the 
 mind, or fancied interpretations of the written word, 
 but " hold the traditions which ye have been taught," 
 the true unbroken apostolical traditions, whether in 
 the common law or in the written words of the 
 gospel, — " whether by word or our epistle." 
 
 But besides individual minds, there is the fabric 
 of society itself; and how is this affected by a lati- 
 tudinarian creed in its rulers? 
 
 It is not merely affected — it is dissolved. It may 
 hold together for a time, like a rubble-wall when the 
 mortar has been eaten out, or a corpse when life has 
 departed and air is excluded. But touch it, and it 
 will crumble to dust. 
 
 In the first place, all moral power and authority 
 is taken at once from the ruler. He who denies his 
 God, God will alike deny. And he who holds a Di- 
 
 1 2 Tim. iii. 2. 
 
CH. XXVII.] A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 293 
 
 vine commission will be cashiered by his Master, and 
 trampled on by his fellow-servants, when he uses 
 his office to dishonour Him who gave it. 
 
 " We believe," say contending sects to the legis- 
 lature, which they would force into neutrality, " we 
 feel deeply that religion is a matter so sacred, so 
 awful, so nearly affecting our hearts, so vitally in- 
 terwoven with our whole life, that we cannot endure 
 upon it the slightest opposition, control, or contra- 
 diction. We are jealous of it with a godly jealousy. 
 To declare it openly, to act upon it freely, to bear it 
 before us in all our words and actions, we hold to 
 be the first privilege and duty of man. You alone, 
 our appointed ruler, are to be excluded from this 
 right, and prohibited from professing your own creed. 
 We will even impose upon you the residuum of our 
 own faiths, by compelling you to deny whatever we 
 severally object to. We will silence you, bind you 
 hand and foot, hold you up to the world as one 
 either ignorant of the most solemn truths, or too 
 cowardly or interested to declare them, when you 
 are menaced by those over whom you are placed to 
 rule. And having thus made you despicable even 
 in your own eyes, and stripped off the only cover- 
 ing of a Divine commission which can invest man 
 with dignity, or hide his frailty, we will tread you 
 under foot as we choose, and when we choose." 
 
 And this is done to bind together society in 
 peace. When favouritism, as it is called, and exclii- 
 siveness, and monopoly, are removed, then contend- 
 ing sects will fall into harmony and concord. For all 
 profess, at least, this one paramount object, however 
 different the means of attaining it. And the union 
 and communion of Christians, and the lulling the 
 strife of tongues, is indeed a blessed end, for which 
 Christians may well strive. But the question is not 
 this, whether peace and union are to be sought, but 
 cc 2 
 
294 A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 
 
 whether they ought to be purchased, or can by any 
 possibility be purchased, by the sacrifice of truth ; 
 whether they are not maintained more effectually 
 by upholding certain distinctions and fixed lines of 
 separation, than by breaking down and confusing 
 all landmarks? When tigers are roaring at each 
 other on either side of an iron-grating, the keeper 
 does not think to restore quiet by loosing them into 
 one cell ; and when parties are contending in a 
 lawsuit for a right of ground, the judge does not 
 order the fences to be levelled, that no more quarrels 
 may arise ; and civil wars are not terminated by de- 
 nying that the rights and titles to the sovereignty 
 can be adjusted, but by afiirming one claim and re- 
 jecting another ; and no controversy has ever been 
 silenced by confession of ignorance in the arbitrator, 
 but by a positive affirmation or negation. Once 
 more we are met by the primary axiom of all truth 
 — there can be no unity without plurality, no like- 
 ness without a difference, no harmony without dis- 
 tinction, no conjunction without separation, no 
 peace without prescribed bounds and confined ope- 
 rations. Define and assert truth, and then dispu- 
 tants may be brought to rally round it ; circum- 
 scribe it, not by the opinions of man, not by any 
 arbitrary test of fundamentals and non-fundamen- 
 tals, but by a positive external rule, equally re- 
 moved from the fancies of all men ; and you leave 
 no room for jealousy or envy. Resolve, and shew 
 yourselves resolved, to maintain it as a sacred and 
 inviolable treasure, and you crush, as far as they can 
 be crushed, the busy restless contests of speculation. 
 Fix it before the eyes of all whom you would influ- 
 ence, as an external fact, and as the great law^ and 
 object of life, and, so far as example can prevail, 
 you impress on them a solemnising, quieting, re- 
 ligious, self-distrusting earnestness in its pursuit, 
 
CH. XXVII.] A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 295 
 
 wliich will never run into irritability or passion 
 through that impatience of opposition which follows 
 on conceit, as conceit follows on the absence of ex- 
 ternal law, and the absence of external law on the 
 rule of opinion. 
 
 And if these, the abstract laws of controversy, 
 are unintelligible or disbelieved, let us turn to 
 facts. Let the legislator ask himself, of all the 
 contending denominations of religion, which one 
 he hopes to soothe and reduce to peace and con- 
 cord by denying his own faith, — which of the com- 
 batants (for so he calls them) will lay down their 
 arms, when the only power that can control their 
 turbulence or decide their differences has been pre- 
 vailed on by them to withdraw or to remain neutral? 
 Is it any who bear the name of Christianity, — that 
 Christianity, on which, by the most solemn command 
 of our Lord, proselytism has been enjoined as its 
 especial work upon earth, to preach one truth, 
 to bring all men into one fold, to denounce and 
 eradicate all error, to carry on an unceasing war 
 against the powers of darkness ? Is it the Church 
 Catholic of England, which, in addition to the com- 
 mon zeal and energy of a religious and Christian 
 faith, possesses also that which alone can give to 
 it permanence and organised force, an external im- 
 mutable foundation for its belief, and an external 
 unalterable appointment for its ministrations ? Has 
 the Church of England, since the legislature has 
 begun to fall away from it, shew^n any symptom 
 whatever of quiescence under the recognition of the 
 principle of indifferentism ? Or has it roused itself 
 with tenfold vigour to combat it, and to reconquer 
 error? Will the Church of Rome acquiesce, whose 
 very existence is involved in the claim of universal 
 dominion ? Will any sect whatever give up its 
 arms, silence its lips, abandon its proselytism, join 
 
296 A STATE WITHOUT A CREED. 
 
 with the State in proscribing a preference to any 
 one peculiar form of doctrine or religious associ- 
 ation ? Or is it not the very essence of sectarianism 
 to force upon others what it maintains itself; or, if 
 this cannot yet be accomplished, at least to extort 
 from its opponents, as from the State, whatever 
 offends it ? Is not the intolerance of sectarianism 
 a recognised and universal fact ? It is, indeed, a 
 dream to think that, in this state of the world, men 
 can be made by any act to live together without 
 disputes and battles; but even such a dream is 
 wisdom, compared with the hope of extinguishing 
 dissensions by denying truth, and of uniting Chris- 
 tians in one body by reducing the rulers of the body 
 to infidelity and treachery. 
 
 But one end awaits society when its rulers have 
 abandoned their adherence to one positive faith, 
 and that end is, to be torn to pieces by the struggles 
 of fanatical opinions. 
 
CII. XXVIII.J NATIONAL EDUCATION. 297 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 But let us proceed farther. With sins, the most 
 grievous of all sins, upon its conscience ; with a 
 curse from God hanging over its head ; with neither 
 self-respect to support, nor the respect of its subjects 
 to encourage it, nor example of past ages to justify, 
 nor the advice of past wisdom to guide ; standing 
 before the world with a confession either of igno- 
 rance on the most vital of all questions, or of un- 
 faithfulness in the most solemn of all duties, — the 
 Civil Power is then compelled, after all, to undertake 
 its natural functions. It cannot escape from them. 
 Those who would strip it of its religious faith may 
 tell it that it has no such duties ; that it is only a 
 common association, a joint-stock company ; that its 
 business is to purvey food, and impose taxes, and 
 discuss excise and customs, and that it need no more 
 trouble itself with the minds and the souls of its sub- 
 jects than (as they falsely assert) the governors of 
 a bank need examine the theological doctrines of 
 their servants. But words cannot crush facts; and 
 the reality, a frightful reality, comes before it in a 
 thousand shapes, and will not be repulsed. It rises 
 up in the form of a rel)ellious peasantry, who must 
 be reduced to order and obedience, not by the sword 
 of the dragoon, but by the voice of the preacher — of 
 a starving, emaciated, demoralised, manufacturing 
 population, whom it must rescue from the fangs of 
 a relentless gambling avarice, but whom it cannot 
 rescue by the wax and parchment of the statute- 
 book, but solely by a religious education. It is heard 
 
298 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 in the stern voice of the Church, denouncing its 
 misdeeds and its follies, and answered by the inborn 
 affections and the natural reason of every genuine 
 Christian. The dependencies of the empire are in 
 revolt — revolt engendered and fostered by the hands 
 of a foreign religion — and, if the empire is to be 
 saved from dismemberment, that religion must be 
 driven from the mind and the heart of a whole peo- 
 ple. And at length we have learnt that it cannot be 
 extirpated by the civil arm, by penal laws, or political 
 intrigues. It must be conquered and suppressed by 
 the light of truth : and even the civil power is com- 
 pelled to have recourse to at least the moral educa- 
 tion of a whole nation. And then, even from the 
 very voices which have clamoured down and de- 
 nounced all the nobler aspirations of the legislature, 
 there rises a cry of poverty, a plea of want, and a 
 petition that the State will assist them in educating 
 those whom they are misleading. The theory is 
 blown to atoms by the facts, and the legislator is 
 constrained to acknowledge, that, whatever be the 
 law of union in other subordinate societies, to po- 
 litical society at least is committed the whole nature 
 of man, all his being, with all his hopes, even by the 
 very supremacy of its power ; and that it is respon- 
 sible to Almighty God for the souls as for the bodies 
 of its subjects, and cannot even preserve its own 
 existence without making their souls, and not their 
 bodies, its primary and paramount object. 
 
 It confesses this truth by the self-same act which 
 denies it. Its public apostacy from a religious faith, 
 and its acknowledgment of its own spiritual duties, 
 is sealed l)y one and the same deed — its tampering 
 with national education. We cannot maintain the 
 Church, the State declares, in its exclusive education 
 of the people , because we are incompetent to pro- 
 nounce in disputes on moral and religious truth ; and 
 
CH. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 299 
 
 we will undertake that education ourselves because 
 we alone are able to decide them. It does more : 
 it discards all right in man to interfere in theological 
 questions ; to draw lines between truth and false- 
 hood ; to say what in the eyes of the Almighty is 
 essential and non-essential. It denounces this as pre- 
 sumptuous dogmatism, or idle speculation. The very 
 assertion of a positive, strict, defined religious creed, 
 or of an unbroken external commission to teach 
 and nurture souls, is, in its eyes, a crime ; and the 
 next moment it proceeds to commit this crime itself, 
 to pronounce on what is essential and what is non- 
 essential, by declaring that souls may be educated 
 without any articles of faith — that the Bible alone 
 is necessary — and that none, so far as it can provide, 
 shall be encouraged to educate the people, who do 
 not derive their commission from the external au- 
 thority of the State. The Secretary of State does 
 now that which in apostolic ages required a solemn 
 assemblage of the universal Church. He does, by a 
 stroke of his pen, that which oecumenical councils 
 dared not do till after the most profound delibera- 
 tions, and prayers for the guidance of the Holy Spirit; 
 and he directs that pen by his own arbitrary will and 
 fancy, where the greatest saints, and martyrs, and 
 doctors of the whole of Christendom, have bound 
 themselves and generations to come, by the most 
 awful sanctions, to admit not the deviation of an iota 
 from the revealed declaration of God, ascertained 
 by a searching scrutiny of external historical testi- 
 mony. The Secretary of State is now the author of 
 the (so-called) Christian creed ; and this creed is 
 the Bible. So nmch of the whole Christian system 
 he takes upon himself to pronounce true ; with the 
 teaching of this he considers it possible to retain the 
 name, if not the reality, of a Christian education. 
 All other controversies of faith are open questions, 
 
300 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 on which opinions may range free and uncontrolled, 
 and battle without endangering the foundation of 
 Christianity. Such is the virtual proclamation of the 
 new educational system — a proclamation in direct 
 defiance not only of the voice of the Church catholic, 
 but of the Bible itself; both of which distinctly in- 
 form us that creeds — strict, defined creeds — sum- 
 ming up compendiously but peremptorily certain 
 distinct articles of faith, were to be first taught and 
 impressed upon the young Christian ; that he was to 
 be baptised upon a profession of faith, not in the 
 Bible, but in the Apostles' Creed ; and that having 
 once embraced this as the badge and standard of his 
 profession, he was then to be led to the Bible, and 
 there, as a necessary but subsequent duty, compelled 
 to search for, and to see written in every page, and 
 under a thousand different forms, the same great 
 vital truths which he had taken into his mind almost 
 as an infant, under the simple, easy, external nar- 
 rative form of an Apostolic Creed. We need not 
 pause to ask which of these two systems is most 
 agreeable to nature, which is most indulgent to the 
 infirmities of the child, which is the course we pur- 
 sue in all other branches of instruction, which is the 
 only practicable plan without running into the ex- 
 treme of that very dogmatism which is denounced 
 as tyrannical and presumptuous. One plan is or- 
 dered by Almighty God, the other has been invented 
 by man. And what is the result of man's? 
 
 Let us ask first, upon what ground does the 
 statesman declare the Bible to be true — to be a 
 Divine revelation ? Upon general testimony, the 
 testimony of numbers ? But the Christian body is 
 but a little flock compared with the world of hea- 
 thenism in all its extent. But by the majority of 
 voices in this land ? Then the statesman confesses 
 himself prepared to establish Mahometanism, or 
 
en. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 301 
 
 Socialism, or any form of idolatrous paganism, as 
 soon as that majority may shift, as under the influ- 
 ence of his own infidelity it is shifting hourly. But 
 upon its true ground of external historical testi- 
 mony — upon the Catholic tradition of the Church ? 
 How can he employ that tradition to confirm the 
 Bible, without acknowledging its validity also in 
 denouncing, and condemning, and visiting with the 
 most awful anathemas, the system which he adopts, 
 and the principles which it contains? But upon 
 liis own internal conviction of its truth ? Then he 
 establishes the individual human heart, with all its 
 corruptions, as the fit standard by which to try the 
 purity and holiness of Almighty God; and by the 
 blindness of the human understanding he judges the 
 wisdom of Omnipotence. And this maxim once 
 established, man is himself enthroned as the lord of 
 the universe. He is the sole measure of truth and 
 right. And the authority and very being of God, 
 and with this the sanctions of all external law, are 
 obliterated from the world. 
 
 But this is not all. Once enter the labyrinth 
 either of vice or folly, and its mazes become inex- 
 tricable. 
 
 The Bible, it is announced, must be taught. I 
 pause not here to object, as so many others have 
 objected, that it is taught only in parts, and those 
 parts selected by the Civil Power, not by the Church. 
 Under any system of education, the Bible, like any 
 other book, must be taught by portions ; and these 
 portions must be selected according to the circum- 
 stances of the occasion. It is so read in our churches. 
 The selections may be improperly arranged. And 
 if nothing but these selections are permitted to be 
 used, then the Secretary of State is once more guilty 
 of the most frightful profaneness which it is well 
 possible to imagine. As before he was shewn to 
 
 D D 
 
302 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 have undertaken to draw up the Christian creed, 
 and thus to prescribe the terms of salvation ; so 
 now he undertakes to frame a new Bible for the 
 people of God. 
 
 But I pass on to another fact, on which there 
 can be no evasion. 
 
 The Bible is to be taught; but the Bible may 
 be wrested into various meanings ; and upon those 
 meanings, not upon the Divine authority of the 
 Bible, the battles of sects and controversialists have 
 been fought. All heresies and schisms are contests 
 for the interpretation of the words of the Bible. 
 And when the civil power has thought to purchase 
 the peace of the combatants by bringing them to 
 unite in reading the Scriptures, leaving the inter- 
 pretation undecided, it has acted like a judge who 
 should propose to terminate a lawsuit by recognis- 
 ing the authenticity of the documents appealed to, 
 but refusing to determine any thing of the sense 
 which they should bear. 
 
 ^When the Bible is to be taught, it must be meant 
 that not mere words — not a jargon of unintelli- 
 gible sounds — but some definite facts and doctrines 
 should be impressed upon the mind. Questions will 
 be asked by the pupil, and they must be answered 
 by the teacher. And what are the instructions given 
 to him ? What must be the instructions given, when 
 the teacher is under an obligation to teach, as they 
 are called, no peculiar doctrines of any denomination 
 of Christians, but only the natural meaning of words, 
 which have been framed by inspiration for the very 
 purpose of conveying peculiar doctrines, — that is, 
 doctrines, not upon natural religion, or the vague 
 generalities of ethics, but upon those very points of 
 controversy which, as most vitally interwoven with 
 the Avhole system of Christianity and the whole na- 
 ture of man, have roused the most ardent feelings, 
 
CH. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 303 
 
 and consequently the most violent opposition. The 
 Bible is full, it is entirely composed of peculiar doc- 
 trines. From the book of Genesis to the book of 
 Revelation it is a history of the Church — an ex- 
 pansion of its creeds, a prophecy of its fortunes, a 
 warning against those very sins of indifferentism and 
 lukewarmness, which the civil power is perpetrat- 
 ing and encouraging. You cannot reduce it to any 
 vague form, even by disembowelling it of its more 
 obviously doctrinal portions, and treating its history 
 like the heathen records of Rome and Greece. Even 
 then its miracles cannot be disentangled from its 
 facts ; nor its facts from their typical bearing and 
 doctrinal illustration. 
 
 When, therefore, the pupil demands the meaning 
 of words, which the teacher must empty of all their 
 controversial significancy, only two expedients are 
 possible. One is, to give no answer, or at least to 
 wrap up the answer in such a mist of words as to 
 leave it more unintelligible than the original diffi- 
 culty. The other is, openly and fairly to lay before 
 the child all the different interpretations which have 
 been contended for, and to leave it to the child him- 
 self to decide between them. There might seem, 
 indeed, a third course, the most true, and the most 
 honest — to declare ignorance at once. But, then, 
 what becomes of the right of education ? And in 
 the other alternative, the civil power has, in its writ- 
 ten publications, chosen the second course; and, 
 carefully forcing upon the child the fact that differ- 
 ences and disputes do exist, refers the settlement of 
 the controversy to the child's own mind ; while in 
 the oral instruction it surrounds the teacher with so 
 many warnings and denunciations against convey- 
 ing a positive meaning — the meaning which he 
 believes in himself — as ultimately to reduce him to 
 silence. 
 
304 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Such, then, is the spectacle presented by the 
 only system of education practicable for the State, 
 M'lien it has thrown off its own strict allegiance to 
 the Church — the spectacle of the State itself, in 
 all the maturity of its outward strength and omni- 
 potence, humbling itself before infancj^, as in the 
 blindness and dotage of ignorance, and, in the very 
 act of professed control, giving up the reins of 
 guidance, on all that is vital to man, to the child 
 who stands at its feet, w^ondering, and bewildered, 
 and at last, when he comes to think, hardened in 
 imbecility and unbelief. 
 
 One course, indeed, remains, by which, at first 
 sight, escape from this melancholy issue may seem 
 practicable. 
 
 It is, to exclude from education the whole sub- 
 ject of religion — to abandon the Bible as well as 
 the creeds — the name of Christianity as well as the 
 communion of the Church ; and to confine instruc- 
 tion to the cultivation of the understanding, and to 
 morality. For morality must be included. It is not 
 because subjects are clumsy handicrafts, or dull ac- 
 countants — not because they are ignorant of geome- 
 try, or mathematics, or geology — but because they 
 rob, and burn, and murder, and rebel, that the State 
 is compelled to educate them. 
 
 But, once more, morality itself includes religion. 
 The same law of conscience which enforces our 
 duty to man enforces our duty to God. They can- 
 not be separated. Moreover it rests upon religion, 
 and not on religion only, but on revealed religion, 
 and on its positive institutions. The ten command- 
 ments, to have any efficacy, must be taught as posi- 
 tive, not as moral laws ; as owing their sanction and 
 obligation, not to the reason or inclination of the 
 criminal on whom they are imposed, but to the ex- 
 ternal authority of the Lawgiver. All moral laws 
 
CH. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 305 
 
 whatever are so taught, and must be so taught, to 
 children ; and when those children grow up, and 
 inquire for another authority beyond that of their 
 parents, if it be not found in the voice of God, and 
 in that voice independent of human fancies and in- 
 terpretations, it will be powerless. Man cannot rule 
 man by human power alone. And the State which 
 has abandoned its definite and exclusive Church- 
 communion, must next abandon not only the vague 
 religion which it would still retain, but the vague 
 morality which it is compelled to inculcate. 
 
 One hope still remains — the cultivation of the 
 understanding alone, without giving to the mind any 
 peculiar bias whatever, or prejudicing it in favour 
 of any moral or religious sect or doctrines; so that 
 all sects and all doctrines alike may, for a time, lay 
 aside their differences, and resort to a common in- 
 structor in secular science. And, it is asked trium- 
 phantly, if an assent to the Athanasian creed be 
 repuired for the study of the law, or the practice of 
 medicine; whether soldiers cannot be drilled, and 
 artisans be exercised in their trade, without touching 
 on controversial polemics? And the answer is, that 
 as you cannot teach a false theology without infusing 
 comprehensive errors, which will finally but inevit- 
 ably cat their way down into the very extremities, 
 into the lowest and meanest parts of the human 
 frame, — as the fountain of life once poisoned, will 
 infect all the water that flows from it, — as the diver- 
 gence of a hair's breadth from a straight line will run 
 out into an infinite diversity; so, on the other hand, 
 you cannot teach the meanest art, you cannot in- 
 struct a ploughman in ploughing, or a ditcher in 
 ditching, without impressing upon his mind tenden- 
 cies and principles — the very highest principles of 
 all truth, or falsehood, which insensibly will prepare 
 his mind for the adoption of his religious communion. 
 D D 2 
 
306 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 Ultimate truths and particular facts, even the most 
 petty and trifling facts, are connected, as the reason 
 with the individual action, as the vital principle in 
 the body with its manifestation in the limb. You 
 cannot aflect one without affecting the other. They 
 are inseparably wrapt up together. 
 
 How is the child to be instructed, except by an 
 instructor, and by an instructor armed with autho- 
 rity, who, at that age, stands to him as his ruler — 
 as the being whom he must respect, imitate, love, 
 and regard as the visible representative of that 
 moral Power which stands over him invisibly in the 
 universe ? How are the feelings with which he is 
 taught to regard this being — whether they are feel- 
 ings of contempt, or feelings of reverence — how can 
 they be prevented from biasing his mind to a similar 
 tone and habit in other similar relations hereafter — 
 relations to his spiritual teachers, and to his God ? 
 How can he be made to attain slvill without practice; 
 or to practise without blindly attempting what he 
 is commanded, though he does not understand it, — 
 in one word, without faith ? And how is he, w^ho 
 has learnt faith in the exercise of an art, to escape 
 from the application of the same principle in his 
 reception of religion ? Or how can he respect his 
 instructor in art, without inclining to respect and 
 imitate him in other points, — if his teacher exhibit 
 practical religion, without contracting, in some de- 
 gree, the same tone of piety, — if he tamper with 
 religion, without tampering with religion likewise, 
 — if he act as an infidel, or sceptic, without be- 
 coming an infidel and sceptic himself? In other 
 words, how is the task of instruction to be secured 
 from the contagion of example? You teach the 
 merest child, in the most trivial of lessons, to set 
 before himself an external law and model, imposed 
 on him, not invented l)y him ; and to regard his 
 
CH. XXVIIl.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 307 
 
 conformity with that external standard as his chief 
 excellence and perfection. You make him receive 
 this external model upon authority, and you con- 
 firm that authority by testimony — that is, you teach 
 him, and cannot but teach him, the very principles 
 for which the Catholic Church has contended for 
 eighteen centuries, against rationalism and self-will, 
 and which, if valid in secular art, are valid for reli- 
 gious truth. And if you omit this, the child becomes 
 a fool. And yet you think that you are escaping 
 from the injustice or the sin of prejudicing his mind. 
 You are compelled, even in intellectual instruction 
 alone, to speak of indolence, of thoughtlessness, of 
 wilfulness, of ignorance, as more than misfortunes — 
 as faults — and to threaten them with punishments; 
 and to reward the opposite virtues. And every vice 
 whatever, as it unnerves the mind, and dissipates the 
 attention, and induces stubbornness, or conceit, or 
 petulance, or dulness, is amenable to your censures 
 as an instructor. For if the head guides the heart, 
 the heart also guides the head. And thus, willingly 
 or unwillingly, you are compelled to enter on the 
 province of morals — to admit distinctions of right 
 and wrong, even amidst mathematical abstractions, 
 and, with such questions, to bear also the intru- 
 sion of those holy instincts of childhood, which see 
 where maturer minds are often blind, and hear what 
 they cannot hear; which you cannot silence by the 
 sophistry of expediency, or stifle because they are 
 shut up in the secrecy of the child's bosom — which 
 will reason from a teacher upon earth to a God 
 in heaven, and from the rod here to a hell here- 
 after ; and in which the germ of faith is fixed so 
 deeply, that no human power can tear it up, though 
 we may distort it into superstition, or compel it to 
 seek nourishment in falsehood, when denied its pro- 
 per food in external revealed truth. 
 
308 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 And all this will soon be discovered; and any 
 religious community which entertains the slightest 
 care for the souls of its children, will refuse to entrust 
 them, even in secular arts and in the most restricted 
 system of instruction, with teachers who are not 
 members of the same communion with themselves. 
 They will learn, that even ordinary association, in 
 the common intercourse of life, with those whom we 
 believe, and who believe ourselves to be, in a state 
 of heathenism, or heresy, or schism, and therefore 
 under the wrath of God, is most perilous and crimi- 
 nal, and can only be justified either by unavoidable 
 necessity, or by a desire to bring those who are erring 
 within the pale of the truth. United education may 
 be endured by some, so long as it encourages a 
 hope, not of suppressing proselytism altogether, but of 
 confining it to themselves, and gives an opportunity 
 of undermining an antagonist communion ; as Popery 
 has often prayed for an unlimited toleration of here- 
 sies, that it may ultimately obtain power to establish 
 the Inquisition. But the moment this hope is cut 
 off, an universal condemnation and contempt will 
 rise from every mouth wdiich has a religious faith 
 to profess ; from every parent who believes in a 
 God, and desires that his children should believe in 
 Him also. They will learn and see, by the low and 
 demoralising influences which will insensibly creep 
 into the whole of such a system, that not even a 
 secular instruction can be good, which is not based 
 upon, as w^ell as accompanied with, religious truth; 
 in which religious truth is not made the great law^, 
 and standard, and guide throughout. And they will 
 find, by a sad experience, that, instead of excluding 
 religion, lest it end in discord, such a system brings 
 in religion even where the most earnest piety would 
 shrink from obtruding it — forces it into every sub- 
 ject — teaches it in the most palpable and potent 
 
CH. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 309 
 
 form — but so as to breed only contempt for God, 
 and hatred to man. 
 
 When society would crush and destroy a mem- 
 ber, upon whom they would set a mark of infamy, 
 they refuse to speak of him or to him. Their silence 
 kills. And so it is with religion. It is proscribed 
 and suppressed. Wherefore ? Because, either there 
 is no truth in it, or its truth is not discoverable, 
 or has not yet been discovered by those who, as 
 instructors, stand before the boy with all the claims 
 of experience and wisdom. Neither question nor 
 answer can be stifled or evaded. And yet this is to 
 be silent on religion. Is it not rather to pronounce 
 on it — to pronounce on its vital and fundamental 
 axiom, to force its denial into every act, to exhibit 
 it before the world engraven in gigantic letters legi- 
 ble to the merest child ? 
 
 Add, that nothing so provokes curiosity and 
 loquacity in the young, as a mysterious reserve, or 
 avowed ignorance, on the part of the teacher. Add, 
 that this system, in its present shape, though framed 
 upon the one grand principle of excluding contro- 
 versial theology, while with one hand it casts away 
 the creeds, with the other drags day by day into 
 the very school-room, not merely inanimate forms, 
 but the living disputants themselves; sets before 
 the very eyes of the young the spectacle of antago- 
 nist sects, each maintaining its own faith, and deny- 
 ing all others ; compels these antagonist teachers to 
 discuss more largely, and to enforce more strongly 
 their several peculiar doctrines, in a place where 
 they are so liable to be forgotten or endangered. 
 Remember that, even if this fatal spectacle were 
 withdrawn, — this most grievous of stumbling-blocks 
 and offences to the little ones of Christ, — still there 
 remain the home and the house of worship; and there, 
 unless the young are never to hear of God, they will 
 
310 NATIONAL EDUCATION. 
 
 hear of Him under the only form in which He is 
 acknowledged by their parents ; they will learn no 
 such maxim as that of the school-room, that re- 
 ligious differences are nothing, and religious truth 
 a dream ; rather they will be taught, each and all, 
 with all the force and energy of an earnest belief 
 and awakened conscience, that one great truth, — 
 the only truth in which all sects agree, and which, in 
 their catalogue of acknowledged doctrines, the plan- 
 ners of an united education have wholly overlooked, 
 — that there is but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 
 one Church; that truth cannot be manifold; that a 
 doctrine cannot be true without stamping its contra- 
 diction as false ; that what each sect or community 
 professes is true, the only true; and that all others 
 are in such vital error, that they are excluded from 
 the visible Church on earth, if not from salvation 
 in heaven. 
 
 And with this truth stamped upon their hearts, 
 the young will come before the Civil Power in the 
 person of their secular instructor, to hear that all 
 such exclusive pretensions are arrogant dogmatism ; 
 that the most opposite opinions may all be true; 
 that Christians should live together in mutual amity 
 without thinking of their union in Christ; that they 
 can be entitled to the name and privileges of Chris- 
 tians while they are violating Christ's solemn com- 
 mands, rending His garments, and putting Him to 
 open shame by their dissensions and schisms; and 
 that the only creed acknowledged by their instruc- 
 tor is, to reject every opinion which any other schis- 
 matic rejects before him. The Parent and the Spi- 
 ritual Guide stand on one side, and the Civil Power 
 on the other; and M'hich will the child follow ? He 
 cannot follow one without despising the other. And 
 on whom will the contempt fall? Earnestness, en- 
 ergy, faith, warm-heartedness, authority, religious 
 
CH. XXVIII.] NATIONAL EDUCATION. 311 
 
 feeling, religious practice, even when they are ac- 
 companied M'itli error, come home to the heart and 
 fascinate the affections. But tiic timid, vacillating, 
 negative voice of the State, full of self-contradictions 
 and embarrassment, cold without solidity, and tem- 
 porising without prudence, proclaiming no truth, 
 animating no feeling, enjoining only moral impos- 
 sibilities — to love where there is nothing lovely, and 
 to worship we know not what, — the sceptical, infidel 
 State, the defender of every heresy, and promoter of 
 every schism, what can it meet but scorn ? What 
 can follow but the entire disruption of every prin- 
 ciple of loyalty and obedience ? Even if it tri- 
 umphs for a time, this end must come at last. For 
 it can triumph only by annihilating the authority of 
 the parent and of the spiritual guide, and leaving 
 the child to himself, floating on a sea of doubt, and 
 bewildered in a thick darkness, and finally throwing 
 himself for peace either into a reckless career of 
 profligacy, or into the arms of some extravagant 
 communion, which extinguishes the pain of doubt 
 by superseding it with the blindness of fanaticism. 
 
312 THE I'OOR-LAWS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 This question of national education has been dwelt 
 upon at length, not only as the most prominent ex- 
 hibition of a national apostacy from the Church, 
 but as one of the most noxious and subtle forms in 
 which the anti-Christian spirit has disguised itself; 
 since it undermines the foundation of all truth what- 
 ever. And although an universal and most right- 
 eous protest has been made against it in various 
 parts of the empire, the protest has not always been 
 rested on its strongest grounds. The system is to be 
 denounced rather from its negation of a creed, than 
 as an exclusion of the Scriptures. One charge may 
 be denied or evaded, the other cannot. And when 
 it is denounced, as it should be by every Christian 
 tongue, let us beware of mixing up the censures of 
 the system with censures on its authors. Destitute 
 of the knowledge, destitute of a firm belief in the 
 importance of the external historical testimony to 
 tlie exclusive doctrines of the Church — left for years 
 with nothing but internal evidence, the evidence of 
 their own reasoning and tlieir own heart, the states- 
 men of the 19th century could scarcely fail to place 
 the Church on a par with the sects of dissent and 
 the schism of Romanism — as resting, like them, upon 
 mere opinion. And with this first step all the others 
 are inevitable. There could be no retreat. But that 
 they have been so left, and so miserably instructed 
 in the first rudiments of their religion, is rather the 
 fault of the Church than of themselves. The silence, 
 the neglect, of the Church is now visited upon its 
 
CH. XXTX.] THE POOR-LAWS. 313 
 
 own head ; and confession of our own past sins is 
 more fitting the Christian character, than reproba- 
 tion of those who have been nurtured up under our 
 instruction, to become now the unconscious ministers 
 of God's vengeance upon their teachers. 
 
 But let us touch on a few other instances where 
 a desecrated, creedless, churchless State is compelled 
 to undertake its natural functions, and yet finds itself 
 paralysed, or powerful only for evil. " The poor 
 siiall never be removed from the land." Poverty, in 
 some shape or other, is an essential condition of po- 
 litical society, and it will increase in proportion with 
 the accumulation of money ; because capital has 
 always a tendency to drain and absorb into itself 
 all the lesser springs of wealth by its command over 
 labour, and competition will drive wages down to 
 tiie lowest possible prices. But these questions, and 
 the whole theory of national wealth, require to be 
 examined at length ; and a Christian political eco- 
 nomy would form a necessary appendage to Christian 
 politics, and must be reserved for such a place. 
 
 But, as a fact, the mass of poverty has now swelled 
 in this country to a pitch which threatens to overflow 
 and devastate society itself. With a free trade and 
 a manufacturing system it could not be otherwise. 
 The interference of the legislature is demanded. 
 All eyes are turned to its omnipotent arm ; and it 
 proceeds to act. It gathers under its protection the 
 starving, houseless, miserable beings, whom the ava- 
 rice of tiieir employers has called into existence by the 
 demand i'ov labour, and then left them to perish in the 
 fluctuations of employment, or has reduced them to 
 the minimum of subsistence, and therefore to demo- 
 ralisation and despair. But it is compelled to gather 
 them in masses, by broad palpable lines of distinction ; 
 because the State has no delicate discriminating eyes, 
 none of the finer organs of prehension and selection, 
 
 E E 
 
314 THE POOR-LAWS. 
 
 which are required to separate between the bad and 
 the good; the industrious and the idle; the poverty 
 which is a fault, from that which is misfortune ; 
 that which demands consolation, from that which 
 requires chastisement ; the improving from the re- 
 probate and lost. Its seat of action is too far removed 
 to penetrate into the cottage and the hovel, to hear 
 the tale of distress, and to balance degrees of in- 
 discretion, or suffering, or crime. And no instru- 
 ments can it create to execute such a task, because 
 it can retain them by pay only, and hired servants 
 can have neither the feeling nor the zeal to attempt 
 it well. There is, indeed, in every parish one or 
 more persons, of whose sacred and appointed func- 
 tions it is an especial part to care for the poor — 
 the servants of a Divine Master who was born in 
 a stable and laid in a manger; who, as far as per- 
 sonal enjoyment is concerned, are themselves pledged 
 to poverty; whose office it is to watch over the 
 souls of those around them, and therefore to dis- 
 criminate characters ; who can give alms without 
 degrading the receivers; who can add to them a 
 double grace and double comfort by words of bless- 
 ing and advice; who are solemnly devoted to this 
 work, whether the State employ their services or 
 not ; and who, by the ministrations of religion, can 
 render even destitution tolerable, and raise even 
 idleness and profligacy to an honest and respectable 
 industry. The clergy are the clergy for the poor. 
 Their very establishment in the possession of their 
 own regular appropriated funds exempts them from 
 requiring of their flock the maintenance which the 
 Scriptures authorise, and which is always found to 
 be exacted irregularly, or even sternly, from the 
 poor, where the so-called voluntary system prevails, 
 and the teachers are left dependent on the caprices 
 of tlie taught. 
 
CH. XXIX.] THE POOR-LAWS. 315 
 
 If a heathen political philosopher could see such 
 a machinery existing and in operation, how would 
 lie bless its author, and envy the nation in which 
 it was established ! Alas ! he would be told by the 
 State, that to the State it was useless. The State 
 cannot employ it, because alms are given by a 
 Christian as a religious oifering in a religious spirit ; 
 and to entrust any exclusive religious power in the 
 hands of the clergy, would be to acknowledge the 
 truth of one creed, and the error of those which 
 differed from it. The clergy must be set aside ; and 
 the poor must be fed and clothed by a Board of Poor- 
 Law Commissioners, who have no religious prefer- 
 ence whatever. What follows? Destitute of the 
 means of discriminating character, and justly afraid 
 of encouraging every kind of vice and evil by an in- 
 discriminating charity, they are compelled, I will not 
 say to regard poverty as a crime, but to deal with 
 it as if it were such; to reduce their alms down to 
 the lowest possible point at which life can be main- 
 tained — life without hope, without dignity, without 
 enjoyment, without possibility of improvement — one 
 stern, cheerless, dreary, dismal protraction of im- 
 prisonment and privation, that all may be discou- 
 raged from approaching it. Whether it be from 
 prudence towards the poor, or from selfish economy 
 for itself, the civil power cannot hold out any alms, 
 which are not wrung and counted out like drops of 
 blood, and given with a curse, the curse of niggard- 
 liness and reproach, rather than with a blessing. 
 
 But the necessity of economy and privation ren- 
 ders another step equally necessary. The home 
 cannot be permitted to remain ; expenses cannot be 
 curtailed, nor enjoyments restricted, where the poor 
 are allowed to expend what they receive in the 
 bosom of their families ; and therefore they must be 
 gathered together under one roof. Oh, how thwarted 
 
316 THE POOR-LAWS. 
 
 nature and despised truth will avenge themselves at 
 last ; and, if we refuse to receive and honour them 
 in their genuine forms, will compel us to fall down 
 and worship some deformed idol, which we erect, 
 without knowing it, after their mutilated image ! It 
 is necessary that some men be poor. It may be 
 good for us all to abandon wealth, even if we are 
 not abandoned by it. And social life is a blessing : 
 and for those who have no firesides, it is charity to 
 provide a home, after the model of a family, where 
 they may live under a wise and merciful restraint, 
 and have their affections developed and their ener- 
 gies exercised, and even accomplish many a grand 
 and noble work, by united labour, which cannot be 
 attempted by individuals. And labour, even bodily 
 labour, is full of health, and has no degradation 
 when sanctified by humility and honesty. And fast- 
 ing was the practice of saints, and the discipline 
 even of our Lord. So thought wise men of old, 
 who founded religious houses. They sinned, indeed, 
 in many things ; they violated many a rule of the 
 Church, as of right reason ; but in forming religious 
 corporations of the poor, they left to us an example, 
 which, if we would save the empire from ruin, we 
 must ourselves soon follow. Their edifices were 
 overthrown, plundered, and held up to indiscrimi- 
 nate hatred and scorn at the Reformation. They 
 have been made ever since a by-word, as the great 
 blot upon an age of darkness, and as a name of re- 
 proach. And in the nineteenth century, when we 
 boast of having receded so far from such ignorance 
 and superstition, that we cannot possibly relapse to 
 it, suddenly, at the call of the most vague latitudi- 
 narianism, there rise up on every side vast houses 
 and refuges of the poor, maintained not by reli- 
 gious alms, but by extorted taxes ; and containing 
 in their system almost every circumstance which 
 
CU. XXIX.] TUE POOR-LAWS. 317 
 
 has been either wrongly ridiculed by the bad, or 
 justly condemned by the good, in the system of 
 monasticism ; omitting only that which commanded 
 the reverence of all — religion. 
 
 There is poverty, but forced, not voluntary ; 
 privation and fasting, but reluctant sufferings, not 
 self-denying and repentant discipline. There is 
 seclusion from the world without contemplation, 
 or any of the benefits of retirement. There is end- 
 less, hopeless fixedness of lot, but rivetted by the 
 denial of all means of improving the condition, not 
 by vows, which, however erroneously taken, were 
 at least dignified by their sacredness. There is 
 labour, wasted and unproductive; society, without 
 any bond of union but common degradation and 
 restraint ; dependence upon others, but on their 
 grudging penuriousness, not on their benevolence 
 and love. There is celibacy, or a compulsory dis- 
 ruption of the marriage-ties, but with no holy 
 thoughts or high aspirations to purify and guard it 
 from crime. There is a breaking up of the family 
 and the home, but without creating any community 
 of love to supply its place. There is a badge stamped 
 upon all inmates, separating them from the rest of 
 their fellows, but neither holding up before the world 
 a memorial of higher duties and purer feelings than 
 the world at large permits, nor giving dignity and 
 elevation to them who bear it, but branding them 
 with a mark of infamy, as the paupers of a poor- 
 house. And there are no duties to animate or dig- 
 nify. Shame, but not for sin — fear, but not of 
 (iod — inactivity without repose — labour without 
 hope — ignominy without self-reproach — and pun- 
 ishment without crime ; such are the essential and 
 inseparable characteristics of a system which gathers 
 together the good and the bad into one abode of 
 poverty, and feeds, and clothes, and shelters, and 
 
 EE 2 
 
318 THE FAMILY. 
 
 employs them by the hands, not of the Church, but 
 of the State. 
 
 For religion is excluded ; or, if admitted, it can 
 come before them only in the rare and grudged 
 ministrations of a single chaplain ; set side by side 
 with the authorised teaching of others, who de- 
 nounce his doctrines as false, and his commission 
 as invalid. Heresy and schism, and, following on 
 them, unbelief, must pursue the civil power, even 
 into the poor-house. And the last refuge for its 
 miserable inhabitants, the belief in a God and the 
 hopes of heaven, must be shut against them by the 
 distractions of doubt and controversy, which the 
 State, instead of excluding, forces on them ; which 
 it brings into their very home — gathering the war of 
 words and the strife of tongues, as before round the 
 bewildered child, so now in the ear of the ignorant, 
 the aged, the sinful, the miserable, the hard of heart, 
 the bereaved and the friendless, the dull and dead 
 of hearing and understanding, even round the decay 
 of sickness, and the agonies of the death-bed. The 
 State will acknowledge no exclusive truth in reli- 
 gion, and listen to no controversies, because truth 
 is full of doubt, and controversies the destruction 
 of peace ; and therefore the miserable pauper is 
 compelled by it to listen to them himself, and to end 
 where the State begins, in disbelieving all that he 
 hears. 
 
 Let us turn to another point. If the body politic 
 be an organisation of families, not a mere aggre- 
 gation of individuals, the welfare and right organi- 
 sation of the family is essential to the well-being of 
 the nation. Whatever loosens domestic obligations, 
 or tampers with domestic affections, must sooner 
 or later end in the destruction of political society. 
 There is as close a connexion between the despotism 
 of the Turk and the harems of his subjects, and be- 
 
CH. XXIX.] THE FAMILY. 3 19 
 
 tween the public crimes of Athens and the private 
 profligacy of Athenian homes, as between the colour 
 and hardness of stones and the appearance and so- 
 lidity of the building constructed of them. 
 
 Perhaps it is chiefly through the home that 
 Christianity has wrought its elevating and purifying 
 eflects upon the nation — raising the wife, consecrat- 
 ing the parent, emancipating the slave, hallowing 
 every act, and scene, and relation of domestic life 
 by its typical and mysterious connexion with the 
 whole of the vast scheme of Revelation ; and restor- 
 ing a healthy and invigorating atmosphere to the 
 small but important nursery of those habits and 
 afi^ections in the child, which are afterwards to be 
 exercised in a developed not altered form, and upon 
 vaster, scarcely upon different objects, in the wide 
 sphere of the nation and of the Church both visible 
 and invisible. And where Christ has laboured with 
 a blessing, there Anti-Christ will labour with a curse. 
 Accordingly, the same spirit of evil which compels 
 a State to abandon its exclusive faith and Church- 
 communion, compels it also to desecrate and under- 
 mine the family. It begins with the rite of marriage, 
 one which even the most worldly nations have been 
 anxious to consecrate with the greatest awe, lest its 
 obligations and solemnity should be depreciated, 
 and man should sink into the same state with the 
 beasts of the field. It has been made, or rather 
 has been perpetuated from the beginning as a cere- 
 mony of religion. And this religious character is 
 especially necessary as a safeguard to the weaker 
 sex, who, without it, must be at the mercy of man's 
 sensuality, and be soon reduced to a state of oriental 
 degradation, if not to worse. But with the repudia- 
 tion of one exclusive creed, the politician must also 
 repudiate one exclusive Church. And with this he 
 must abandon the whole of that solemn mystery, 
 
320 THE FAMILY. 
 
 the parent germ and grandest type of all society, the 
 doctrine of the spiritual union between Christ and 
 Christians, the Head of the body and its members. 
 With this perishes the peculiar and awful sanctity 
 of Christian marriage. And with this, so far as the 
 State can prevail, perishes also the chief solemnising 
 and purifying influence of Christianity upon the 
 family, and of the family upon the nation. Where 
 it is still retained, it is retained by the voice of the 
 Church, in defiance and in utter condemnation of 
 the State. But as far as the State could operate, it 
 has thrown back the family-tie into heathenism. 
 
 But the State cannot confine itself to a mere 
 negation of doctrine. In self-defence it must legis- 
 late upon the subject of marriage, and discriminate 
 between valid and invalid unions, if only to guard 
 and define the transmission of property. And how 
 is it to make this distinction, when a vast body of its 
 subjects have severed themselves from the Church 
 Catholic — when the State itself, carried away by the 
 stream, hesitates to recognise the Church as the one 
 appointed minister of God's spiritual blessings — and 
 still both heretics and schismatics, like heathens, must 
 live in the ties of marriage, as before the publication 
 of the gospel. The rite of marriage must be altered 
 by the authority of the State. For no one would 
 compel either the Church to bless schismatics, who 
 are in rebellion against her, or schismatics to re- 
 ceive a blessing from the Church which they despise. 
 Those who live without the Church must be mar- 
 ried without the Church. 
 
 But something is still left to a Christian and a 
 Catholic State, even in this emergency, if it desire 
 to retain its faith. It may establish a purely civil 
 rite for those whom it is compelled to recognise as 
 married for ])urt'ly civil purposes. It may still ad- 
 mit the blessing of the Church, and its solemn cere- 
 
CH. XXIX.] THE FAMILY, 321 
 
 monial, as a sufficient attestation and sanction for 
 the union of members of the Church. And all 
 others it may deal with simply as amenable to the 
 civil magistrate, without recognising or admitting, 
 in any way, the propriety or validity of any religious 
 self-invented rites which they might choose to ap- 
 pend to it. And in this way it would neither aban- 
 don its own principle, nor insult the Church, nor 
 violate the conscience of schismatics. 
 
 But this would be the act of a State who, though 
 compelled to modify many of its practices by the 
 prevalence of dissension, still honoured the Church 
 of Christ, and upheld His truths. England has ad- 
 vanced farther. She has acted, not as one com- 
 pelled by the sins of others to modify her external 
 institutions, but as spontaneously and gratuitously 
 proclaiming her own negation of the faith. She has 
 solemnly recognised the religious ceremony of any 
 little knot of householders who can agree to invent 
 a new faith, or a new form of worship, and has 
 placed it on a par wdth the blessing of the Church. 
 She has thus reduced the whole religious obligation 
 of the rite of marriage to a question of opinion. 
 Instead of boldly announcing that one form is true, 
 and all others false, one right, and all others wrong, 
 she has declared that all may be true and all right ; 
 or, in other words, that there is neither truth nor 
 right, and that the whole religious obligation of 
 marriage is a delusion. She has not yet, indeed, 
 formally proclaimed the judgment of a single indi- 
 vidual to be the measure of all things. This is yet 
 to come. As yet it requires the consent of twenty 
 householders to constitute truth, frame a creed, and 
 establish a sound religion. But why twenty ? Why 
 not one ? 
 
 With this comes naturally a tampering with the 
 relationships of marriage. While a State is a mem- 
 
322 THE FAMILY. 
 
 ber of the Church, it adopts the restrictions of the 
 Church on the subject of incestuous unions — re- 
 strictions founded on the positive laws of God, and 
 not, therefore, at the mercy of opinion. But these 
 positive laws once abandoned, there is nothing to 
 prevent opinion from gradually throwing down all 
 the barriers which both the better, purer instincts 
 of human nature and views of expediency demand, 
 and at last sanctioning, or permitting, any form of 
 incest, however horrible. One attempt has been 
 made already, and has met with only a faint oppo- 
 sition. Nor can any opposition be successful, but 
 such as can be offered l3y the Catholic Church in 
 her adherence to positive institutions, upon histo- 
 rical testimony ; a line of argument which the civil 
 power cannot adopt, or even tolerate, without aban- 
 doning at once its present principles, and returning 
 to one faith and one Church, and that faith and that 
 Church as exclusive as truth and goodness, as justice 
 and as heaven. 
 
 Once more. The same principles of obedience 
 which regulate the relation of governors and go- 
 verned in the nation, will regulate all similar subor- 
 dinate relations. The subject, who is taught to re- 
 gard his sovereign as one set over him by God, and 
 to honour and submit to him on this ground of a 
 positive institution, not of mere personal feeling or 
 expediency, will recognise in his parents also a like 
 authority. Where kings rule by commission from 
 the Almighty, there children kneel to receive a bless- 
 ing from their parents. With the Rebellion this 
 practice ceased in England. And where society is 
 matle a mere matter of convention, there children 
 and parents alike are at liberty to consult their own 
 supposed convenience ; and there laws are necessary 
 to protect children from infanticide and desertion, 
 and parents from neglect and starvation in the in- 
 
CH. XXIX.] SERVITUDE. 323 
 
 firmities of age. Locke's theorj' of the home and 
 of the State are necessary parts of one and the same 
 system. Once destroy the authority of positive ex- 
 ternal law, by denying a positive external truth, and 
 all the reciprocal duties and obligations of life slide 
 away into feelings and affections, and those feelings 
 and affections, in the corrupt soil of the human heart, 
 soon pass into passions and vices, bearing their fruit 
 in death. Look to the state of the parental relation 
 in this country now, and compare with it the spirit 
 of a former time. Examine the statutes which the 
 sins of the nation have rendered necessary on this 
 point, and trace the course of the domestic change 
 along the course of political events ; and the series 
 of corruptions in each will be found to run side by 
 side, and to be connected with inseparable links. 
 
 And then turn to another relation of domestic 
 life — that of master and servant. Christianity set the 
 slave free. It struck off his chains, not by any violent 
 infraction of an established system — not by encou- 
 raging that restless and dangerous spirit of indepen- 
 dence which refuses to own any master — not by 
 indulging in vague and fanatical clamours against 
 an institution which had not been excluded even 
 from the Divinely appointed polity of the Jews — 
 which nature herself had in some degree adopted 
 — and the very name of which had been assumed 
 into the most ennobling relations of the gospel. 
 She knew that where the spirit of Christian love is 
 infused, there the outward form of slavery not only 
 loses its terrors, but becomes capable of generating 
 great virtues. And however capable of abuse may 
 be the power of one human being over another, she 
 knew that far greater abuses prevail in the unre- 
 stricted rule of each man over himself. The highest 
 virtues of our nature — patience, fortitude, humility, 
 faith, may be cherished and exercised in the slave, 
 
324 SERVITUDE. 
 
 even under the harshest bondage ; and mercy, and 
 pity, and love, and self-denial, may be practised by 
 the master even when armed with absolute power. 
 But no virtue "whatever can be generated in the 
 license of self-will, except it be the self-command 
 taught to us by bitter suffering, and resolute to 
 abandon its freedom, and to confine itself under an 
 external rule. If a Christian was born a slave, by 
 the advice of the Apostle he was not to seek to be- 
 come free. 
 
 For man is made up of body and mind. And 
 whenever, by any circumstances, moral or physical, 
 the body, in its wants or its affections, predominates 
 in an individual over the mind, there, by an universal 
 law of nature, it must be subjected to the rule of 
 another. This is the general formula, which com- 
 prehends all the varieties of slavery. And the state 
 of slavery sins against this law of nature perhaps 
 only when the relation is reversed, and brute force, 
 unregulated by mind, endeavours (for it never is 
 able) to tyrannise over mind emancipated from the 
 body. 
 
 Thus, the mental imbecility of the child, and the 
 necessities of its bodily nature, place it at the mercy 
 of its parent. Thus, the decaying intellect of old 
 age, and the same bodily wants, make it depend- 
 ent upon the young. Thus, the violence of animal 
 passions must be followed by the coercion of a 
 prison. Thus, impotency in controlling our incli- 
 nations involves extravagances, and extravagance 
 brings debt, and debt subjection to a creditor. Thus, 
 the cravings of the body — hunger, and thirst, and 
 cold — compel the poor to seek employment from 
 the rich. And the stronger these cravings become, 
 the more onerous is the toil which is undertaken to 
 satisfy them. TIius, real freedom is only to be at- 
 tained by diminishing our bodily wants, and strength- 
 
CII.XXIX.] SERVITUDE. 325 
 
 ening our mental powers. And ^vllerever the body 
 does not intervene, and mind is no way enslaved to 
 it, in tlie individual himself, there the mind cannot be 
 su])jected to any external constraint. No subjection 
 can be enforced, no real tyranny exercised by brute 
 power, except where the mind of the subject is weak 
 and defective. It may torture a martyr at the stake; 
 it may confiscate property ; it may menace, and in- 
 flict, death : but it cannot touch the mind until the 
 mind itself gives way to its own body. For it can- 
 not compel acts — to suffering the mind can reconcile 
 itself, especially under the consolations of Christianity ; 
 and the moment it is reconciled, and ceases to strug- 
 gle against the outward bond, it will cease to feel the 
 existence of it. The prisoner who voluntarily con- 
 fines himself within the walls of his dungeon, so far 
 as the sense of slavery is concerned, is as happy, as 
 if the world were his own, to range over it at plea- 
 sure. 
 
 If, then, this subjection of one man to another 
 
 — this state of servitude — be as inseparable from 
 private life, as ruling and being ruled are insepar- 
 able from political society ; what is the spirit which 
 ought to be infused into it, to prevent its excesses 
 and evils ? And the answer is the same as that 
 which has been already given with regard to the bond 
 of union between the people and the Sovereign in the 
 body politic. Fear or compulsion must be employed, 
 and interest, and faith : and yet not any one of these 
 exclusively, but all combined. And wherever any 
 one is wanting, there the relation becomes imperfect 
 and corrupt. But into the present system of servi- 
 tude in this country, only one of these is allowed to 
 enter — interest. All constraint has been removed 
 
 — all sense of an external power, tying down the 
 inferior to his superior, fixing him in the family, 
 binding him to the soil, or attaching him to the 
 
 F F 
 
32G SERVITUDE. 
 
 person of his master. The servant is left, in the 
 abused sense of the word, wholly free ; and, as a 
 necessary consequence, he has been reduced to a 
 condition worse than that of the slave. Labour — 
 the labour of human beings — is now an article for 
 the market. It is a subject of competition. It is 
 open to the same rivalry, and its value is fixed by 
 the same irregular struggle between two contending 
 selfishnesses, as the price of a bale of cotton or a 
 loaf of bread. The hirer and the hired have each 
 but a single object: the one to purchase as cheap, 
 the other to sell his toil as dear, as possible. But 
 in such a conflict the master must ultimately be the 
 vanquisher. The servant who outstands his market 
 must starve. And thus we have seen the price of 
 the labour of the poor throughout the kingdom, in 
 almost every department, reduced to so low a rate, 
 that life can scarcely be supported. And the wretched 
 workman is left to starve, throughout the vigour of 
 his life, in a miserable hovel, and to die in a poor- 
 house, while the master is apparently exempt from 
 all responsibility, as he is untouched by any com- 
 passion, because the relation between himself and 
 his servant has been stripped of all moral obligation 
 and religious character, and has been reduced to a 
 mere act of barter. Faith and fear have perished 
 from it. And so it must be, when the dependence of 
 man upon man ceases to be regarded in a religious 
 light — as a positive dispensation of Providence; 
 when, instead of submitting to, and acquiescing in, 
 the position in which we are placed at our birth, 
 until some other call from Heaven summon us from 
 it, we are taught from our childhood, that there is no 
 law or rule for our temporal conduct, but to secure, 
 each of us, what wo deem to be our own advance- 
 ment in the world ; when, in this way, a perpetual 
 fretting fever of restless ambition is diffused through 
 
CH. XXIX.] SERVITUDE. 327 
 
 every class; when the master, to increase his gains, 
 reduces his servant to starvation, and the servant 
 serves not as an act of duty, and in the Lord, but 
 simply to earn his bread. 
 
 For, to the creation of faith and fear, it is an 
 essential condition, that authority, of whatever kind, 
 should be based ultimately upon a positive external 
 Divine appointment. Nothing else can steady the 
 caprices of the human heart ; nothing else cover and 
 supply the defects of the human character; nothing 
 else impress an adequate responsibility upon the 
 ruler to exercise his power with mercy, and to fulfil 
 the trust committed to him, of watching over and 
 improving the condition of his dependants; nothing 
 else dignify subjection, and hallow union, and pre- 
 serve love. But all this has been swept aAvay by the 
 same acts, by which the State has abandoned a posi- 
 tive external Divine authority, first for its creeds, 
 then for its clergy, then for itself, and then, as a 
 necessary consequence, for every other power in the 
 kingdom. If the State cannot claim an external 
 Divine appointment, wholly independent of human 
 fancy, much less can the parent or the master. 
 Man, however weak, however ignorant, must be 
 emancipated (in theory, for in practice he cannot 
 be) from all subjection whatever to a fellow-creature. 
 His emancipation must not wait for a development 
 of mind within him, which would enable him to bear 
 and to improve his liberty. Subjection, in itself, is 
 deemed a wrong, and must not be protracted by any 
 calculations of expediency. We sigh over the im- 
 prisonment of the canary-bird, exclaim against the 
 cruelty of its oppressor, unbar the doors of its cage 
 without a moment's delay, and the poor bird claps 
 its Avings with joy, flutters into the open air, regains 
 its liberty, its blessed liberty — and the next day 
 is found dead of cold and hunger. It is not for a 
 
328 SERVITUDE. 
 
 Christian to argue in favour of slavery ; still less to 
 speak of it, except with abhorrence, when the master 
 abuses his power, and the slave, instead of being 
 raised by him, by degrees, to the capability and en- 
 joyment of his freedom, is rivetted in his chains for 
 ever. But a Christian may indeed ask, whether the 
 total exclusion of all constraint, of all fear, of all posi- 
 tive external obligation from the relation of master 
 and servant, has not ended in reducing the servant in 
 this country to a condition far worse — far more ab- 
 ject and degraded — far more hopeless — far more 
 vitiated — than that of any slave in any period or 
 country of the world. Our mines, our factories, our 
 common workshops ^ — even our farms and agricul- 
 tural cottages — full of crippled children and de- 
 formed women, of famine and fever, of drunkenness 
 and vice, of depraved, miserable, hopeless beings, 
 doomed by their own free act — the free act of a being 
 in the agony of starvation — to the severest toil in 
 darkness, at midnight; deprived of rest, stinted in 
 food, selling their children to the same misery with 
 their own for a few shillings, or sickening over hours 
 of toil to earn their pence, — all the horrible scenes 
 revealed by late inquiries into the state of our lower 
 classes, — wdiat is there in the records of slavery to 
 be found more heart-breaking, or more appalling, 
 to those who believe that nations, like individuals, 
 are visited by curses from the Almighty, and that 
 the first curse denounced in His commandments is 
 uttered against those who depart, even in the slightest 
 degree, from His positive, external, revealed truth, 
 and shape out ideas of the Divine nature after their 
 own fancy ; and that this curse is denounced not 
 merely upon the sinner himself, but upon the third 
 and fourth generation, long after the first offence is 
 committed. 
 
 Let us turn to another instance of the impot- 
 
CH. XXIX.] INCORPORATIONS. 329 
 
 ency, except for mischief, of a creedless and church- 
 less State. 
 
 One great and vital function of the State is the 
 creation of Incorjoorations. The same defects and 
 imperfections in individual life, which render fami- 
 lies and polities necessary, render necessary also the 
 formation, within the polity, of bodies of citizens 
 for various purposes, possessing the advantages of 
 individual life in unity and consistency of action, 
 and exempted from its disadvantages by the united 
 counsels, joint powers, and collective interests, of 
 many, and especially by a species of immortality. 
 Individuals die ; but it is the great privilege of 
 bodies corporate that they are perpetual. Perhaps 
 no better test can be taken of the power and pro- 
 gress of a nation than the number and character of 
 its incorporations, whether for commerce, for edu- 
 cation, for charity, for arts, for science, for muni- 
 cipal government, for political exertion, or for the 
 subordinate offices of the Church. The individual 
 energy of the people must throw itself into this 
 form. And accordingly, as the chief development 
 of the power of the citizens, a wise ruler will always 
 encourage it as far as possible, will retain over it a 
 paramount control, will permit it to work only for 
 objects of good, and will endeavour to exclude from 
 it every thing which may mar its efficiency, or per- 
 vert it to mischief. 
 
 Now, without at present examining into the cause, 
 as a fact, it is obvious, that, within the last thirty 
 years in this country, a most extraordinary change 
 has taken place in the theory and practice of poli- 
 ticians on this subject. Whether we look to the 
 sudden alteration in our municipal system, or to the 
 virtual destruction of the cathedral bodies, or to the 
 laxity with which charters are granted to promis- 
 cuous societies for education, or to the clamours 
 F F 2 
 
330 INCORPORATIONS. 
 
 against the monopoly of commercial companies, or 
 to the appointment of commissions by the Crown, 
 or to the rise of those innumerable self-constituted 
 bodies by which the functions of the Church are too 
 often usurped without the control of the bishop, — we 
 are met alike by the signs of a singular revolution 
 of opinion. 
 
 By whatever causes this change has been forced 
 on, one of its most striking circumstances is the 
 total and necessary exclusion of all religion from 
 corporate bodies now created by the State. There 
 was a time when religion was held to be the chief, 
 if not the only bond of human society in any shape, 
 — when admission into the privileges and duties 
 of corporate bodies was given by a religious cere- 
 monial — when the very wording of charter^ made so- 
 lemn reference to an Apostolical Faith — when, even 
 upon commercial companies, the spread of true reli- 
 gion was made incumbent by the same act which gave 
 them being. And the grandest growth and power of 
 tlie corporate system has accordingly been exhibited 
 in the Church itself, and in those vast gigantic bodies 
 which she raised up in the middle ages to execute her 
 various functions, and which fell into vice and evil only 
 when, at the instigation of the Papacy, they rebelled 
 against her own apostolical injunctions. And if it 
 be asked, why the incorporation of human beings is 
 thus essentially dependent upon religion, once more 
 the answer is, because one external truth is required 
 to reduce all intellects into unity of belief, and one 
 external authority to harmonise all acts, even when 
 the wills are at variance ; and one deep, common, 
 universal interest — an interest coming home to the 
 hearts of all — to bring liuman affections into one 
 focus. And these cannot be found except in reli- 
 gion, nor in religion except it be revealed, nor in 
 revelation except it be removed from the caprices 
 
CH. XXIX.] IXCORPORATIONS. 331 
 
 of opinion, and be established on the solid external 
 basis of liistorical testimony. 
 
 And if it then be objected triumphantly, as wc 
 have heard so often, that incorporations do exist 
 witliout religion, and without a creed ; that the Bri- 
 tish empire has not yet crumbled into atoms, though 
 its legislature has apostatised from the Church ; 
 that families can live together without piety ; that 
 religious dogmas need not and do not enter into the 
 arrangements of a bank, or the operations of a rail- 
 way company, — the answer is, that such aggrega- 
 tions are not really corporate bodies, though bound 
 together by statute — that they have no vital union, 
 because either they cannot be formed except from 
 persons indifferent to their religious duties, and held 
 together only by self-love — the love of money — 
 which will dissever them at any moment ; or else, 
 whenever a religious spirit rises up in them, they 
 must embrace a creed, or they must fall to pieces. 
 For merely as instruments of power they must deal 
 with human beings — they must employ servants, ex- 
 pend money, exercise influence; even when formed on 
 the smallest scale, they must aff'ect the thoughts and 
 acts, and therefore must be responsible for the souls, 
 of their fellow-creatures. And for this very reason, 
 where the State has had the power, it has prohibited 
 them from touching on religion. It compelled the 
 municipal corporations to sell the advowsons, which 
 in a better day had been entrusted to them, because 
 conscientious men could not administer such a trust, 
 or any trust, without wishing and endeavouring to 
 convert it into a means for circulating and pro- 
 moting what they believed to be religious truth. So 
 also a canal company has been caHed on to build 
 churches ; and a railway company to provide reli- 
 gious instruction for its labourers ; and a colonisa- 
 tion society has wisely commenced its operations by 
 
332 INCORPORATIONS. 
 
 petitioning for the creation of a bishopric ; and even 
 the East India Company cannot meet without some 
 discussion on the religious condition of India ; and 
 a conveyance company must decide one way or the 
 other on the sanctity of the Sabbath ; and any body 
 of Christians, like an individual Christian, when 
 called on to trust, to control, or to associate with 
 their dependants and servants, if they understand 
 and obey the injunction of the apostle, not even to 
 eat with certain characters; or the real nature of the 
 sin of heresy and schism ; or the duty of upholding 
 the truth in our acts, as well as in our words; or the 
 nature and perils of severance from the Church ; or 
 the meaning of that fearful anathema denounced on 
 all who preach any but the one gospel, and therefore 
 on all wilful followers of such preachers — any mem- 
 bers, I repeat, of any society, however secular in its 
 object, or however trivial, must pause seriously be- 
 fore they admit even into their service souls which 
 they must either leave to perish under their own 
 eye, without endeavouring to reclaim them to the 
 truth, or must harden them in error by silence, or 
 must be compelled to proselytise, under circum- 
 stances of dependence and self-interest most fatal to 
 honesty of judgment and to freedom of conscience. 
 And they will feel also, that by admitting into their 
 incorporation the elements of heresy and schism, even 
 in the most dormant and unconscious form, they are 
 either preparing for a future disruption, as soon as 
 the truth becomes known, and zeal begins to revive, 
 or they are crying peace where there is no peace, 
 arc healing the wounds of the body of Christ lightly, 
 are acting as traitors to truth and to its God, by 
 refusing to profess it openly ; and so are setting 
 before the little ones of Christ, the poor, the igno- 
 rant, and the young, a stumbling block and offence, 
 upon which, if they fall, as fall tliey must, they make 
 
CH. XXIX.] INCORPORATIONS. 333 
 
 shipwreck of all their hopes of heaven, and even of 
 all tlifir happiness upon earth. 
 
 Let us not be deceived. Christianity is, indeed, 
 catholic — free as the light, open as the sea, univer- 
 sal as the air — embracing all degrees, obliterating 
 all distinctions, abhorring all exclusion in the offer 
 of its gifts to man. But when those gifts have been 
 offered and rejected, — then it is rigid in enforcing 
 its conditions, and uncompromising in its exclusive- 
 ness. Christians are called to be a "peculiar peo- 
 ple;" to be as "salt in the earth," pure and purify- 
 ing in the midst of corruption ; " as a city set upon 
 a hill;" as a "light shining in a dark place." To 
 intermarry with the daughters of men was the first 
 sin and ruin of the sons of God before the flood. 
 And to live and act, and incorporate ourselves with 
 aliens from the Church, as if either those aliens were 
 its children, or we ourselves were estranged from it, 
 is the first step to renouncing all our Christian pri- 
 vileges. Christianity does, indeed, love all men, 
 Jew and Gentile, bond and free. But it shews 
 its love by striving to communicate to them its 
 own peculiar exclusive blessings, and by bringing 
 them into its own communion, not by abandon- 
 ing its own blessings, or breaking down the walls 
 of its own communion. If there is one duty of 
 a catholic Christian in this day of vague compre- 
 hension and undefined belief, it is to be firmly and 
 rigidly exclusive in all his associations and deal- 
 ings, except where the calls of general compassion 
 supersede such caution by rendering it unnecessary. 
 It is right to avoid all intimacy with those who have 
 severed themselves from the Church ; to mark by our 
 private habits as well as by public protestations, not 
 that we are arbitrarily and censoriously condemning 
 others, but that, in the present distraction of Christ's 
 Church, whether caused by needlessly insisting on 
 
334 INCORPORATIONS. 
 
 terms of communion, or by needlessly objecting to 
 them, one party or the other is in deadly sin ; and 
 that for sinners, in such a state, to mix together 
 carelessly and freely, without confession, or rebuke, 
 or endeavours to correct each other, — agreeing to 
 sink the very name and thought of their sin, as an 
 inconvenient interference Avith their social amity or 
 commercial interest, putting altogether out of sight 
 the existence and the vengeance of Almighty God 
 upon those who rend the body of His Church, — or 
 speaking of His nature and dealings falsely and after 
 our own devices, that we may conciliate human 
 agreement rather than Divine favour, — all this is 
 a fearful mockery of Heaven, and can end only in 
 heavier punishment, and in a curse upon all that 
 Ave undertake. 
 
 And let it not be urged that such conduct, on 
 the part of the Church, Avould be either singular or 
 invidious. To the honour — not to the dispraise — 
 let it be said of those who have severed themselves 
 from the Church in this country, whether Romanists 
 or dissenters, that, among many fatal errors, they 
 have preserved the one great truth of the exclusive- 
 ness of the Church of Christ, and that this truth lu\s 
 been to them as salt in the midst of corruption. To 
 their exclusive associations, exclusive dealings, ex- 
 clusive assertion of salvation, exclusive lines of spi- 
 ritual and even social communion, carried to an 
 extent strangely inconsistent with their clamours for 
 liberality and toleration in the Church, they have 
 owed their strength and even their being. And 
 when they denounce the harshness of the Church 
 in maintaining any similar conditions, they demand 
 only that which will enable them more firmly to up- 
 hold and enforce tiieir own. 
 
 Neither let it be charged upon such conduct 
 that it is full of bitterness and presumption. Rather, 
 
CH. XXIX.] IXCORI'ORATIONS. 335 
 
 it is full of iiumility and love; of humilit^^ if the 
 lines which it maintains are drawn, not by itself, but 
 by the hand of God ; if it upholds only what God 
 has conunanded, and is known to have commanded 
 by evidence external to ourselves, and excludes only 
 what He has excluded ; and full also of love, since 
 its object is not to exclude, but to include — not to 
 drive away the wandering sheep, as a prey to wolves, 
 but to build up more strongly one fold under one 
 Shepherd, and to reclaim all stragglers into its bosom 
 by mercy and by truth, rather than to break down the 
 fold itself, and abandon the whole flock to destruc- 
 tion. Above all, let every act of exclusion be ac- 
 companied with humble and hearty confession of 
 our sins — a confession that our own negligence, our 
 coldness, our crimes, our folly, have been the stum- 
 bling-blocks in the way of our brothers — that self- 
 invented sects have risen where the Church had 
 never been seen — that the Bible has been abandoned 
 to be torn to pieces where the Church has failed to 
 teach it in its catholic interpretation, and according 
 to catholic practice — that where the clergy have 
 been remiss, there earnest zealous teachers have been 
 tempted to supersede their authority — that if piety 
 in others has run into fanaticism, the cause has been 
 our own worldliness — and if the spirit of unity in 
 Christians has generated sectarianism, and grown up 
 into monstrous shapes of self-formed spiritual asso- 
 ciations, the Church itself has failed to provide legiti- 
 mate forms in which it might have been embodied, 
 to tiie infinite blessing of mankind. There can be no 
 pride where there is common shame, and no rancour 
 where there is a joint prayer for mutual forgiveness. 
 And in this spirit, not in a vain desire to purchase 
 peace and union by the sacrifice of revealed truth, 
 let us associate together in our private life, and seek 
 our exclusive incorporation at the hands of the State. 
 
336 INCORPORATIONS. 
 
 All that Almiglity God has provided to bind us 
 together in the unity of the spirit, and in the bond 
 of peace— one Lord, one faith, one Spirit, one hope 
 of our calling, one God and Father of us all, — 
 every thing has failed. Let us not hope that the 
 statutes of a parliament, or the voice of a king, can 
 unite us better — that we can be united at all if we 
 are not united in the Lord. Let us remain separate 
 — separate in our lives, separate in our dealings, se- 
 parate in our marriages, separate in our enterprises 
 and endeavours, separate, most of all, in our works 
 of charity and religion, which in any way to be ac- 
 ceptable to God must be done as works of faith, and 
 from which, if the name of the one true God be 
 excluded, they may become our most deadly sins. 
 As we refuse to worship under the same roof, and 
 to acknowledge the same rulers under Christ, let us 
 not profess to bear even the same name, or to be 
 united in the same spiritual Church. They who 
 will not together be members of the visible Church, 
 cannot together boast themselves to be members of 
 the invisible. And as we live and die apart, so let 
 us be buried apart. Let us not carry, even into the 
 place of our rest, the memory of our dissensions by 
 vainly affecting to exclude them ; or in the midst of 
 dust and ashes, of all that solemnises and compels 
 truth, proclaim the enormous lie that we can sever 
 ourselves, or be severed, from the one Church of 
 Christ upon earth, and yet lie down in our graves 
 in His peace, and rise, at the last day, to be received 
 by Him together into His bliss. 
 
 Separate, and enforcing separation, we shall, at 
 least, save from utter loss the fact that a truth exists, 
 though we know not where to find it. We shall 
 each be endeavouring to please God, and to pro- 
 mulgate what we suppose that He has revealed. We 
 shall be striving each to hold fast a faith as having 
 
CH. XXIX.J INCORPORATIONS. 337 
 
 been once delivered to the saints ; though among 
 many spurious, only one can be true. And God will 
 have mercy upon us, even when we err, if our errors 
 are accompanied with earnestness, with honesty, 
 with sincerity of heart. We shall be doing also, in 
 some degree, that work of charity which God has 
 appointed us, in warning others from wliat we be- 
 lieve to be error, and leading them into that which 
 we believe to be truth, though our belief may be 
 wrong. And, comparatively, we shall be at peace. 
 There will be fewer occasions for dispute ; and dis- 
 pute, when it does arise, will be tempered and soft- 
 ened by mutual respect due to faithful and energetic 
 minds, even when they differ from ourselves. 
 
 But, above all, we shall escape from the fright- 
 ful crime, of which the State is now guilty, in her 
 acts of incorporation. If we cannot live, and act, 
 and serve God, in the form and spirit which He has 
 appointed, it is better for us to sit inactive. If we 
 plant to fill the world with trees of poison, one only 
 part is left, not to plant at all. But what, in the sight 
 of Heaven, must be the guilt of a State, which, pro- 
 fessing still the name of Christ, and a belief in His 
 word, yet voluntarily calls into existence and incor- 
 porates moral beings, persons having a reason, and a 
 will, and a character ; which endues them with an 
 enormous capacity for influencing the fortunes and 
 the souls of others ; which constructs out of them 
 the real fabric and mechanism of the nation; which 
 facilitates their acquisition of wealth ; which invests 
 them with dignity, assumes them as partners in its 
 government, effects by them its most important ope- 
 rations, gives to them almost the privilege of im- 
 mortality, and fixes and roots them throughout the 
 empire — h^yi^g on them this one condition, that 
 they should act without a faith, a creed, or a God; 
 that if they educate, they should educate in a com- 
 
338 INCORPORATIONS. 
 
 mon disbelief of any truth ; if they unite in com- 
 merce, no thought of any thing but lucre should 
 enter into their speculations ; if they rule, it must 
 be without religion, in a careful avoidance of every 
 word and deed which would indicate their belief in 
 a world to come ; if they would build up and esta- 
 blish refuges for the miserable and the poor, it must 
 be with the exclusion of all which most sanctifies 
 the poverty, and mitigates the sufferings of man. 
 
CH. XXX.] COLONISATION. 339 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 It seems almost needless to continue these obser- 
 vations farther into details. The same principles 
 are to repeated. And yet two or three more in- 
 stances may require to be specially noticed. 
 
 As the great internal function of a nation is the 
 creation of incorporations, so its great external work 
 is the propagation of colonies. They are its child- 
 ren ; and children are " an heritage of the Lord, and 
 the fruit of the womb is His reward."^ " Happy," 
 it may be added, " is the State which hath its quiver 
 full of them. They shall not be ashamed ; but they 
 shall speak with the enemies in the gate." 
 
 Colonies are the natural and legitimate vent for 
 the expanding resources and energies of a people, 
 whose faculties are allowed their full and proper 
 development. Population must swell, capital in- 
 crease, talent and enterprise be called forth, which 
 can find no adequate field in the already-occupied 
 ground of an established empire. And if no issue 
 be provided for these, they will ferment and corrupt 
 in their confinement. The rebellion was the work 
 of men who had been arrested in their escape to 
 America. 
 
 It was this necessity which originated the sweep- 
 ing invasions of the northern hordes into Europe, 
 and the established policy of the great eastern na- 
 tions, to throw themselves periodically, with the 
 whole weight of the empire, not merely upon coun- 
 tries like Greece and Lydia, which ottered tempta- 
 tions to ambition, but into the deserts of Scythia 
 ^ Psalm cxxvii. 
 
340 COLONISATION. 
 
 and of Africa. A plethory requires to be bled. But 
 to a Christian people, war, except in self-defence, and 
 foreign conquest, are especially and peremptorily 
 forbidden. The same law is binding upon States as 
 upon individuals : " Thou shalt not covet." One 
 curse is denounced on all who remove their neigh- 
 bours' landmarks, whether by an army or by private 
 violence. And the curse takes effect, not merely 
 by the miracles of an interfering Providence, but 
 by the ordinary course of nature. An empire can- 
 not cohere which has been extended by conquests 
 so as to include within it two or more different 
 races, unless they can all be absorbed into one, 
 either by the extinction or suppression of the ori- 
 ginal inhabitants, or by the binding power of one 
 Church. A difference of religion is fatal to the 
 unity of the nation. And a foreign conqueror is 
 not the fittest ambassador of Heaven to preach a new 
 faith to the conquered. Hence the necessity of com- 
 promise and inconsistency in religion, in the deal- 
 ings of the ruler with the different classes of his 
 subjects. And with this inconsistency in national 
 as in private life, follows weakness and vacillation 
 of character, contempt, indignation, and downfall. 
 The union with Scotland was the first step to the 
 breaking up of the British empire. The Romanism of 
 Ireland is now repaying upon our heads the crime 
 of its original invasion. The conquest of India, 
 which nothing could have redeemed but recovering 
 it to the Christian Church, has now brought on us 
 the sin of idolatry. And by so loose a thread is 
 that vast empire hanging together, that we can only 
 retain our dominion by fresh acts of injustice and 
 aggression ; and can only defend our crimes by the 
 plea of a mysterious principle, which compels a civi- 
 lised Christian, whenever he comes in contact with 
 a barbarian, to rob and murder him. 
 
CH. XXX.] COLONISATION. 341 
 
 These are the things which destroy and dis- 
 member a polity, by destroying the character of its 
 rulers, and the faith of its subjects; even as it would 
 shatter to pieces the moral empire of the universe, 
 if the Almighty were to proclaim from His throne a 
 negation of religious truth, or a variation of moral 
 riglit. But that which foreign conquest causes, yet 
 hoj)es to remedy, when it brings under one rule na- 
 tions or tribes of different religions — what the wisest 
 of conquerors have always considered a bar to their 
 grandest schemes of ambition, and made it their first 
 object to remove, as full of ruin to the structure 
 which they would erect — this, in the present day, 
 the British empire is voluntarily and deliberately 
 creating in the propagation of its colonies. It is 
 not content with passively looking on, while its vast 
 and overflowing reservoir of population disgorges 
 itself in a corrupt and purulent tide upon the forests 
 of America or the deserts of Australia, like the burst- 
 ing of a wen ; it does not leave the turbid flood to 
 subside there by itself, and from the slime to gene- 
 rate, as it may, its strange-shaped monsters of society, 
 crawling about half-formed and loathsome amidst 
 the fragments and wreck of its parent system, which 
 it has swept along and deposited in a strange soil. 
 This quiescence might seem despair and indolence; 
 but it would be wisdom, the truest wisdom, as inac- 
 tivity is the wisdom of men who cannot act without 
 sin, and as to retire into ourselves in shame and sor- 
 row, weeping over the evils which we have caused 
 and cannot remedy, is the first step to the reforma- 
 tion of a penitent. 
 
 But England has no sense of sin, and no shame, 
 and no repentance. She has shewn no contrition 
 before either God or man, even for the invention of 
 that moral monster, a penal colony — for emptying 
 upon another shore the cesspool of her own past 
 gg2 
 
342 COLONISATION. 
 
 infamy and crimes, and there encouraging it to 
 ferment into life, perhaps to become a people, an 
 Empire of sin. She has thought onlj'^ of money, how 
 she may procure in her colonies new outlets for her 
 manufactures, and thus, by a perpetual, precarious, 
 fluctuating expansion and contraction of her market, 
 may foster still more the cancer which is already 
 eating into her vitals. To plant in desert and savage 
 regions the germs of organised polities, which may 
 grow up into fair and stately kingdoms, like trees 
 by the water-side; to commit to them the true faith, 
 and the true Church of Christ, that they may nurse 
 and spread the Gospel in the most distant lands, and 
 evangelise the heathen and the savage; to see them 
 springing up in her own image of goodness, rever- 
 encing her as the parent of their spiritual as of their 
 civil life — gathering round to support her in her 
 trials, and claiming their deserved independence as 
 soon as they are arrived at maturity, yet never losing 
 their love and duty, and union in one Church and 
 Lord — this, the grand pride and work of nations in 
 the full overflowing luxuriance of their wealth and 
 strength, seems scarcely to have been dreamed of 
 by the Governments which have superintended the 
 colonisations of Great Britain. 
 
 And now we are sinning more. In each colony 
 we are deliberately planting all the suckers of our 
 own heresies and schisms. We are, indeed, sending 
 forth some faint image of the Catholic Church in 
 the person of a thinly-scattered episcopacy, almost 
 powerless from the want of funds, from the vastness 
 of dioceses, and from the deficiency of clergy ; but, 
 side by side, we are setting and encouraging every 
 form of dissent — fostering their missions — salarying 
 their teachers, establishing their (so-called) bisho))s, 
 and incorporating their colleges. And we are do- 
 ing this as infidels ourselves, and as teachers of 
 
CH. XXX.] COLONISATION. 343 
 
 infidelity to others. We have not even the miser- 
 able excuse, that, in thus creating in our depend- 
 encies a melancholy representation of the real state 
 of the parent country, we are compelled by the 
 strong necessity of obeying the popular voice in a 
 popular government, and of taking the popular im- 
 pression. It is not the popular impression to ac- 
 knowledge no religion, or to preach a multitude of 
 faiths : the popular voice, if heard in its true tone, 
 is wholly for exclusiveness. Each sect would main- 
 tain and diffuse its own creed. Heresy and schism, 
 and all the wild zeal into which they break forth, 
 have no connexion with indifferency in themselves, 
 nor any resemblance to it. They may compel neu- 
 trality in others ; but they exhibit no neutrality in 
 themselves. And if in its dealings with religion 
 the State were neutral ; if it would at least abstain 
 from any interference whatever ; if it would only 
 withdraw all support from all religious commu- 
 nions, it might enjoy the melancholy plea of neces- 
 sity and compulsion, and it might be comparatively 
 innocent in the sight of God. But it now acts, and 
 acts voluntarily, and forms a plan of its omu. It 
 has a theory and a system. Its sins are on its own 
 head. And what must be the issue? Can a young 
 child grow up into health and vigour without sound 
 nurture? Can it become other than crippled and 
 deformed, if it be maimed and mutilated from its 
 cradle in one of its most vital organs? If an empire, 
 in its maturity and fixedness, requires a Church to 
 preserve authority in its rulers, obedience in its 
 subjects, stability in its institutions, and, above all, 
 the blessing of Heaven upon its undertakings, does 
 a colony require it less, new as it is in position, 
 filled with an atmosphere of change, uprooted from 
 its ancient habits and most deep-seated prejudices; 
 its leaders either chosen by the colonists, or deriving 
 
344 COLONISATION. 
 
 all their authority from the parent State, and that 
 parent state far distant ; its spirit full of enterprise, 
 perhaps of criminal excitement ; its wants many, its 
 resources few ? In no condition of human nature are 
 the comforts of religion, or positive external law, or 
 reverence for antiquity, or adherence to prescrip- 
 tion, or belief in truth, or the control of a sound 
 public opinion, or the restraint of a high tone in 
 society, more needed than in the settlement of a co- 
 lony. It is the confession of experienced men. And, 
 instead of these, England has given to her colonies, by 
 her public acts, a spectacle of contending sects, each 
 condemning and condemned, each proclaiming the 
 falsity of all creeds but its own, yet each claiming 
 for itself the sanction and approbation of the State. 
 England has founded her colonies in the negation 
 of religious truth, and all other truth must be denied 
 them with this. And yet she would rear them in inde- 
 pendence, give to them legislatures of their own, foster 
 in them the popular elements of society, in all colo- 
 nies full of vigour, and tending to extravagance. Is 
 it possible that any forms should be generated from 
 such a policy, worthy the name of States? Under any 
 circumstances, could they become other than abor- 
 tions or monsters — full of distraction, swayed only 
 by one passion, the lust of money, careless of the 
 parent country, contemptuous to their rulers, impo- 
 tent for good, and not even strong for evil ? 
 
 And yet the curse, which in this condition they 
 would bring upon the mother country, may work 
 still more rapidly. If among the schismatic bodies, 
 thus fostered and acknowledged by the State, there 
 be, on one side, a number of heterogeneous sects, all 
 quarrelling with each other in the licensed spirit of 
 self-will, and agreeing only in their enmity to the 
 Church ; if, on the other, there be a compact, ancient, 
 powerful, intriguing, spiritual polity, repudiating 
 
CH. XXX.] COLONISATION. 345 
 
 the miserable maxims which sooner or later must 
 disgust every thoughtful, high minded Christian, 
 putting forward claims to unity, authority, and truth 
 — spurious claims, indeed, and anti-christian, but 
 most difficult to be refuted by the unlearned — if 
 this religious communion be organised with con- 
 summate skill and efficiency for employing its own 
 forces, and for breaking the strength of its antago- 
 nist — if it be animated with deep and deadly hos- 
 tility to England, as the first and most formidable of 
 opponents to its struggle for universal empire — if it 
 possess not only in every other country, but in the 
 heart and very vitals of Great Britain, an enormous 
 body of auxiliaries, bound together to one centre of 
 authority, and that a foreign potentate — if, in par- 
 ticular, it has established itself in the political coun- 
 cils of one great nation, the hereditary enemy of 
 England, such as France, and in the popular demo- 
 cratical workings of a third part of the British em- 
 pire, such as Ireland — if, M'earied and sickened with 
 violence in the enemies, and with heartlessness in the 
 friends of truth, the best and most energetic of reli- 
 gious minds in England are exposed to the tempta- 
 tions of its intrigues — and if nothing will satisfy its 
 ambition but either a second reduction of the empire 
 at large to its foreign rule, or its dismemberment 
 and ruin, — if these are not mere conjectures, but 
 facts — facts established by our daily experience, and 
 confirmed by the whole analogy of history — what 
 must be the prospect of England ; and what a war, 
 — a war hourly and increasingly fomented — a war 
 for existence itself — hangs over it in its dependencies, 
 and even within the pale of the mother country — 
 as the inevitable result of that creedless, churchless 
 system, which, instead of binding together all races 
 and all branches, by the strongest of all bonds, re- 
 ligion, has proclaimed an unlimited indulgence of 
 
346 FOREIGN INFLUENCE. 
 
 opinion, to end in the persecuting triumph of the 
 most intolerant of schisms ! 
 
 And is it necessary to say more ? And yet if a 
 people owes a duty to its colonies — a duty the same as 
 that of parents to the children whom they beget — does 
 it not also owe a duty to other nations — to all whom 
 it may influence for good by example or by advice, 
 or by the diffusion of any blessings which Provi- 
 dence has vouchsafed to itself? Is it for nothing 
 that He who made the earth has set the bounds of 
 the nations, " and given dominion unto whom it 
 seemed meet to Him?"' Is there no plan or sys- 
 tem in the discipline, by which, from time to time, 
 " He builds and plants an empire," and " plucks up 
 and pulls it down ?" Or, are kings and rulers, like 
 private men, ministers and instruments in His hands 
 — moral and responsible instruments — for the fur- 
 therance of the great object of creation, the develop- 
 ment of His Church — that is, for the restoration of 
 man ? Even a worldly statesman would confess, 
 that to sit as an arbiter among surrounding king- 
 doms — as a model and example — as a source of wis- 
 dom and truth — as the benefactor both of the civi- 
 lised and of the savage — not by unauthorised inter- 
 ferences, but by just and desired mediation, is an 
 ennobling office. And thus history fixes the eye upon 
 a few grand sovereign nations, which have swayed 
 the destinies of the world, and have all been inti- 
 mately associated with the fortunes of the Church. 
 Thus Babylon, and Nineveh, and Egypt, and Persia, 
 were made the ministers of Divine discipline to the 
 Jews, and the preservers of a certain portion of 
 Divine truth to the heathen. Thus Greece was 
 formed as the school and nursery of the human 
 intellect. Tlius Rome — the iron Rome — was 
 
 * Jerem. xxvii. 6. 
 
CH. XXX.] FOREIGN INFLUENCE. 347 
 
 wielded by the arm of Heaven as a gigantic mace to 
 break down the divisions of tlie people, to bring 
 them under one universal rule, " to make the moun- 
 tains a way, and the highways to be exalted," to 
 bridge over seas, and to diffuse one tongue over 
 the world, that the feet of those who brought good 
 tidings to mankind might pass and penetrate with 
 ease unto the farthest corners of the earth. Thus 
 Charlemagne and the Arabs, Germany and France, 
 America and India, each seem to occupy a peculiar 
 post, and to discharge an allotted function in the 
 general history of mankind. But if to one nation 
 more than another has been appointed the duty of ar- 
 bitrating with equity and peace in the civilised world, 
 and of carrying blessings and knowledge among the 
 heathens, it is to England. It sits alone in the 
 ocean, not tempted to conquer others, and safe from 
 conquest herself. Her navies, her commerce, her 
 very language, bring her into contact with the whole 
 globe. Her enormous capital supplies the means 
 for the most gigantic missionary enterprises. And 
 her science, and art, and liberty, and the practi- 
 cal wisdom of her philosophers, didy diffused and 
 guarded from abuse, would prove a blessing to 
 mankind. And some little spring of good she 
 has, indeed, poured out to prove her strength. But 
 how little compared with the blessings which she 
 has received ! And liow is even this little dried up 
 and cut off by the same acts which proclaim her an 
 apostate from the Church ! Can she curb the rest- 
 less ambition of her own people, when she has cast off 
 the law of God ? Can she preserve her wisdom, or 
 even her science, when she has abandoned the grand 
 formula of all truth, by rejecting the knowledge of 
 Him, who is its fountain-head, and image, and first 
 cause ? Can she evangelise the heathen, when she 
 has no settled creed, no certain truth, no united 
 
348 LEGISLATION. 
 
 Church to offer them — when, with the same voice 
 which proclaims us Christians, we proclaim ourselves 
 disobedient to Christ, and the renders to pieces of His 
 body — and when to the anxious question, what is the 
 message from God upon which their salvation depends, 
 we answer, that it is the Bible alone, but what is the 
 true interpretation of the Bible we do not know? 
 
 Or again, can any nation feel respect, or confi- 
 dence, or love towards a people who publicly and 
 socially have no religion ? Will any nation which 
 possesses a religion, and which cleaves to its God, 
 cleave to, or recur to in difficulties, or imitate in 
 duties, a State which is an infidel ? Rather, will they 
 not strive to blockade it, its rulers and its teachers, 
 with a stern quarantine ? Will it not be left to asso- 
 ciate with those only who are infidels like itself, and 
 to form a confederacy of infidels ? There can be 
 for the friendship of nations as for that of indivi- 
 duals, but one true, solid, permanent, universal bond, 
 the bond which God has appointed — communion in 
 one Church. Even the Romans knew this. And 
 Christian England has learned this from America, 
 from Canada, from India, and from Ireland. And 
 the lesson will be taught us farther, but written in 
 letters of blood. 
 
 And now let us turn lastly to one other func- 
 tion of the State — its penal and civil legislation. 
 The whole philosophy of Christian legislation is too 
 vast a subject to be discussed, except in a separate 
 inquiry. And the unnatural accumulation of our 
 statutes is a sufficient proof that we have departed 
 from its true principles. But there are one or two 
 considerations which may be briefly suggested. 
 
 The Legislature is the head and the centre of a 
 system; and the movements of that system it can 
 regulate rightly only on the same plan with other 
 supreme regulating powers in the universe, accord- 
 
CH. XXX.] LEGISLATION. 34-9 
 
 ing to tlie analogy of the Divine dominion, and the 
 Divine nature. Abandon the truth here, and error 
 must follow us into all our acts. Accordingly, in an 
 infidel, or a creedless State, we shall find one para- 
 mount falsity entering into and pervading its whole 
 process of legislation. Once, again (let us revert to 
 the primary principle), the axiom of "plurality in 
 unity, and unity in plurality," meets us in the Divine 
 government of the universe. It admits two several 
 springs of action, and harmonises them by a third : 
 neither, as it might seem, confining all originating 
 power to the Almighty, and centralising all move- 
 ments round one exclusive point, nor abandoning one 
 supreme control over the multitude of independent 
 springs of action, which are created in the separate 
 existence of moral agents. The chief movements 
 upon earth proceed from below — from man. They 
 spring up in a myriad of separate threads of action. 
 And in the supreme overruling power which sits 
 above, there is exhibited a quiescence, a patience, a 
 long-suffering, almost, if we may dare so to speak, 
 a dilatoriness and insensibility to the evils thus 
 breaking forth, which ill agree with our conceptions 
 of omnipotence and omniscience. Even the move- 
 ments of the physical world seem framed after the 
 same analogy. The planets roll round the sun, the 
 sun is stationary in the midst of them. The har- 
 mony of the material universe is the result of 
 counteracting forces — educed, as all harmony must 
 be educed, from discrepancies and oppositions. It 
 is not a purely centralised system. 
 
 But the moment we lose sight of the revealed 
 truth of the Divine nature as our model — of His 
 positive external laws for our guides — of His deal- 
 ings for our example — and of those attributes of 
 patience and long suffering, which, as most opposed 
 to our natural expectations, can be learnt only from 
 
 H H 
 
350 LEGISLATION. 
 
 external revelation — then our legislation and rule 
 swells into a labyrinth of specialities, a mass of inter- 
 ferences, an oppression of all subordinate movements, 
 an attempt to engross and absorb all the forces of 
 the community. And, like other endeavours to ac- 
 cumulate more than we can retain, it ends in our 
 dropping to the ground nearly all that has been 
 grasped, and in our sitting down in despair and dis- 
 appointment upon a heap of fragments. Whether 
 this be not the character of our present legislation 
 — whether it be consistent with a rational liberty 
 in the subject, with moderation in the State, with 
 steadiness and uniformity in its proceedings, with 
 its own legitimate authority, or with peace and re- 
 verence for law in those whom it controls — it is un- 
 necessary to ask. But it is natural — it is almost 
 necessary in the acts of men, who, possessing su- 
 preme power, and desiring to exercise it in accord- 
 ance with the human theory of exclusive unity and 
 perfection, can scarcely be justified by their own 
 conscience in remaining inactive, and will endure no 
 contradiction to their will, unless they are checked 
 and supported by the positive enforcements of an ex- 
 ternal revelation. 
 
 And when, from the general theory, the State 
 passes to particular enactments, what is its position ? 
 
 [ts civil code, like its penal code, must be con- 
 versant with rights and wrongs. And though, for 
 the acquiescence of the subject, it is sufficient that 
 these should be defined by the human legislator, it 
 is not sufficient, either for the acquittal of the legis- 
 lator before the tribunal of Heaven, or to secure 
 the permanent allegiance of the subject, that they 
 should be defined by him arbitrarily, and by opin- 
 ion. They must be defined in accordance with a 
 moral law ; and that moral law must be Divine, not 
 human ; and it must be ascertained to be Divine, not 
 
CH. XXX.] LEGISLATION. 351 
 
 by human opinion, but by positive external testi- 
 mony — and that testimony must be the Very highest 
 which can be obtained — and none higher can be 
 obtained than that of the Catholic Church. More- 
 over, these definitions and special enactments, if 
 they are to be preserved in consistency, and not to 
 become a chaos of conflicting incongruities, must 
 all be drawn out from certain fixed general prin- 
 ciples, the summaries of all laws. To these perpetual 
 reference must be made. They must be guarded 
 and maintained as fundamental axioms. They must 
 be truths, not conventional fictions, which reason 
 will ridicule and destroy. To be truths, they must 
 be mysteries ; for they must be in accordance with 
 the Divine nature, and that nature is a mystery. 
 And mysteries cannot be received or acted upon 
 by human reason, except on the ground of faith ; 
 nor can faith be commanded or exhibited without 
 a positive external personal authority, to which it 
 may bow. Thus our Anglo-Saxon code commences 
 with the ten commandments and the canons of the 
 first council of Jerusalem. And thus no superna- 
 tural creed ever comprehended principles more ob- 
 noxious and startling to the ordinary understanding 
 of man than the received dicta and maxims, upon 
 which, not our present, but our ancient code of 
 laws were framed, and by which the rights of 
 Englishmen, and the structure of our whole polity, 
 were once maintained. It would be an interesting 
 and striking inquiry to draw forth these "maxims 
 of law," and to shew their wonderful resemblance 
 to the great fundamental mysteries and problems of 
 revealed truth ; and it would be even more striking 
 to trace the results which have followed the attempt 
 to simplify and rationalise them ; and to collect the 
 testimony of practical lawyers to the complication 
 and confusion of our present statute-books, and to 
 
352 LEGISLATION. 
 
 the commencement of the evil at the same period 
 with our worst moral and religious convulsions. 
 
 A creedless State can have no first principles. 
 And a prudent statesman will be compelled to warn 
 and to guard it against enunciating any ; not as if 
 legislation could be conducted without them, but 
 because it can scarcely fail to enunciate what is 
 false. And a false principle once placed upon re- 
 cord, and established as law, is like the Trojan 
 horse. It is admitted into the very citadel of truth ; 
 and in the middle of the night, when no one expects 
 it, armed men will break forth from its womb, and 
 resistance will be useless. To this wise and sober cau- 
 tion, not to ignorance of the value of first truths, let 
 us attribute the almost daily warning now heard in 
 our parliaments, "to beware of asserting principles." 
 The warning has been already neglected too often ; 
 and it would be doubly and trebly wise, if accom- 
 panied M'ith another warning, " without asserting 
 them not to legislate at all." For excluded they can- 
 not be. They may be hidden from sight, and buried 
 under a mass of specialities, but there they still must 
 lurk, ready to spring forth, whenever a sanction is 
 needed for their open introduction. For every single 
 act, however trivial, involves a principle, just as the 
 single leaf, which buds upon the twig of an oak, im- 
 plies, and is connected with, the root. And how often, 
 in tlie present day, have we been startled by the as- 
 sumption in legislation of some monstrous proposition 
 as an acknowledged axiom, already sanctioned and in 
 use, and find that it had crept in unperceived in some 
 petty measure — a road-bill, or a money-grant, or a 
 divorce-bill — in which no one had dreamed of a 
 jjriiiciple ; and from thence is drawn out, for the 
 most mischievous purposes, w^ith that singular per- 
 spicuity and ingenuity, with which even children 
 detect analogies and general laws in the conduct of 
 
CH. XXX.] LEGISLATION. 353 
 
 their teachers, especially when they can be applied 
 to justify a fault, or to obtain an indulgence. And 
 thus admitted, what is the result? 
 
 The legislation, like the action and the body 
 of the State, to be good, must possess its unity. 
 And its unity can only be maintained by the con- 
 sistency and universality of first principles. Lose 
 sight of these, and we become entangled in a huge 
 mass of contradictions and perplexities, and the 
 very nature of law is lost. And the higher the 
 authority, the more general must be the principles. 
 To apply, to specify, to detail, is left to inferior 
 powers. The plurality of a welUorganised system 
 resides in its inferior members, the unity in its head. 
 And thus Christianity itself, as it proceeds from the 
 mouth of God, takes the form of a few leading facts, 
 of general maxims, of fundamental doctrines, which 
 are left, not indeed to be developed according to the 
 Romish theory, with a power of altering and omit- 
 ting them, but to be applied to particular exigencies 
 by the hands of the Church, and in still more minute 
 detail by its individual ministers. Such a division 
 of functions is rendered necessary by the very nature 
 of man. For his eye, when placed at the head, and 
 in the centre of a system, is too elevated to embrace 
 all the contingencies of human life, and his hand 
 too weak to direct them. He can see only general 
 truths, which truths he receives from Heaven. Wis- 
 dom is his province and his virtue. And, on the 
 other hand, the reason of the inferior members is 
 too weak to ascend to high truths, and can only 
 converse with particular facts. Prudence is their 
 chief function — prudence under the direction of 
 wisdom. In tliese days the functions are reversed. 
 And those whom Providence has placed as rulers 
 for the express purpose of guarding, and witnessing 
 to, and proclaiming those grand first principles 
 n H 2 
 
354 LEGISLATION. 
 
 which must be lost if left to individuals, and if lost, 
 must drag with them the loss of all things, are now 
 compelled, as their only safety, to eschew the asser- 
 tion of anything approaching to a principle. And 
 the existence of «uch principles is left to be discover- 
 ed and enforce*! by the capricious and unaided specu- 
 lations of self-appointed theorists ; the rulers busying 
 themselves with details, as if details were the only 
 facts; and the ruled occupied with principles, as if 
 they were placed in the seat of government. 
 
 What is true of legislation affecting only pro- 
 perty and civil privileges, is still more true of a 
 penal code. The ability to punish, even with death, 
 necessarily resides with the supreme power in the 
 State, and the right has been expressly given and 
 confirmed to it by Him from whom only it can 
 be derived. " The king beareth not the sword in 
 vain. He is the minister of God, a revenger to 
 execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."^ But 
 when this express and positive commission is aban- 
 doned, and rulers are thrown upon their own power, 
 and their own views of expediency, to justify their 
 use of the sword, there will follow not only impa- 
 tience and resistance in the people^ but in the ruler 
 himself either a weak lenity or a cruel severity. An 
 executioner scruples not to inflict death, because he 
 acts under a commission from superior authority. 
 As an arbitrary act it would be murder. And so, 
 in the present day, we are witnessing a clamour 
 against all capital punishments. And the govern- 
 ment has given way to it, without any reference to 
 the dispensation of it under the Levitical law, or to 
 any other indication of the Divine will respecting 
 it, conveyed to us through Revelation. Man must 
 fear to destroy man, except under the sanction of 
 the Creator of man. And wheie this sanction is 
 
 ' Rom. xiii. 4. 
 
CH. XXX.] LEGISLATION. 355 
 
 repudiated, capital punishment must be abandoned, 
 or, when inflicted, will be deemed murder. And, on 
 the other hand, where man is left to himself, and 
 recognises no restraint to his power from Divine 
 law, there arises. a strong temptation to compel 
 obedience, to revenge opposition, and to deter from 
 crime, by a continued aggravation of punishment. 
 Cruelty in the penal code preceded its present su- 
 perstitious lenity ; and each rose up with a practical 
 apostacy from the Ciiurch, and an abandonment of 
 its discipline. 
 
 The whole theory of punishment must indeed be 
 affected by such an act. Of its three great ends, 
 one — the one which the Supreme Being chiefly pro- 
 poses to Himself, and chiefly entrusts to His minis- 
 ters — the exhibition of the moral law of retribution, 
 and of moral reprobation itself, — must be wholly 
 sacrificed, as it is sacrificed at present, to the inferior 
 and hopeless objects of deterring by example, and of 
 correcting the offender. 
 
 Man, with the sense of his own sin and shame 
 upon his conscience, cannot stand over a fellow- 
 mortal as a censor and judge. He cannot punish, 
 except in the hope of warning or of improving. And 
 his punishments must therefore be regulated only 
 by views of expediency, in which it will be wholly 
 impossible to make a correct calculation. Nothing 
 but a positive command from the Almighty can se- 
 cure, in an honest and self-condemned heart, the 
 condemnation of our fellow-man from appearing to 
 be hypocrisy. And tims the State is compelled to 
 abandon one of its chief and most ennobling func- 
 tions, that of witnessing to moral right and wrong, 
 and of enforcing the moral laws of God in them- 
 selves, and independently of external considerations. 
 And its punishments also fail in their object. They 
 do not deter, as one of the wisest of statesmen has 
 
356 LEGISLATION. 
 
 observed;^ for man, inflamed with his passions, is 
 not deterred by any fear of consequences. And 
 they do not correct; for mere suffering does not 
 bring repentance, except it be accompanied by 
 tenderness, and hope, and forgiveness, and a most 
 delicate yet searching examination of the conscience, 
 and all the consolations and encouragements, as well 
 as warnings, which religion holds out, but which 
 the State, without a Church, cannot employ without 
 departing from its principles. It may erect a Ju- 
 venile Reformatory, or a Penitentiary, or exhaust 
 ingenuity in contriving a prison-discipline. But, at 
 every step, a hand is wanting — a tender and delicate, 
 and yet a most powerful hand — which can unlock 
 the gates of heaven, and which the State does not 
 possess. It must apply to the Church ; or, if not 
 to the Church, at least to some form of a religious 
 communion. And, once more, if its policy be con- 
 sistent, it must admit into the dungeons of the cri- 
 minals any and every form of opinion — any and 
 every religious teacher. It must bring, or rather 
 force, even into the prison, even upon the hardened 
 profligate, or the awakened but ignorant penitent, 
 that very evil of religious controversy, with all its 
 doubts and difficulties, its exasperations and its un- 
 belief, which it professes to regard, and justly re- 
 gards, as one of the greatest mischiefs to mankind. 
 For there can be no easy, general, undefined, vague 
 tampering with a guilty soul, perhaps about to enter 
 into the presence of his Maker, or, at least, to com- 
 mence a new life upon earth, and requiring minute 
 and specific instructions for his future conduct, as 
 his only hope. He must be told not only of a God, 
 but of a Saviour — not only of a Saviour, but of a 
 Holy Spirit — not only of a Holy Spirit to sanctify 
 
 ' Thucydides. 
 
CH. XXX. J LEGISLATION. 357 
 
 and support him in his struggles for amendment, 
 but of the society and communion of Christians, 
 through whom, and in whom, the assistance of that 
 Spirit has been promised, and must be sought. He 
 must hear of the Sacraments of the Gospel, as well 
 as of its written word. And, beset, as he will be, 
 with invitations to many altars, as well as to many 
 teachers, he must be told how to discriminate be- 
 tween tliem. He must learn what the true Church 
 is, and what heresy and schism are. And it must 
 be pressed on him, not as a dogmatical polemical 
 disputation about words and names, but as a prac- 
 tical, vital, essential law, from which there is no 
 escape. Even without external teaching on such 
 disputed points, when his attention is roused to 
 the awful subject of religion, and to his own peril, 
 the mere sight and presence of two or more reli- 
 gious teachers, each condemning and condemned by 
 the mere fact of their bearing a different name, and 
 worshipping in separate congregations, must open 
 the whole controversy. "What shall I do to be 
 saved ?" will be asked with tenfold earnestness and 
 perplexity before teachers, who, if they conform to 
 the word of God, and to their own doctrines, must 
 declare, that no one can be saved except in the one 
 Church of Christ, and that either those who differ 
 from themselves are excluded from that Church by 
 their errors, or that they are themselves excluded 
 by their own act of departing from it without a 
 cause. Punishment for the reformation of criminals ! 
 alas ! how is it to be attempted by a State without 
 a creed or a Church ? How can it reform without 
 repentance, or preach repentance without baptism 
 and the remission of sins, or remit sins without com- 
 mand from God, or correct them without the gift 
 of the Holy Spirit, and the channels of grace which 
 He has appointetl ? 
 
358 LEGISLATION. 
 
 What a spectacle is a benevolent and zealous 
 monarch listening, as to the voice of an angel, to 
 the message of the Gospel preached in a prison — 
 not by the Church, but by a woman guilty both 
 of heresy and schism, though full of benevolence 
 and zeal ! What a strange, but happy, inconsist- 
 ency with all the maxims of the legislature of the 
 day, is a Juvenile Reformatory placed under a Se- 
 cretary of State, and under the exclusive teaching 
 of a chaplain of the Catholic Church ! 
 
CH. XXXI.] REMEDIAL MEASURES. 359 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 My dear Friend, — Such is the substance of some 
 conversations which have passed between us on the 
 subject of Political Society — not as developing a 
 theory of our own, but as examining into its es- 
 sential facts. And on whichever side we turned, 
 still we were met by the same want and necessity 
 of a Church, — and of a Church not founded on 
 opinion, but on positive external institution by God 
 Himself, and that institution confirmed to man by 
 positive external historical testimony. Whether 
 to attest and confirm the authority of the civil 
 power, or to train up subjects in obedience, or to 
 educate, or reform, or instruct, or to uphold the 
 fundamental principles on which all polities must 
 be framed and must act, or to bind together foreign 
 alliances and dependencies, or to nurse up colonies, 
 or to evangelise the heathen, or to maintain the poor, 
 or to estaijlish the supremacy of law, or to perfect 
 the analogy of all other associations formed by the 
 Divine hand after the Divine image, by creating a 
 bicipital rule, and a plurality in the unity of the 
 nation, — still the need returned of a Catholic and 
 Apostolical Church. And, without it, nothing seem- 
 ed to await the social system but paralysis in all its 
 noblest functions, and ultimate ruin. 
 
 On the last morning which we spent together, 
 our walk led us to the edge of a lofty preci- 
 pice, which hung crumbling over the shore ; and as 
 we looked down from it on the fragments of a 
 stranded vessel, which had been wrecked, and lay 
 
360 REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
 
 imbedded in the sand: — " Such, then," you said, 
 after a pause, " is to be the destiny of England ! 
 With all its pride and power, its noble records, 
 its blessings from Heaven, its inestimable talents, 
 its rare and uncommunicated privileges, it is now 
 doomed to lie a wreck among the nations, — an ex- 
 ample of the judgments of Heaven upon empires 
 which abandon their God. It is a bitter thought for 
 all, — but how bitter, and how fearful to those who 
 are compelled to take a part in its rule, now when 
 they cannot rule for good, and thus must become 
 partners, or even leaders and fomenters of its guilt ! 
 How ought a Christian to act under such a trial ? 
 And what means, even in the present advanced stage 
 of evil, may still be taken to avert or to retard it?" 
 
 This is the question with which I propose now 
 to close the present suggestions ; reserving for se- 
 parate inquiries two vast and vital portions of the 
 theory of political society — the creation and dis- 
 tribution of its wealth, and the development of its 
 statute-law, upon the true principles of Catholic 
 Christianity. A Christian Political Economy, and 
 a Philosophy of Christian Legislation, cannot be ex- 
 cluded from Christian Politics, and cannot be treated 
 in a parenthesis. 
 
 We supposed, then, a nation like England to be 
 so far advanced in corruption that a considerable 
 portion of its population had severed themselves 
 from the Church ; that the Church itself had been 
 maimed and impoverished by outward violence, and 
 debilitated by its own lapse from the standard of 
 positive law, of external truth, and of elevated 
 spiritual piety; that meanwhile the popular element 
 in the constitution had swollen to an exorbitant 
 size, and threatened to engross nearly all the func- 
 tions of the State ; that neither a ministry nor a 
 member of the Commons could long retain their 
 
CII. XXXI.] REMEDIAL MEASURES. 361 
 
 post in the face of a powerful minority, and that 
 the measures of the State must, in a great degree, 
 be conformed to the popular will. What, under 
 such circumstances, must be the duty and the con- 
 duct of the Christian Statesman? 
 
 And, if only a small part of what has been sug- 
 gested is correct, it must compel him to make his 
 first object the restoration of the whole nation to 
 the bosom and unity of the Church, and the resto- 
 ration of the Church itself to its full purity and 
 vigour. Without this there can be no hope. But 
 how is this to be effected ? It is to be effected by 
 the Church herself. Once more let it be repeated, 
 that the civil power, by itself, is impotent for such 
 a work. " It has no healing medicines," no truth 
 to upliold but what it receives through the Church, 
 no spiritual blessing to administer, no promises or 
 warnings of another world, no commission to preach, 
 or to ordain, or to administer sacraments. If it 
 attempts to touch the ark, and burn incense, and 
 ])uild an altar after the pattern of its own imagina- 
 tion, it can only add blasphemy and sacrilege to 
 misfortune. It must act through the Church. 
 
 And yet, when it attempts to aid the Church in 
 regaining its strength and vigour, it is met on all 
 sides by difficulties. The people will not permit 
 their own influence and wealth to be employed in 
 maintaining a communion from which they have 
 revolted. The representative of the people, even 
 according to the justest theory of representation, 
 can scarcely defy the opinion of his constituents on 
 a subject so vitally affecting the conscience as re- 
 ligion. The State itself, stripped by its own act of 
 a spiritual authority, cannot recover this by its own 
 resumption, nor is the Church yet strong enough 
 in her own independent title to enforce that of 
 another. And if the State be a secular autho- 
 
362 
 
 REMEDIAL MEASURES. 
 
 rity only, it has no right to interfere with religion. 
 Even the Church herself, smarting under past 
 wounds, and verging perhaps to extravagance with 
 the energy of newly revived power, becomes jealous 
 and suspicious of undue encroachment upon her 
 own prerogatives in every interference even for her 
 benefit ; and much more, when that interference 
 takes, as it must take in a time of recovery from 
 corruption, the form of reformation, and compul- 
 sion to the discharge of long-neglected duties. 
 
 What, then, is left to the legislator ? — First and 
 foremost, he has still the power to witness boldly to the 
 truth ; to stand up, even in the most popular parlia- 
 ment, even before a mob, and to proclaim his own be- 
 lief in the Church — not merely his attachment to her 
 doctrines as a matter of opinion, or his conviction of 
 its expediency as a political institution. This is not 
 to confess the faith of a Christian, or to give any 
 support to the Church, or to rescue, in any degree, 
 truth from being crushed by opinion. Any infidel 
 may do the same, and with as much authority and 
 weijrht in favour of the most monstrous form of 
 error. But he must declare his conviction of its 
 positive institution, of its external truth, of its in- 
 dependent, spiritual, sacramental efficacy — condi- 
 tions which place it at once beyond the reach of 
 opinion, and give to it a character and influence 
 which no other body can obtain. 
 
 As individual Christians, we are bound to "con- 
 fess with the lips," as well as to " believe with the 
 heart." To witness to the truth, whether it be re- 
 ceived or not, is one of the chief functions and 
 duties of our moral nature. It never can be done 
 without effect ; and it is done with peculiar efficacy 
 by the supreme power and authority of the nation, 
 to which all eyes look up. The intolerance of the 
 present system of toleration has not yet succeeded 
 
CH. XXXI.] REMEDIAL MEASURES. 'S6'3 
 
 in silencing the confession of a catholic Christian ; 
 and if any false delicacy or compromise should reach 
 this point, tlien a Christian must secede from public 
 affairs, and take no part in measures, where he is pre- 
 cluded from delivering his testimony to the cause of 
 his Lord and Master. 
 
 Secondly, he is bound to maintain and secure 
 the Church in all its existing privileges and advan- 
 tages. He may not be allowed to grant more ; but 
 he cannot be forced to take away what it possesses 
 already. There is no sin in inability to become its 
 " nursing father and its nursing mother;" but there 
 is sin, deep and deadly sin, in robbing or degrading 
 it further. And again, rather than become an ac- 
 complice in such acts, he must withdraw from public 
 life; and, having uttered his solemn protestation, 
 he must leave the crime to other men, and the 
 punishment to Almighty God. 
 
 Thirdly, although he may not be permitted to 
 give to it any new and peculiar privileges, he is 
 bound to give to it such privileges as are possessed 
 by other religious denominations. He will not ar- 
 gue for the maintenance of the Church, because 
 the State is more able to fetter, and embarrass, 
 and overrule it, than it can overrule any mere 
 sects. He Mill not think this to be a good in it- 
 self, or a fit hint to be thrown out before men who 
 meditate its destruction. Rather he will be anxious 
 to secure for it every possible freedom and scope 
 for developing its energies. And no voice can be 
 raised against him from the advocates of the most 
 unlimited toleration, so long as he only imparts to 
 the Church what is already enjoyed by heretical 
 and schismatical bodies. This does not, indeed, pre- 
 clude some degree of restraint, from which heresy 
 and schism may be free ; for truth and right in 
 this world must always act under greater limita- 
 
3G4 NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 
 
 tions and hindrances than falsehood and ^A'rong. 
 They deliberate more — they take in a Avider range 
 of relations — they act under positive law — their 
 principles are more complicated and balanced — 
 their calculations more cautious — their feelings 
 and affections more moderate. But, with such ex- 
 ceptions, every obstacle should be removed which 
 impedes the Church in running its career with the 
 same advantages as others. Under this head will 
 occur the power of assembling for its own self- 
 government — of multiplying its bishops, though 
 without creating them peers — of extending its mis- 
 sions — of building churches — of receiving grants 
 of land and money — but especially of enforcing its 
 discipline. Let the removal of the present restric- 
 tions upon its freedom in these points be measured 
 by the freedom which dissent enjoys, and no just 
 clamour can be raised against it. 
 
 Fourthly, it may be wise for the State, in its 
 present enfeebled condition, to pause here, and to 
 abstain from conceding to it certain things, which, 
 if given to the Church, may be claimed by its ene- 
 mies. If gifts to religion cannot be exclusive, — as 
 exclusive as religion and truth are themselves, — it 
 is better to withhold them. Better not assist any, 
 than assist all, when such assistance compromises 
 truth, and destroys character, and violates the first 
 of God's laws. Let it be suggested humbly, and 
 yet unhesitatingly, whether, in a peculiar manner, 
 this rule is not applicable to grants of public money 
 for purposes of education and religion. It is here 
 that the State is most exposed to embarrassment. 
 Remove this stumbling-block, and few other occa- 
 sions will occur for giving encouragement to error. 
 Withdraw all money-grants whatever from religious 
 communions, except such as are due under obliga- 
 tions purely civil, and such as may be paid without 
 
CH. XXXI.] NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 365 
 
 implying any approval of the objects to which they 
 are applied. There is no sin in punctually paying 
 a life-rent charged upon our estate, though it pass 
 to the maintenance of heresy or vice. The re- 
 ceiver is responsible to God, not the payer of a just 
 debt. And if either the regium donuni, or the 
 allowance for Maynooth, or any other payment of 
 the kind, can be claimed upon any such principle, 
 as legal rights, they may still be continued. Our 
 will is not concerned with them. They are not 
 gifts, but debts. But all that is voluntary and gra- 
 tuitous ought without delay to be withdrawn ; and 
 may be* withdrawn without raising any just cavil, 
 because one of the fundamental principles, both of 
 Romanism and of Dissent, is the repudiation of de- 
 pendence upon the State. The Church alone might 
 seem to have reason for complaint, that in its neces- 
 sities it received no assistance from the power most 
 interested in maintaining it. And yet are the 
 considerations which follow wholly without weight? 
 To whom does the money belong which the Church 
 would receive ? A certain proportion at least, by 
 the present theory of our constitution, must be the 
 property of a reluctant minority, and must be ab- 
 stracted from them by a small majority. It is not 
 laid upon the altar as a free gift, but as an extor- 
 tion. Can it be acceptable to God ? It belongs 
 to men who have severed themselves from the one 
 Catholic communion of Christ. And we know that 
 even willing sacrifices from evil hands are an abomi- 
 nation to the Lord ; and that the Catholic Church 
 has never willingly accepted even spontaneous ob- 
 lations from such sources. Moreover, it is not 
 offered to God in homage to His name, or for the 
 defence of His faith ; because even the majority 
 which votes it dare not make the grant exclusive — 
 dare not withhold from error what they are givino- 
 I I 2 
 
366 NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 
 
 to truth. It is the hire of the Church as a servant, 
 to fulfil the functions of a moral police. As such, 
 it sins against the third commandment, which for- 
 bids us to take the name of God in vain, — to em- 
 ploy His worship and His faith as a means and 
 secondary instrument for a temporal object of our 
 own, instead of upholding it for itself, as an all- 
 sufficient absolute end : and we cannot participate 
 in such an act and be held guiltless. 
 
 These thoughts may prevent us from confound- 
 ing a tax imposed upon an unwilling people, for 
 the maintenance of a road, or the construction of 
 an hospital, with a tax reluctantly yielded to the 
 Church. The Church itself must be as unwilling 
 to receive as the people to pay it. And it is full of 
 danger to the receiver. Now when the possessions 
 of the Church are attacked, they may be defended 
 as private property, by appealing to the same laws 
 which guarantee the cottage of the peasant and the 
 castle of the noble. Its glebe, its endowments, its 
 tithes, even its church-rates, rest not so much upon 
 acts of parliament — they were not national gifts, 
 but private offerings — or, if guaranteed by law, they 
 have been now so secured by prescription and in- 
 heritance, that they cannot be withdrawn without 
 touching the foundations of all private property 
 whatever. But allow a grant to the Church to ap- 
 pear in the votes of the House of Commons, and tiie 
 whole mass of its property will become confounded 
 with a payment from the Exchequer. And (such 
 is the liberal theory of the day) they who have given 
 a part will claim a right to resume the whole. And 
 they will also claim a voice in its disposal ; and how 
 can the disposal of property for the ])urposes of the 
 Church be intrusted to a fluctuating power, which 
 may be wielded at any moment by the most violent 
 of its enemies, or by the most mischievous of un- 
 
CH. XXXI.] NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 367 
 
 principled supporters? Moreover, when the State 
 declares, that if it gives to one, it must give to all, 
 then each party, who either asks or receives, be- 
 comes an accomplice in the act. It tempts the State 
 to sin. Nor is the public purse like private zeal, 
 as a fund on which to draw. It has no heart, no 
 spirit of self-sacrifice, no interest in the superintend- 
 ence or completion of a work in all its finer details. 
 Its gifts are the drainings and driblets of a repining 
 voluptuarj^ or miser, not the free bounteous out- 
 pourings of Christian love. And we cannot recur 
 to one spring of bounty without tending to dry up 
 the other. They who need large offerings must 
 not accustom givers to give through the gatherer 
 of taxes, but into the hands of God's ministers at 
 the altars. The fundamental principle of taxation 
 is the direct contrary of Christian liberality. It is 
 to give as little as is possible. All that exceeds the 
 measure of absolute necessity is deemed extrava- 
 gance and extortion : and the people are the judges 
 of the necessity, because the money is acknowledged 
 to be their own. True it is, that religion is as ne- 
 cessary to the nation as an army or a police. True, 
 that it is necessary to those who reject, even more 
 than to those who accept it, as none more need 
 a physician than the sick who disdain his advice. 
 But a statesman, in his acts, must at times calculate, 
 not by the reasonableness of his own measures, but 
 by the unreasonableness of those to whom they are 
 addressed. He must beware of irritating even where 
 he is able to overpower; and, most of all, where 
 the provocation may touch upon some string of con- 
 science, however overscrupulous or false. For this 
 reason he must beware of taxation, and of taxation 
 for the purpose of propagating a faith rejected by 
 any large portion of the nation. 
 
 He will consider also, that the claim to e({ual 
 
o68 NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 
 
 assistance from the public money may be made with 
 more justice than claims to any other equality; be- 
 cause, in the present theory of society, the public 
 exchequer scarcely ceases to be private property. It 
 flows at least from the people ; whereas encourage- 
 ments, such as grants of incorporation and honour- 
 able privileges, are the property of the crown, and 
 may be dispensed by it without any claim to parti- 
 cipation from the people, independent of the favour 
 of the sovereign. It may be a conscientious act to 
 witlihold from the propagation of error a charter of 
 incorporation, or an honorary privilege. But con- 
 science can scarcely be pleaded for paying the mi- 
 nisters of one religion from the purse of the profes- 
 sors of another. 
 
 What, then, is to be said of the voluntary prin- 
 ciple ? What, but that the voluntary principle has 
 been always recognised and maintained by the 
 Catholic Church ; but it is the voluntary principle 
 fully and fairly carried out — one which allows the 
 benevolence of Christians to perpetuate their gifts 
 by endowment — to be bountiful beyond the grave 
 — to aid and support the Church of Christ in the 
 most effectual way, by placing it beyond depend- 
 ence on the caprice of its inferior members. And 
 there is no inconsistency between a refusal to grant 
 money to the Cliurch from public funds, and the 
 most rigid maintenance of all its rights flowing 
 from past endowments, in whatever shape they 
 may be paid. The voluntary principle touches not 
 tiie question of tithes, or even of church-rates. 
 Whatever was the origin of such payments, they 
 have long been established as fixed cliarges upon 
 property — as such they have entered into purchases 
 and sales, and have become debts, the discharge 
 of which can in no way wound tlie conscience of 
 the debtor. And even in their origin tithes were 
 
CH. XXXI. J NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 369 
 
 no gift from the State, M'hieli the State is at li- 
 berty to resume. The State never claimed tithes 
 as its own, and therefore could never give them 
 away. But it recognised them as a debt due to the 
 Almighty, the obligation of which generally was 
 established by reason and conscience, and its parti- 
 cular amount ascertained by the positive institutions 
 of God in the Levitical law ; and which the State 
 enforced, as it would enforce the due discharge of 
 any just debt to man. And conscience has no more 
 place in refusing to pay them, than in withholding 
 an annuity charged by a testator on his estate, be- 
 cause the receiver will apply it to purposes which 
 we disai:)prove. Neither tithes nor church-rates can 
 belong or be appropriated to the payer. Nor can 
 they l3e seized by the State without an act of sacri- 
 lege. They are the property of God, and they 
 must be applied to the support of religion under 
 some form or other. It is intelligible to claim that 
 they may be transferred from a communion which 
 we reject to one which we approve. But it is unin- 
 telligible and inexcusable — it is nothing short of 
 barefaced sacrilege — to abstract them altogether from 
 the altar, and to expend them upon man. And when 
 the question is raised, to which communion and 
 creed they shall be attached, either they must be 
 shared amongst all, with no other law of proportion 
 but that of numbers, or they must be continued in 
 the same hands to which they have belonged from 
 the first — to the Catholic Church — that Church 
 which was not founded but purified at the Reforma- 
 tion, and which retained, with the doctrines and the 
 ministerial succession, all the rights and claims of 
 the ancient apostolical Church. And if the legisla- 
 ture would be consistent, they must, if they touch 
 at all the property of the Church, portion out what 
 they rob from it among every variety of sects, from 
 
370 NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 
 
 Romanism to Socialism: they cannot pause. If the 
 Church be not the true and only form of religion 
 acceptable to God, and the State decides what is 
 true, not by His appointment, but by its own fancy 
 and opinion, it must recognise all claims alike. And 
 they must found a Church of their own to receive 
 the property of the Church — a Church having nei- 
 ther creed, nor defined worship, nor external com- 
 munion, nor united authority — a name and name 
 only to comprehend every possible extravagance of 
 the human fancy, and yet pronounced by the voice 
 of man to be the true representative of Christianity 
 in defiance of God Himself. 
 
 And thus, without entering farther into the theory 
 of religious endowments, which fall properly under 
 the head of Economics, it may be possible, as it is 
 a duty for the Christian statesman, to maintain the 
 present possessions of the Church in their integrity, 
 even upon purely legal and civil principles, without 
 raising any cavil of conscience. But in doing this 
 — in taking this lower ground — he must beware of 
 not abandoning the highest. It is one of the great 
 tenjptations in the present day, and it has produced 
 inconceivable mischief, to employ and to rest upon 
 secondary arguments, simply because they are ten- 
 able ; without putting forward those which are pri- 
 mary. In this way debate may, indeed, be stifled, 
 and objections overpowered ; but truth is sacrificed : 
 all nobler and better thoughts are tacitly suppressed 
 and set aside as unpractical ; the public mind is 
 gradually bent into a wrong bias, and learns to view 
 all subjects in a mean and unworthy light; and the 
 statesman abandons his first duty of witnessing 
 boldly to truth and right, whether others will hear 
 or whether they will forbear. The Church is to be 
 maintained in her possessions, because those posses- 
 sions have been either claimed by God Himself, as 
 
CII. XXXI.] NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 371 
 
 tithes, or have been given to Him, as other endow- 
 ments. They are the property of God, and they 
 must be secured to the true servants of God, not 
 to pretenders ; and therefore must be maintained 
 in the hands of the Catholic Church. All beyond 
 this, as it affects the duty of the statesman, is super- 
 fluous ; and as it affects the caviller, can only silence 
 him without convincing. It is like the sword of 
 Goliath — useful to decapitate the enemy when 
 slain with a pebble from the brook — but it can 
 scarcely be employed in the battle without encum- 
 bering the champion, and abandoning the weapons 
 of the Lord. 
 
 Fifthly, the same principle of maintaining the 
 powers that be, and of preserving to all their exist- 
 ing rights, must be extended to schismatical bo- 
 dies, as well as to the Church. Property and privi- 
 leges and advantages which they now enjoy, may be 
 permitted to them, whether they were rightly or 
 wrongly conferred at first. The conscience of the 
 statesman is not compromised by adhering to exist- 
 ing engagements. And however anxiously he may 
 pray that they may ultimately die away and be ex- 
 tinguished, this, he knows, can be effected only by 
 the extinction of dissent itself; and this extinction 
 by the voluntary return of dissenters into the unity 
 of the Church ; and this by the revived energy, 
 holiness, truth, reason, patience, and self-devotion 
 of the Church itself. 
 
 And in thus contemplating Dissent as an evil 
 and a sin, which, however fearful, must still be tole- 
 rated, and apparently even encouraged for a time, a 
 Christian statesman will never forget who have been 
 most guilty in producing it ; and, secondly, that in 
 individuals who labour under it are contained many 
 a seed of good, which may be nurtured into piety 
 and truth. Where Dissent is hereditary, it may 
 
372 NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 
 
 even spring from a spirit of faith — from humility 
 and self-distrust, from reverence to parents and teach- 
 ers, from adherence to that which seems positive and 
 appointed by God — principles not to be extirpated, 
 but to be developed, by shewing where only they can 
 be realised. Where it has grown up remote from the 
 teaching of the Church, nothing may, perhaps, be 
 wanted but that teaching to win it back, to the fold 
 of Christ. Where it is the result of piety and ear- 
 nestness driven into extravagance by the coldness 
 and secularity of the Church, there it is even to be 
 loved and pitied more than censured. And before 
 Dissent is sternly condemned, the Church is to be 
 restored to warmth and energy. Mutual self-re- 
 proach, mutual sorrow^ mutual shame, mutual peni- 
 tence, mutual forbearance — and all accompanied 
 with the rigid assertion of that which we believe to 
 be true, the only true, and with a patient endeavour 
 to convince each other by reason, — these are the 
 feelings to be encouraged, both in the Church and 
 in Dissent. And this would be perfectly compatible 
 with a steady refusal to give to Dissent any new en- 
 couragement, or to invest it with any new privileges. 
 This cannot be done without a sin. And if a mi- 
 nister or a member of parliament cannot retain his 
 power without thus abusing it, once more he must 
 protest and retire. No conscientious Dissenter, 
 whether Romanist or other, w ould give to the Church 
 any prerogative or power which he could withhold. 
 And he has no right to demand of another that 
 which he would not give himself: and so obvious 
 is this simple rule, that scarcely any claim is ever 
 now made for peculiar favour. Every demand is 
 masqued under a plea of universal toleration. And 
 when this has been obtained, and the Church has 
 been destroyed by it, then will follow the struggle 
 to restore the exclusive domination of some one 
 
CH. XXXI.] NATIONAL GRANTS OF MONEY. 373 
 
 body. Such has ever been the policy of Rome in 
 an especial manner : she has fostered and multiplied 
 sectarianism, that in the chaos thus created her own 
 reorganising power may be more needed, and have 
 freer scope. And the same deep knowledge of 
 human nature, which, if we may trust historians, 
 induced her to aid in placing William III. upon the 
 throne, induces her now to promote the so-called 
 national education in Ireland, that from a board 
 of every denomination there may emanate a multi- 
 tude of schools attached to her own nunneries and 
 chapels. 
 
 K K 
 
374 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 And now we reach the chief, but not perhaps the 
 most difficult object and duty of a Christian states- 
 man — the invigoration of the Church, and its re- 
 storation to the full discharge of its functions in the 
 body politic. 
 
 And, at the very threshold, the temptation will 
 beset him which has been the ruin of empire after 
 empire. He will stumble at the independence of 
 the Church. He will be unable to reconcile it with 
 the unity and supremacy of his own power. He will 
 be jealous of its authority, and afraid of its inter- 
 ference. And unless he has an intellect which can 
 grasp the theory of society in all its extent, and a 
 faith and obedience which will submit to every posi- 
 tive institution of Heaven, however it may seem to 
 confine or embarrass his movements, he will en- 
 deavour to make the Church his servant instead of 
 his colleague ; and the Church, blinded and manacled 
 by its tyrant, will either lie in impotent decay, or its 
 strength will grow, even in its dungeon, and, when 
 roused, will revenge itself by pulling down the whole 
 fabric of the empire upon the heads of the people. 
 If a statesman cannot submit to the spiritual inde- 
 pendence of the Church, all political philosophy is 
 useless. The fate of the nation is sealed. 
 
 This independence, which in no way sacrifices 
 the co-ordinate independence of the civil power, is 
 exhibited principally in three points. And its exhi- 
 bition before the eyes of the world is that which is 
 most n(?eded. Without independence it can neither 
 
CII. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 375 
 
 support the authority of the civil power, nor teach, 
 nor uphold truth, nor perform any other vital func- 
 tion. It sinks into a mere creature and instrument 
 of man. And its supernatural power has departed. 
 The blind may cry out to it, the paralysed be laid 
 down at its feet, the sick for years cling to the hem 
 of its garment, the wanderers pray to it for light, and 
 the poor for bread, and the noise of the waves, and 
 the madness of the people, rage on without a voice 
 to still them. As human it is powerless. Only as 
 Divine can it perform its miracles. And if Divine, 
 then, in all its healing works, it must possess indepen- 
 dence. So our blessed Lord stood upon earth as the 
 Lord of all things, as opening the gates of heaven, 
 as the fountain of life and truth to the world ; He 
 who in outward things pertaining to the sovereignty 
 of the State submitted to be taxed, and seized, and 
 scourged, and nailed to a cross, without a murmur. 
 The problem of the mutual supremacy and mutual 
 subjection of the Church and of the State has already 
 been realised in His person. Strange and paradoxi- 
 cal as it may seem, it has been exhibited as a fact, 
 and His Church must go and do likewise. 
 
 The spiritual independence of the Church is 
 exerted chiefly in three points : in the preservation 
 and transmission of Divine truth from a source dis- 
 tinct from the State — in the appointment of her 
 own officers as channels for the conveyance of her 
 spiritual gifts — and in her internal self-discipline and 
 government: and in each of these, though they are 
 her peculiar and inalienable prerogatives, she has 
 admitted the Civil Power to a certain participation, 
 which gives to that Power a wonderful opportunity 
 of strengthening and supporting her. 
 
 First, it is an acknowledged privilege of Christian 
 sovereigns to sanction the assemblage of ecclesiasti- 
 cal synods and councils. Whether conceded or not, 
 
376 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 this privilege must be possessed, and must be exer- 
 cised by the supreme civil power, since no State could 
 permit such meetings to be held, in opposition to 
 itself, without abandoning its own sovereignty. But 
 the power to suppress, gives also the right to en- 
 courage. And the first object of a Christian states- 
 man would be to restore to the Church, in this 
 country, such a visible incorporation of its legis- 
 lative functions as may exhibit its real divine and 
 independent character to the world. The duties of 
 such a body, when assembled, are not political, but 
 ecclesiastical questions. And when it is considered, 
 that for the settlement of articles of faith a national 
 synod has no authority, and is not required, because 
 these have already been fixed in the great oecume- 
 nical councils of the early Church ; that an attempt 
 to define, and multiply, and enforce dogmatic state- 
 ments, beyond these fundamental articles, is most 
 dangerous to the peace of the Church, and to the 
 conscience of its members ; that the necessary pro- 
 tests against the chief errors of the day have already 
 been drawn up in our Articles ; that new laws, and 
 multiplied tests, and the alteration of formularies, 
 can scarcely ever be risked without the certainty 
 of schism, because a project of change lets loose all 
 imaginations and desires with equal freedom ; that 
 when the principle of authority and the habit of obe- 
 dience have long been in abeyance, it is most perilous 
 to convene assemblies, where the inferior members 
 cannot oppose the superior without the danger of 
 dismembcjring the whole body; that the history of 
 ecclesiastical councils, even in the earliest times, is 
 full of warnings against their frequency; that the 
 whole spirit of the Christian polity is opposed to the 
 establishment of a permanent legislative body, such 
 as our parliaments, crowding every session with sta- 
 tute upon statute, and holding the empire from day to 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 377 
 
 day suspended on the prospect of political and eccle- 
 siastical chances: when these and other facts are con- 
 sidered, whatever be the impatience and dissatisfac- 
 tion at the present virtual suppression of a national 
 synod in this empire, it will require profound wisdom 
 and caution to restore it. One rule in effecting this 
 is obvious — to return to the early ages of the Chris- 
 tian Church, and to its own Divine polity as far as it 
 can be traced, and to follow this model. It may not 
 be without a providential blessing that convocation 
 is now virtually extinct, and may be abandoned for 
 a form more consistent with the true functions and 
 characters of the Church. It was in its origin a 
 political, not a spiritual assembly — its business was 
 the settlement of taxation, not the government of 
 the Church. Its division into two houses is essen- 
 tially at variance with the true theory of the epis- 
 copal office. And the only seeming advantage of 
 this form, in offering an analogy and parallelism to 
 the constitution of parliaments in the State, is in 
 reality a vital evil ; because the Church is placed in 
 the State to counteract, not to coincide with the 
 excesses of its democratical element, and must there- 
 fore exhibit both a form and a spirit of far higher 
 faith and obedience than can be manifested in the 
 civil power. A physician who would restore sight 
 to the blind must not assimilate himself with his 
 patient, by first extinguishing his own eyes. Dif- 
 ference, not similarity, must in some points be the 
 character of the Church, even when most closely 
 connected with the State. 
 
 And convocation being abandoned, only let us 
 beware of inventing any contrivance of our own in 
 its place, whether a synod of bishops, or a repre- 
 sentation of the clergy in one body, or what is more 
 in accordance with the centralising tendency of the 
 age, a royal or parliamentary commission. Let us 
 K K 2 
 
378 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 return to the old primitive constitution of national 
 councils in the original system of the Church ; and 
 be assured that any thing approaching to a Divine 
 external institution will possess more authority, more 
 permanence, and more efficiency for good, than any 
 invention of man. 
 
 With a general national council, typical of the 
 independence of a national Church, it will be also 
 necessary to restore diocesan synods, as representa- 
 tives of the proper independence of each bishop and 
 diocese. In the necessity for gathering together the 
 Church within the pale of one empire, there has 
 been a disposition to overlook this point; and in 
 protesting against Popery, we have, to a certain de- 
 gree, fallen into a Popery of our own. But here 
 also we may recur to the model of the ancient patri- 
 archates, and not carry the theory of uniformity so 
 far as to extinguish an essential element in the Di- 
 vine polity of the Church. If the element of unity 
 is to be restored to the Church by the establishment 
 of a national council, the element of plurality must 
 also be restored to the Episcopacy itself. 
 
 Secondly, to the State there has also been given 
 a verv considerable share in the nomination of the 
 officers of the Church. And this privilege also, 
 even if not conceded, must have been exercised. 
 No supreme power could abstain from using influ- 
 ence, either open or secret, either by violence, or 
 intrigue, or suggestion, or even corruption, in the 
 choice of persons called to exercise an authority 
 morally superior to its own, within its own domin- 
 ions. But in every trace of Episcopal election, even 
 in the age of the apostles, is indicated a certain 
 participation by the laity in the choice, though not 
 in the ordination, of the clergy. And if a mob was 
 permitted in early ages to drag a bishop into his 
 throne, and almost to compel the metropolitan to 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 379 
 
 consecrate him, it can be no strange thing that the 
 representative and head of the lay power in the 
 State, tliough excluded from all power of ordina- 
 tion, should claim a voice, and a very powerful 
 voice, in the nomination of bishops, as in the 
 appointment of subordinate ministers to certain 
 parishes by the right of patronage. Little is wanted 
 liere but a judicious selection in the recommenda- 
 tion of persons to be elected, and the removal of 
 those severe penalties upon a refusal to consecrate, 
 which, though they cannot shackle the Church, if 
 the Church is firm in her duty, yet may tempt and 
 terrify her to do wrong, and have now no longer 
 the excuse of being necessary bulwarks against trea- 
 son and foreign interference. 
 
 Providence seems, indeed, to have preserved in 
 the polity of the English Church, even in the midst 
 of decay and ruin, the rudimental organs from which 
 it may now be developed in perfection, without re- 
 curring to any fundamental change. As the laity 
 possessed a voice in the appointment of the ministers 
 of the Church, so also did the clergy. And the three 
 concurrent elements, of laity witnessing to character, 
 clergy eleccing, and bishops consecrating, are still 
 actually preserved among us to this day, and require 
 only to be invigorated and adjusted. If the crown, 
 still by necessity a member of the Church, and not 
 the ministers of the crown, swayed as they are by 
 the popular voice, recommended the individuals to 
 the clergy — if this recommendation w^as exercised 
 after a proper consultation with the heads of the 
 Church — if it contained three or more names, so as 
 to leave the election free — if the pr^munire penalties 
 were removed — if the cathedral body was then so 
 enlarged as to comprehend the whole clergy, or a 
 fair representation of the clergy of the diocese (and 
 this might be effected by enlarging the power to 
 
380 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 elect honorary prebendaries and canons, under an 
 existing statute) — if the solemn and awful cere- 
 mony of election was thus restored to its true 
 power, and if free permission was then conceded to 
 the metropolitan of withholding consecration, little 
 would be wanted to render this part of our Church- 
 polity primitive, apostolical, and catholic. And the 
 life thus poured into the veins of the Church would 
 spread itself healthily and vigorously over the whole 
 body of society. Every act of emancipation towards 
 the Church, conducted on true Catholic principles, 
 and in obedience to the institution of God, would 
 be an act of salvation to the State. 
 
 There is, indeed, greater difficulty in restoring 
 to the Church its independence in the exercise of its 
 internal discipline ; and the question has been almost 
 inextricably involved, first, by the injudicious inter- 
 ference of the State, in former times, to enforce spi- 
 ritual penalties by the civil arm ; and, secondly, by 
 the encroachments and usurpations of the Church, 
 and by its present consequent imbecility. In this 
 complicated state it is presumptuous to do more than 
 suggest certain principles for inquiry — and here, also, 
 to assert only one general duty, that of returning in 
 faith and humility to the old path, whatever it may 
 be, which the hand of Heaven has marked out. 
 
 But the following questions may be hazarded : — 
 
 1. Is there any power upon earth which can 
 lawfully prohibit the Church from the right pos- 
 sessed by every religious community, of maintain- 
 ing her own terms of communion, and of excluding 
 from it members who are obnoxious to her ? 
 
 2. Can she be deprived of the power of recom- 
 mending, and of enforcing, under pain of exclusion, 
 penitential discipline upon offenders within her pale, 
 who voluntarily submit to her correcting hand? 
 
 3. When she has once excluded contumacious 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 381 
 
 offenders, are they not entirely free from her juris- 
 diction, and therefore not amenable to her punish- 
 ments ? 
 
 4-. Can the State properly punish members of 
 the Church for spiritual offences, except as admi- 
 nisterins^ the chastisements, and acting in the name 
 and under the restrictions of the Church ? 
 
 5. Properly speaking, does the Church inflict 
 any punishment whatever but excommunication, 
 except for the purpose of correction, and upon 
 voluntary penitents, when the arm of the State is 
 not required ? 
 
 6. If excommunication, and the dread of it, 
 have no efficacy to bring minds to repentance, can 
 tiie civil arm do more by any terrors than induce a 
 reluctant and hypocritical continuance in the bosom 
 of the Church, contrary to the spirit and admoni- 
 tions of the Church itself? 
 
 7. And does it not follow, that before excommu- 
 nication the State cannot wisely interfere to support 
 the arm of the Church in inflicting her corrections, 
 or in exhibiting her threats, and that after excom- 
 munication it cannot deal with offences as spiritual, 
 or with members excluded from the Church as if the 
 Church had any right over them? 
 
 If these suggestions are true, it must be the 
 duty of the Statesman at once to detach from the 
 spiritual excommunication every temporal punish- 
 ment and forfeit now attached to it. To the State, 
 as to every individual member of the Cliureh, it 
 would still be left to treat the exconmiunicated party 
 as the Catholic Church enjoins — to avoid his society, 
 to shrink from his contamination, to refrain from 
 every act or word which would imply indifference 
 to his offence, much more which would sympathise 
 with and encourage it. In thus acting. Christians 
 would not be assuming the office of a judge, or even 
 
382 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 of an executioner, on a fellow -creature — any more 
 than the b^^-standers in a court of justice, when they 
 listen and conform to the advice of shunning evil 
 doers, are guilty of uncharitableness or arrogance. 
 They would act in obedience to the commands of 
 the Church — and obedience excludes all thoughts 
 of self, all pride, all self-sufficiency, all contempt for 
 others. The most rigid exclusion of excommuni- 
 cated persons from all share in our society or favour 
 may be compatible with the deepest compassion and 
 the truest Christian love, to be shewn in restoring 
 them to their fold. 
 
 Does it not follow also that, how^ever unjustly and 
 severely the Church may at times have exercised its 
 right of excommunication, abusing it most profanely 
 to purposes of private revenge, and to the meanest 
 compulsion — however the power may require to be 
 stringently confined within charity and justice, still 
 these restrictions are to be laid down by the Church 
 acting through its heads, not by the State. The 
 State can have had no pretence whatever to inter- 
 fere with the right of excommunication, except as 
 having attached to it certain punishments of her 
 own, from which she might seem justified in secur- 
 ing an innocent subject. Remove these temporal 
 penalties, and the Church is left to herself. She 
 must bear upon her own head the indiscretion or 
 severities which she may commit. And the State, 
 like any individual Christian, may exercise her own 
 judgment, and endeavour to soften or avert, or 
 procure their repeal by such intercession and miti- 
 gation of her punishments as are consistent with a 
 due reverence to the Church. So the Church some- 
 times interfered to allay the anger, or alleviate the 
 inflictions of the civil arm. And this reciprocal 
 influence of mercy is ])erf('Ctly compatible with the 
 acknowledgment of a rightful independence in each. 
 
CH. XXXII,] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 383 
 
 This independence established, a Christian states- 
 man would then take a wide, comprehensive view 
 of the whole body of the Church — would observe 
 where it Avas weak, where deficient, and would en- 
 deavour to strengthen it, and supply its wants by all 
 the influence which he could legitimately exert in 
 such a cause, and which he might fairly consider 
 his own — not such as the public funds, which are 
 derived partially from the enemies of the Church — 
 but such as the Church herself might delight to 
 accept in her supporters. 
 
 When his eye turned upon her bishops, and then 
 reverted to the first ages of the gospel, he would not 
 rest till he had seen them multiplied in every direc- 
 tion, in the colonies as in the mother country, till 
 the whole body of the Church were placed effec- 
 tually under Episcopal nurture and control. The 
 erection of the British empire into a patriarchate, if 
 this could be effected consistently with the practice 
 of the ancient Church ; the elevation of the present 
 bishoprics to the dignity of metropolitans — either 
 the subdivision of the present sees, or the creation 
 of suffragan bishops ; the appointment of coadjutors 
 to administer a diocese in the sickness of its diocesan 
 — if, indeed, this would be needed when bishoprics 
 Avere diminished in size, and the number of them in- 
 creased ; the restoration of the Scotch Episcopacy 
 to a full and affectionate communion with the Church 
 in England ; the union of the colonial and American 
 Episcopacy of, and the Eastern Church with our 
 own ; a hearty sympathy and co-operation with the 
 persecuted Church in Ireland : all this might be con- 
 templated by a statesman who loved his Lord and 
 Master more than he v,as jealous of his Master's 
 Church. It would trench upon no principle of to- 
 leration, would infringe no right of dissent, could 
 raise no cavil worthy of reply. Little beyond this 
 
384 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 would be needed but funds, and funds never were 
 wanting to accomplish a Christian work, nobly con- 
 ceived in zeal, and faithfully executed in obedience. 
 To accomjDlish great works we need vast funds ! 
 Rather let us say, that to accumulate vast funds we 
 need great works. Let us be vast in our undertak- 
 ings for God's glory, and He will be vaster still in 
 the bounty which He provides for us. 
 
 And expenses are not to be calculated upon the 
 scale to which we have been accustomed. When 
 Christian zeal and love return, there will return with 
 them the love of poverty ; and Christian bishops 
 will be found to devote themselves to the Church, 
 whether at home or abroad, with far humbler means 
 of support than now seem necessary. They will go 
 forth not alone, but with a body of clergy as in bet- 
 ter days, and the united means of such a little asso- 
 ciation will economise expenses, and their exhibition 
 of the image of the Church in such a form, in a life 
 of communion and of love, of conformity to rule, 
 of external law and worship, of joint duties of bene- 
 volence and charity, will do more to recall wanderers 
 into the fold, than all the splendour of a palace, or 
 the revenues of a prince. Here, also, the defect in 
 our present organisation is to be supplied by a recur- 
 rence to the fundamental axiom of society. Unity 
 is the essence of Episcopacy ; but it must not be 
 separated from a plurality in the co-operation of 
 presbyters. And when a bishop shall form, in his 
 palace, little colleges, and gather round him in his 
 cathedral a closely associated body of clergy, all 
 publicly taking a part in the services of the Church, 
 living, many of them, under one roof and at one 
 table, exercising, at the distribution of the bishop, 
 the various offices required of them ; served, not by 
 liveried hirelings, but by a humbler class of attend- 
 ants, who (as inferior officers of the Church) may 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH, 385 
 
 sit at the lower end of the same board, who may- 
 wear no very different garb, may be reared and nur- 
 tured in religious learning, and employed in feeding 
 the poor, and instructing the young, and ministering 
 to the sick; — when, through the body thus formed, 
 the bishop can find eyes to inspect the most distant 
 parts of his diocese, hands to multiply his communi- 
 cations with his clergy, ears to receive their ques- 
 tions, and feet to carry the gospel wherever it is 
 needed in his district, and especially in his cathedral 
 city ; — when his palace shall thus become not only an 
 organised centre for the spiritual government of the 
 diocese, but an exhibition of Christian life, and of 
 clerical duty in all its parts, gathering under its wing 
 a seminary for the clergy, a school for the young, an 
 hospital for the sick, a treasury of books for learn- 
 ing, a simple table for hospitality to all, and a cathe- 
 dral for its daily worship: — then Episcopacy will 
 indeed put on its crown, and the Church of Eng- 
 land will once more have strength to recover her 
 strayed children to herself. What is wanted for the 
 clergy is the unity of Episcopal control ; and what 
 is wanted for Episcopacy itself is the plurality of an 
 incorporated clergy. We need colleges for our bi- 
 shops. So acted the ancient Church : so thought 
 not modern legislators when they destroyed, instead 
 of purifying and invigorating, our cathedral bodies. 
 But the Church may still restore them ; and even 
 now it is not too late for penitence in the State. 
 
 And if we turn to the subordinate ministrations 
 of the Church, there the same principles will recur. 
 
 As the laity naturally subdivided themselves into 
 two classes, one exercising the ordinary and general 
 functions of society, the other the extraordinary ; 
 one embodying the permanent principle, the other 
 the mutable and contingent — both which exist 
 together in the world; one possessing privileges 
 
 L L 
 
386 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 exclusive of individual merit, the other individual 
 talents — so the Church ought to possess in its body 
 two distinct organs and classes ; of which the names, 
 if borrowed from the falsely contrived system of 
 Popery, ought to be reversed, and the parochial 
 clergy should be called regular, and the other class, 
 of which, alas, we possess too few examples, secular. 
 It must have both priests and Levites. 
 
 The preaching of the word in the congregations, 
 the celebration of divine offices, the administration 
 of the sacraments, the general superintendence and 
 government of the body, — these are the ordinary 
 functions of the Church, without which its life 
 perishes ; and for these it possesses its parochial 
 clergy. They carry the element of unity through 
 all the framework, and into the very extremities 
 of society. And as the parochial system originally 
 moulded itself upon the imperfect arrangements and 
 divisions of the civil power, so the civil power \vill now 
 do wisely in retaining, so far as possible, in any redis- 
 tribution of its own districts for whatever purpose, 
 the arrangements of the Church. If the union of the 
 Church and the State, in the polity at large, be true 
 and good, and consistent with the Divine nature, it 
 must be carried into every part. And though much 
 has been done already to dissever them in the parish 
 as in the State, fresh disturbances may be prevented. 
 Let us beware, as Burke has warned us, of thinking 
 to gather tojjether the affections and interests of 
 
 o o 
 
 men — of occupying them in political duties wider 
 than the sphere of the family, as they must be oc- 
 cupied, if they are to become citizens — of creating 
 for them these little fields for the exercise of great 
 virtues — by squaring the country into chequers, 
 No. I and No. % with the measuring-line and the 
 compasses. If Nature herself does not circumscribe 
 the limits of our local associations and affections, as 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 387 
 
 she circumscribes the boundaries of kingdoms, by the 
 mountain, the lake, the forest, or the shore (and 
 circumscribed they must be, if they are to be deve- 
 loped at all), one only other \vay remains to mark 
 an outline, by fixing a centre. And that centre 
 must not be severed from the one grand common 
 centre of all human good, and happiness, and vir- 
 tue. It must be the house of God. There is a deep 
 — the deepest — political philosophy in gathering 
 the thoughts and feelings of every little community 
 into which the nation must subdivide itself round 
 the parish church and the village steeple. By it, 
 at its very gates, erect the little hall for dispensing 
 village justice ; but never let them be dissevered. 
 Keep them distinct, yet united. Remove from con- 
 secrated walls the squabbles of vestries and the set- 
 tlement of rates. If the priest sit side by side with 
 the magistrate on the bench, let it be as a wit- 
 ness of justice — as a pleader for mercy — not as a 
 civil judge. But when the eye of the citizen first 
 })asses from the circle of his home, and recognises 
 above him the vaster sphere and power of the State, 
 let it rest upon the Church in his parish, as it must 
 hereafter rest upon the Church in the empire, as 
 the source of his life, the rule of his actions, the 
 hallower of his home, the link between earth and 
 heaven, the bond which binds together men in one 
 body, and generations in one being — as the nurse 
 and the mother of man — and as the image of God. 
 It is to aid in rearing him as a member of Christ's 
 body that even civil polities have been established 
 upon earth; and they will never better secure the 
 allegiance of their subjects than when they exhibit 
 their own faithfulness in discharging their trust, and 
 their own rev(?rence for a power which reverences 
 them in return, and which is th(!ir colleague and co- 
 adjutor under a like Divine commission. 
 
388 ORGANISATION OF THE CIltjRCH. 
 
 But the principle of unity, in the parochial sys- 
 tem, must not be dissevered from plurality. One 
 priest in every parish, as one bishop in every dio- 
 cese, is a fundamental law of sound ecclesiastical 
 polity. But the priest, like the bishop, requires aid, 
 and counsel, and support, and hands to work with 
 him, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, for him. And 
 if he stand alone as an individual, in many, many 
 cases, he must be all but powerless. Once more 
 we require the principle of incorporation; and our 
 parochial, like our episcopal system, will never ob- 
 tain its full strength until, in nearly every parish, 
 certainly in all of any magnitude, the priest gathers 
 round him a little body of curates, associates them 
 intimately with himself, forms them, as far as pos- 
 sible, into a little college under or adjoining his own 
 roof, places himself and them, to a certain extent, 
 under the discipline of fixed rules, exhibits the person 
 of the Church to his people under the form of an in- 
 corporation, not of an individual ; and though he re- 
 tains in his own hands the one controlling, governing 
 power, governs by means of a body which enlarges his 
 sphere of action, multiplies his faculties and senses, 
 covers his defects, augments his means, and almost 
 gives ubiquity and perpetuity to his being, within his 
 little province. 
 
 What the precise limit of parishes should be, 
 when any re-arrangement of them is made, should 
 depend not so much perhaps on the amount of po- 
 pulation, or the extent of district, as on the circle 
 already fixed by some civil distribution. It may be 
 questioned whether, if it were possible, it might not 
 be a wiser plan to throw towns into a single parish, 
 than to divide one into many; and to gather the 
 clergy of the town together into one body, giving 
 them as much as possible a corporate character and 
 life, and j)lacing them as curates under one head, 
 
CII. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 389 
 
 rather than to dissipate their energies, and perhaps 
 introduce even discordance and collision, by indi- 
 vidualising them, and fixing distinct centres and 
 spheres ot" their spiritual operation, within one civil 
 circle.' 
 
 But in addition to its bodies of priests, the 
 Church also requires its bodies of Levites. Or 
 rather, the State and the Church require them alike. 
 
 There are in every political society a multitude 
 of offices to be discharged — offices of charity, of 
 education, of attendance on the sick, of superinten- 
 dence over the poor, which can only be well dis- 
 charged under the following conditions : — 
 
 First, that they be voluntarily undertaken in the 
 spirit of self-sacri^ce and love ; secondly, that they 
 be imbued not only with benevolent feeling, but 
 with truth, the highest and the purest truth; thirdly, 
 that they be supported by vast funds, which can 
 only be obtained from private zeal and munificence, 
 
 ' The authority under which this latter plan has been recently 
 recommended is so great, and local difficulties and objections 
 to any other may be so numerous, that the suggestion is only 
 thrown out as a question, on which the practical experience and 
 Christian zeal which have offered the saciilice, are entitled to 
 far more weight than an a jiriori theory. The plan of associating 
 the rector and his curates in something of the collegiate form 
 has already been tried at Cirencester, and it is understood with 
 the happiest success. Something of a similar attempt has been 
 made in Bethnal Green. And generally it has been recom- 
 mended in a little work by the Rev. H. W ilberforce, which has 
 attracted considerable attention. One condition is imperatively 
 retjuired, that the rules of life under which such an association 
 is formed, if in any point they may approach to singularity, when 
 compared with the present })ractice of the Church in England, 
 should be submitted to, and be authorised by the Bishop ; and 
 that in reintroducing a new element into the system of our 
 ecclesiastical polity, nothing should be done without his super- 
 intendence, or calculated to shock and offend a weaker brother 
 by needless assimilation with a foreign and hostile com- 
 munion. 
 
 L L 2 
 
390 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 since taxation can never supply them ; fourthlj'^, 
 that they be executed, not by individuals, who are 
 unequal to the task, but by incorporations ; fifthly, 
 that these incorporations he not merely associated 
 in name, as a body of trustees and governors, but be 
 domesticated together, and devote their whole time 
 and interest to their allotted duties. Let any of 
 tliese conditions be wanting, and in the same degree 
 the work will be imperfect. And this is no new 
 theory. It is acknowledged, partially or wholly, in 
 every charter of incorporation given to an univer- 
 sity, or a college, or a religious society, or an hos- 
 pital. The State, even now, most rightly perceives 
 that its office is not so much to originate such move- 
 ments, or any movements in the body politic, as to 
 direct, steady, and sanction the movements which 
 spring up within it. It is the balance-wheel — not 
 the primary spring ; and its functions are thus re- 
 stricted, because it has no strength to impel the 
 whole machine, and because its object is not to 
 supersede the free agency of its subjects, but to en- 
 courage and guide it. The Almighty Himself has 
 so confined His own moral, and perhaps even His 
 physical government of the universe. And when- 
 ever the State departs from its central rest, and flies 
 off* to originate and absorb the motions which should 
 proceed from below, it acts as if the sun, in any dis- 
 turbance of the planetary system, should leave its 
 seat in the heavens, and roll off' to adjust a distant 
 star, leaving all behind it to disturbance and ruin. 
 Rest is a condition of government even more than 
 action. The iiisus, therefore, or efi'ort to create these 
 bodies, and to fulfil these offices, must proceed, not 
 from the ruler, but from the people. And what is 
 now important to observe, they must proceed from 
 tlie people as members of a Christian Church. 
 
 There is scarcely a more remarkable phenomenon 
 
CH, XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 391 
 
 ill political history, than the rise and multiplication 
 of voluntary religious societies in this country, as in 
 the middle ages. Associations, not merely for the self- 
 indulgence of contemplation or ease, but for active 
 social duties, seem peculiar to Christianity. Scarcely 
 a trace of them can be found under any other sys- 
 tem of religion. And the account of this fact is, 
 that no other religion has possessed even in theory a 
 similar spirit of self-sacrifice, or a similar power of 
 engrafting the love of man upon the love of God. 
 Nor, practically, has any offered a supernatural assist- 
 ance to support and maintain it in action. 
 
 A Christian spirit is essential to the formation of 
 these voluntary religious associations. 
 
 But it is not sufficient that this spirit should take 
 the form of a vague, general, enthusiastic benevo- 
 lence, venting itself without rule or direction. Even 
 in this shape it is not to be treated with ridicule and 
 contempt. For when rule and direction are given 
 to it, it is the spring of many of the most vital func- 
 tions in the body politic. There may be much to 
 lament, and much to be corrected, in the excited 
 oratory of platforms, in itinerant missions, in pro- 
 miscuous associations, in the vanity, bustle, display, 
 and waste of labour, and money, and time, which 
 are necessary accompaniments of the present popu- 
 lar system of religious societies. But a wise states- 
 man and a humble Christian will not turn from 
 them with scorn. They want but one element — 
 order ; and order can only be found in obedience, 
 and obedience where there is a constituted Divine 
 authority, and such an authority in the Church, and 
 in the Church under the administration of Epis- 
 copacy. Introduce this element of order, and the 
 present heterogeneous and capricious movements of 
 Christian zeal will throw themselves into a very dif- 
 ferent form. And the statesman will at last possess 
 
392 ORGANISATION OF THE CHUllCH. 
 
 the means of executing all his functions of bene- 
 volence, or rather he will see them executed by the 
 voluntary efforts of a Christian people, under the 
 control of their Christian priesthood. And little 
 more will be required of him than to give them his 
 countenance and sanction, protection for their pro- 
 j)ertj^, facilities for acting as incorporated bodies, 
 and such a co-operating superintendence and con- 
 trol, as must reside in the hands of the supreme 
 civil power ; and without which the civil power 
 would be perplexed with the growth of a multitude 
 of powerful bodies within his own empire, but in- 
 dependent of his will and authority. 
 
 The time even now may come, when, as Chris- 
 tian Englishmen turn their eyes upon the thousands 
 of children M'ho are left in our manufacturing dis- 
 tricts to grow up in ignorance and vice, some few 
 will be found to associate themselves together for the 
 purpose of undertaking, in some portion, the work 
 of education. It is possible to imagine that these 
 may arise, not among the less instructed and refined 
 classes, but among the most gifted and learned, who 
 may understand that the education even of a child 
 requires talent and moral power as much, or even 
 more, than the speculations of philosophy ; and that, 
 in the present state of this country, few objects 
 possess more magnitude or interest than the condi- 
 tion of the young among the poor. It is possible 
 that such minds, roused by Christian zeal, and dis- 
 ciplined by the Catholic principles of the Church, 
 may place themselves at the disposal of their bishop, 
 for the establishment of a school, may request his 
 advice and superintendence in framing rules to re- 
 gulate their own domestic life, and their system of 
 education — that they may M'ish to exhibit to the 
 world a simple fare, a humble dress, a plain un- 
 ornamented abode, in which Divine worship only 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 393 
 
 should be invested with any thing like splendour, 
 and a strict and regulated economy in all that relates 
 to their personal enjoyment — that living together 
 at a common board and under a common roof, they 
 should desire to submit themselves to one superior 
 Head, and to place themselves under the obligation 
 of certain defined rules — that they should cement 
 their union by the full spirit of Christian love, and 
 knowing no duty higher than their duty towards God, 
 and no mode of succeeding in any undertaking, espe- 
 cially in the education of others, without His bless- 
 ing, and no mode of obtaining His blessing without 
 prayer; that they should desire that the worship 
 of the Church, morning and evening, and any other 
 domestic assemblages for the same purpose which 
 the bishop might approve, should form a regular 
 part of their daily occupation — that for this purpose 
 they should obtain his permission to raise a chapel 
 within their precincts, as almost their first work, — 
 that they should then distribute among themselves, 
 or rather accept at the distribution of their Head, 
 the various parts of education — each taking that 
 portion which best accorded with his own talents, 
 and all uniting to infuse into the system an elevated 
 devotion and zeal — that they should then receive 
 the children of the poor to be instructed as gratui- 
 tously as it was possible ; their own resources being 
 supplied from their personal means, and from the 
 benevolence of the rich ; and all that was contri- 
 buted by the children being applied to the general 
 interests of the school — that, resolving to educate 
 all their young in the full unmutilated creed of a 
 Catholic Christian, and to teach them to reverence, 
 as God has commanded, His Church and His minis- 
 ters, as well as His written word ; and knowing also 
 that a school is no fit place for proselytism, and that 
 even to proselytise children against the will or the 
 
394 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 opinions of their parents, is an unauthorised assump- 
 tion of responsibility, and if not wholly futile, is yet 
 pregnant with mischief — they should refuse lo 
 charge themselves with the care of any children 
 who were not really members of the Catholic 
 Church — that in this way they should be able to 
 exhibit in its fulness the nature of the Catholic 
 Church, by the life of a community of Catholic 
 Christians ; and to rear up another generation, not 
 in a vague and frigid morality, without warm affec- 
 tions or definite truth, but in love, reverence, and 
 obedience to their mother Church. It is no idle 
 speculation to suppose, that such a spectacle in itself 
 would diffuse round it an extraordinary influence for 
 good ; that it would attract the eyes of the poor, 
 would win them to truth, would conciliate the re- 
 spect of all, would obtain from Christian benevo- 
 lence all necessary funds ; and would secure its own 
 perpetuity and consistent action, which, in an indi- 
 vidual, however gifted and however good, could 
 never be attained. One instance given — and such a 
 system once established — and imitation would be 
 easy; and though, with our present manufacturing 
 principles, even the extension of the plan could do 
 little to ameliorate many of its miseries, some real 
 and solid prospect would be opened of educating, 
 where education was attempted, as Christians should 
 be educated. A hired schoolmaster, a committee of 
 householders, the single arm for a hundred child- 
 ren, the admixture of sects, the stinted religious 
 instruction, the rare visit from the clergy already 
 burdened with their peculiar ministerial offices, the 
 absence of love, of sym])atiiY, of revi^-ence, of any 
 sense of the presence or nature of the Church — 
 circumstances which, more or less, prevail in our 
 present national schools — all these thoughts deaden 
 and discourage even Christian zeal, when called on 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 395 
 
 to aid in such a \vork. But let a hope be once lield 
 out of educating the poor, not only in the name and 
 in the outward principles of the Churcii, but in her 
 bosom, under her wing, by her eye, her voice, her 
 hand, raised over the young, visibly and palpably in 
 the presence of an incorjiorated community — and 
 then indeed education will become a blessing — and 
 for the work both funds and workers will rise up, 
 by the blessing of God, in abundance, even greater 
 than is required. 
 
 And here how many a reader may close this book 
 as an avowed recommendation of monasticism. And 
 yet no such recommendation has been given. It 
 has, indeed, recommended, first, the association of 
 Christians for purposes of education; but associations 
 already exist, in the National Society, and in every 
 other combination for the purpose of promoting the 
 diffusion of knowledge. And it has recommended 
 the union of many teachers in a single school, ra- 
 ther than the committal of the office to a single 
 individual. And who can deny that, if feasible, one 
 plan is better than the other ? That such teachers 
 should live together as brothers — that they should 
 be placed under the control of a head — that they 
 should exhibit a simple and self-denying life — that 
 all their acts should be hallowed by the worship of 
 God — in all this, whether practised in monasteries 
 or not, what is there to censure ? But monasticism 
 was guilty of sins, which, in such a system, need 
 find no place. It withdrew itself from Episcopal 
 control. It gathered together bodies of men, not 
 for practical duties, but for abstract retirement, in 
 which meditation often sank into indolence, and 
 devotion became fanaticism, and self-sacrifice fos- 
 tered pride. It accumulated wealth for selfish en- 
 joyment, till it generated an undue temporal power 
 in the hands of the Church. It gathered round self- 
 
396 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 formed centres, distinct from, and disturbing the 
 territorial divisions of the Church, till religious 
 orders became gi«^antic and independent commu- 
 nities, overpowering the regular ministry of the 
 Church, and awing even the State. It attached 
 itself to a foreign influence, and thus made even 
 religion an act of treason. Being founded on self- 
 will and caprice, and removed from external con- 
 trol, it split itself and tore the Church into factions 
 and feuds. And it enslaved its members by vows — 
 vows of celibacy, vows of poverty, vows of profes- 
 sion for life — engagements both contrary to Chris- 
 tian liberty, and stumbling-blocks to the conscience, 
 and often tem])tations to crime — which superseded 
 tlie dispensations of Providence — which broke up 
 the family life — which endeavoured to form an 
 artificial world for the growth of Christian virtues, 
 different from the creation of God — and which 
 enabled a foreign power to wield, with enormous 
 strength, an engine for the subjection of the empire, 
 and the disruption of the ties of loyalty. 
 
 If such crimes and such evils cannot be avoided, 
 it may be wiser to content ourselves with the weak 
 and ineffective instruments of education which are 
 now in our hands. But what must be the condi- 
 tion of a Church in which they cannot be guarded 
 against — in which Christian men cannot live toge- 
 ther and work together in a work of Christian love, 
 without falling into the sins of monasticism ? And 
 if the English Church has strength to raise and 
 govern such incorporations, what a field is open to 
 her on every side ; and what a stupendous power, at 
 present dormant, will be developed within her ! 
 
 Our existing colleges will cease to be mere no- 
 minal assemblages, of which the largest portion of 
 members are allowed to reside elsewhere. But the 
 whole collected powers of these bodies will be con- 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 397 
 
 centrated upon their great task of educating the 
 higher orders, and of diffusing truth throughout the 
 world by their labours in literature and science. 
 
 Our hospitals will no longer remain scenes of 
 suffering and of death, almost unmitigated by the 
 consolations of religion — places of healing for the 
 body, with scarcely a thought of that healing of the 
 soul which our blessed Lord especially connected 
 with it. Where there is now a single chaplain to 
 attend and soothe the agonies of hundreds, there 
 will be a community of clergy — and round them, 
 and under their care, will be placed, beneath the 
 same roof, the young who are studying the art of 
 medicine, that they may be saved from the fearful 
 temptations into which they are now thrown, alone 
 and helpless, from the bosom of their homes. And 
 under them will be trained an inferior class of attend- 
 ants — both male and female, themselves a religious 
 community — that the office of nursing may be dis- 
 charged, not by cold unsympathising hirelings, but 
 with the patience and holy consolations of Christian 
 love. 
 
 We need schools for female children of all classes. 
 And how many females, well born, well educated, 
 but left in poverty, or without domestic duties — 
 widows, orphans, dependents at present upon the 
 bounty of others, or forced to drag out a weary 
 life without occupation and without respect, might 
 be brought together by the hands of the Church, 
 and placed under rule and direction, in a common 
 home, to discharge those many tasks which can only 
 be executed well by the delicacy of a woman's 
 hand ! 
 
 Our poor are starving. And to be fed, in many, 
 many cases, they may and must be gathered under 
 one roof. But what a contrast between a refuge for 
 the poor, of which religion and religious men were 
 
 M M 
 
398 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 the spirit and the rulers — where poverty itself was 
 ennobled by the example of our Lord and His own 
 followers — where they who fed shared in the same 
 meals with those whom they relieved — where Chris- 
 tian love could soothe sorrow, and Christian elevation 
 give dignity even to want — where labour could be 
 assigned to the strong, not without the education of 
 their souls, and prayer be made the occupation of 
 the weak and the old — and where the evil-minded 
 could be detected and severed from the good, and 
 delivered over to the prison of the State, without 
 contaminating poverty by confounding it with crime 
 — what a contrast between such abodes and the 
 poor-houses which now blot our fields, and stamp 
 our Christian name with infamy and shame I 
 
 We plan home-colonies, and form societies for 
 cultivating our own wastes, instead of driving our 
 destitute brethren upon foreign and desolate shores. 
 And stretching out on every side, there are moors, and 
 mountains, and heaths, which, if the ancient Church 
 were placed upon them, would, in a few years, spring 
 into fertility, and wave with harvests, like the forests, 
 and rocks, and morasses, which, under the same 
 hand, gave way of old to the plough and the spade. 
 But a colony, whether abroad or at home, cannot 
 well be a commercial speculation. Its returns are 
 hazardous and distant. It requires a sacrifice, and 
 a sacrifice cannot be expected except from Chris- 
 tian love. And it needs also government, and super- 
 intendence, and encouragement, and to be nursed 
 and fostered into life witii a constant and tender 
 care, which selfishness will not undertake. And 
 wherever human habitations are placed, there Chris- 
 tian love will place beside them a house of God, a 
 well-spring of spiritual life. Only let us enlarge 
 our view — only let us gather together even a small 
 body of devoted Christians, aided by the ministra- 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 399 
 
 tions of a clergy, and under the control of their 
 bishop, and make them, conjointly with the State, 
 the rulers and founders of the settlement, and how 
 many gardens of Eden might be opened in the wilds! 
 how many souls and families transferred from the 
 stifling atmosphere of want, and misery, and sin, 
 in which they now groan and die, to fields where 
 their labour might bless the land, and the Church 
 bless their labour, and the State bless the Church 
 for directing it ! 
 
 We send out missions to the heathen. And a 
 solitary pilgrim sets forth, bold in his own strength, 
 or armed only with a commission from some pre- 
 carious, ill-organised association, who have no com- 
 mission to give, and who are content to pay their 
 aimual guineas to that work of Christ in which no- 
 thing less is required than our whole selves, bodies, 
 souls, and minds. And soon he returns, if he re- 
 turns at all, dispirited, and in wonder that his mes- 
 sage of peace is rejected, or that if a few seeds of 
 good are sown, they spring up in a night and wither 
 the next morning. But yet how can aught else be 
 expected ? What weight of testimony, what autho- 
 rity, what impersonation of holiness and goodness, 
 what exhibition of the Divine image of the Church 
 and of its Lord and Master, and what security for 
 permanence, what power for labour, what analogy 
 to the ordinary dealings of Heaven, can be traced by 
 the heathens, whether civilised or savage, in the self- 
 appointed proclamations and self-formed opinions of 
 a single individual ? How the great hierarchies of 
 the East — how even the untutored Indian, must smile 
 in scorn and pity at our solitary missions ! A light, 
 indeed, has dawned upon us, but as yet it is faint 
 and broken. We have learned that a single limb 
 without a head has no organisation to preserve exist- 
 ence in itself, or to beget it in others. And we are 
 
400 ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 beginning to send out bishops as the heads of our 
 missions. But heads, also, apart from bodies, are 
 alilce powerless. And at last we may learn, that with 
 every bishop we must send fortli a college of clergy. 
 So it was of old. They who converted the world 
 went forth in bodies, and under a head. The sys- 
 tem was uniform and universal. Twelve presbyters 
 and a bishop formed a mission. Neither plurality 
 without unity, nor unity without plurality. And 
 until we go and do likewise, England will never 
 become the converter of the heathen ; and the great 
 work appointed to it by Heaven will be left to other 
 hands, by a wicked and unprofitable servant. 
 
 These are but a few of the practical offices which 
 may be discharged by the Church for the benefit of 
 the empire, as for the glory of God, as soon as her 
 zeal finds its proper vent in the establishment of 
 collegiate bodies. And until the principle of in- 
 corporation be reintroduced into its system, it must 
 either remain inactive and impotent, or must waste 
 its energies in producing a series of abortive forms, 
 which will fade and die away with the individuals 
 who project them. 
 
 They have no root. As well plant a leaf, and 
 imagine that it will grow into a tree, as commit any 
 work of grandeur and duration to an individual. 
 
 But with incorporations once restored, for how 
 many other incidental purposes of blessing may they 
 be applied I How many refuges would be opened 
 for those who have been severed from domestic life 
 — for orphans and widows, for the childless and 
 the unmarried, who now waste their affections and 
 their energies upon false and unworthy objects ! 
 How many abodes of discipline and retirement, 
 where penitence might seek counsel and healing, 
 and weep unseen by the world — penitence which 
 now is compelled to steel itself into shamelessness 
 
CII, XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 401 
 
 before the public eye, or to destroy itself in de- 
 spair! How many holy spots filled with the incense 
 of prayer, and with the memory and the presence of 
 saints, where goodness may be ripened and matured ! 
 How many more avenues to heaven, through which 
 the hourly prayers of men may bring down God's 
 blessing on all around them ! Then the whole 
 spirit of the Church might be drawn out and set 
 forth, without the danger of irregularity or the dread 
 of offence, untler that which removes all jealousy, 
 the rule of a fixed competent authority. Then po- 
 verty might cease to be disgrace, when voluntarily 
 practised by bodies possessing the dignity of good- 
 ness and of wisdom. Then labour might be em- 
 ployed and faculties developed, and arts called forth, 
 by Christian hands, as in ruder but better days, 
 Mithout grinding the labourer into the dust, or sa- 
 crificing the infant and the mother, day and night, 
 in sickness and health, mind and strength, body and 
 soul, in this world and the next, to the Moloch of 
 this generation — the capitalist and the revenue. 
 Then truth might find a home, safe from the doubts, 
 and scoffs, and follies of a world of individuals. 
 Then science might be explored with safety under 
 the wing of the Church, and with depth by united 
 efforts. And the reproach would be wiped from 
 our Church, that it has produced no grand gigantic 
 monument of learning to be compared with the 
 efforts of a communion against which she is com- 
 pelled to protest. How can colossal works be raised 
 by individual arms? And when the sight of such 
 things aroused in those who have been severed from 
 her a wish to return into her fold — when the zeal- 
 ous no longer sought elsewhere an atmosphere of 
 warmth and piety, and the energetic were supplied 
 with fields for their labours, and the poor could be 
 received even into the offices of the Church, and be 
 
 M M 2 
 
402 ORGANISATION OF THK CHURCH. 
 
 dignified in her employments, from which they are 
 now excluded by the expenses of education — when 
 a multitude of arms could be employed simultane- 
 ously and steadily in evangelising our own heathen 
 population ; and when the being and character of 
 the Church was no longer an invisible mystery, sur- 
 rounded by perplexities and defaced by inconsist- 
 encies, but a palpable present reality, which all 
 might see and love — then within the same walls 
 might be found that temporary shelter, so needed 
 for minds in a state of transition, dislodged from 
 their past errors, but not yet grounded in the truth 
 — minds which, in the struggle of doubt, are tempted 
 so severely by pride and self-conceit, as well as by 
 fear — minds in which the roots of past evil still 
 remain, and spring up hourly in the midst of re- 
 viving good, and which, without instruction, and 
 discipline, and example, and rest — driven violently 
 in scorn and indignation from one fold, and not 
 yet received trustfully into another — in so many 
 instances make shipwreck of their faith entirely, and 
 render the name of convert almost synonymous with 
 intidel and profligate. 
 
 These are no new or strange thoughts even in 
 the present day. There is a stirring all around us ; 
 a craving in some minds for a higher and more 
 spiritual life — in others, for rest and quiet amidst 
 a world of restlessness — in others, for an arm of 
 power to save and bless the world — in others, for a 
 firmer rule of discipline over their wayward hearts 
 — in others, for a purifying spirit to correct and 
 heal the bitterness of the waters of strife — in others, 
 for some real world of deeper mystery, of vaster 
 hopes, of more heroic grandeur, than they can find 
 in the intrigues and calculations of an age swayed 
 by money and by fashion. And it is no idle aspira- 
 tion which, even in the mind of the child, turns to 
 
CH. XXXII.] ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH. 403 
 
 the hermit's cell and the cloistered roof, and delights 
 to wander even among the wrecks and ruins of holy 
 houses, as seeking there food for the fancy and ele- 
 vation for the affections. And there are springs of 
 bounty ready to gush out as of old, and to supply 
 all that is needed, when objects great enough are 
 offered for great benevolence, and what is given may 
 be given unto generations to come, and be secured 
 upon incorporated bodies, and may bear fruit by 
 their vigour and stability, instead of being wasted 
 and lost in individual caprices. The mouths of 
 thousands are ready with one response. What is 
 the first want of the Church and of the State alike? 
 — religious incorporations. What is the second? — 
 religious incorporations. What is the third? — re- 
 ligious incorporations. 
 
 And let us boldly avow it — not intimidated by 
 clamour, and driven from a great truth and grand 
 object by the obloquy of a name. Only, as we value 
 that truth and that object, let us beware of the 
 grievous faults and sins into which the same efforts 
 have fallen before, when they lost sight of that prin- 
 ciple of organisation which it has been the object 
 of these pages to suggest, and abandoned the joint 
 rule of the Church and of the State ; and, having 
 refused the law of unity established by God in His 
 own episcopacy, recurred to a self-invented unity in 
 the papacy, and from this fell into distraction, and 
 disorders, and vices, which were the ante-type, as 
 they were the cause, of that moral and political 
 chaos from which we are now struggling in almost 
 the death-agonies of a drowning empire. 
 
404 CONCLU&ION. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 And here these pages may be closed. Tliey have 
 brought us from a high and abstract axiom to a 
 practical duty, by stages which would seem to ad- 
 mit no pause or deviation of argument. He who 
 believes that in the nature of the Almighty Creator 
 there is enshrined the awful and inscrutable mys- 
 tery of a Trinity in Unity, made known to the world 
 through Christ, and communicated to us by Christ 
 through His Church, may well expect to find a 
 similar mystery in the perfection of any Divine 
 work. He may expect to find it in political society ; 
 and when he sees before his eyes society almost in 
 a state of ruin — human reason bereft of truth — 
 human will let loose from rule — human belief re- 
 duced to fancy — and human association held toge- 
 ther only by the conflicts of selfishness — he may 
 pause to examine if the cause of such an evil lies 
 not in some departure from the great model of all 
 good. And when he finds a Church without a State, 
 as in Popery, or a State without a Church, as in 
 England at the present day; and either exclusive 
 unity made the law of society, or exclusive plu- 
 rality ; he will be little surprised that evil should be 
 the end ; and he will know no other remedy but a 
 return, under God, to the one great model, and tiie 
 restoration (hither of the Civil Power to its functions, 
 as at the Reformation, or of the Spiritual, as now. 
 And when the defects of either are to be supplied, 
 still he will recur to the same model ; and where the 
 Church, in its organisation, presents the element of 
 
CH. XXXIIl.] CONCLUSION. 405 
 
 unity witliout the element of pluralitj^ as the Eng- 
 lish Church at present presents, that is, episcopacy, 
 and the parochial system, but no national synod, and 
 no active incorporation of its officers, there he would 
 seek to restore the element of plurality first — and 
 would sum up the grand want, and the medicine of 
 medicines for the evils of the nation in one word — 
 the Incorporation of the Church. 
 
 And if the theory be true, the practice must 
 follow ; and instead of sitting idly with folded arms 
 and drooping sinews, exclaiming against the apostacy 
 of our civil rulers, or the coldness and weakness of 
 the Church; instead of insulting the mother who 
 bore us by sarcasms on the sins of her sons trans- 
 ferred to herself, or of treasonably plotting to sub- 
 ject her once more to a foreign communion, which 
 bears the outward show of better things only to an 
 eye which never pierced beyond, and which we can- 
 not rejoin without sacrificing the foundations of truth 
 and goodness full as much as by the follies which 
 we fly from, — if we really feel as we profess, and 
 desire what we imagine, the work, even now, may 
 be accomplished of resuscitating the Church and 
 of saving the empire. And it must be commenced 
 by individuals. The movement must proceed from 
 below. It must seek from the State little but kind 
 favour, and due superintendence, and the exten- 
 sion of privileges, which cost nothing. It must 
 begin in the Christian zeal of some few individuals 
 associating themselves for any one of the great works 
 of charity which are now needed — placing them- 
 selves under rule — submitting themselves implicitly 
 to their bishop — not extending their operations 
 beyond his diocese — carefully guarding against 
 offences towards weak brethren, yet shrinking from 
 nothing, however elevated, or however strange to 
 the present generation, which is sanctioned by that 
 
406 CONCLUSION. 
 
 external authority to which, as members of the 
 Church, they are subjected — above all, not indul- 
 ging any dream of an ecclesiastical supremacy and 
 power, which would violate the Divine prerogative 
 of the State, or be unlike the followers of Him who 
 came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and 
 to give Himself a ransom for the world. 
 
 As Christ Himself appeared before men, so must 
 His Church appear. He walked in company with 
 His disciples ; and He breathed the Spirit upon 
 the College of the Apostles ; and His Apostles went 
 forth into the world, not alone, but incorporated each 
 with a body of followers ; and this is the word of 
 His own Spirit — "one body and many members;" 
 and " ye are the body of Christ, and members in 
 particular. And God hath set some in the Church, 
 first Apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, 
 after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, go- 
 vernments, diversities of tongues But all these 
 
 worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing 
 to every one severally as He will." ^ 
 
 1 1 Cor. xii. 27, 11. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aristocracy, hereditary, an elementary division of the state, 
 2o7 ; its character, 237 ; antagonistic to the popular ele- 
 ment, 237. 
 
 Army, might be made a school and nurseiy for the lower or- 
 ders, 231 ; mider the command of the monarch, 2*2. 
 
 Assent of the people to the laws of their rulers, 257 ; of man 
 to the laws of God, 258, 
 
 Balance of power, its result inaction, 96. 
 
 Baptism, infant, its analogy to hereditary rank, 216. 
 
 Bible, the, not to be substituted for the creed, 2SJ!J ; enjoined to 
 be used m confirmation of the creed, 300 ; on what grounds 
 the statesman acknowledges its divine authority, 300 ; must 
 ^ be taught in portions, 301 ; a new one framed, 302 ; may 
 be wrested into various meanings, 302 ; to be taught with 
 some definite meaning attached to its words, 302 ; full of 
 peculiar doctrines, 303 ; how taught by the modern system 
 of national education, 303. 
 
 Bishops, aj-jioiutnient of, 379; multiplication of, 383; their 
 mode of living, '6Si. 
 
 Bribery, how encouraged by the modern theory of popular re- 
 presentation, 257. 
 
 Castes, the chief viciousuess of slavery consists in them, 223 ; 
 contrary to the law of nature, 224 ; destroys the expansion 
 of man, 221'- 
 
 Civil power, incapable of performing its functions with a latitu- 
 dinarian creed. 297 ; cannot escape from religious duties, 
 21)7 ; its analogy with the relation of the husband and fa- 
 ther in the family, 82. 
 
 Change, not to be excluded from a state, 41 ; exhibited in the 
 creation, 42. 
 
 Charters, not revocable capriciously, 245 ; of incorporation, 
 329. 
 
 Children, to be trained to a fitting independence, 225 ; their 
 helplessness a bond of family union, (il ; how their obe- 
 dience to parents is to be preserved when the inequality 
 
408 INDEX. 
 
 diminishes, (il ; to be gradually entrusted with power, (53 ; 
 analogy of with nations, 1 W. 
 
 Choice, sanctioned by Scripture, 251 ; operations of distin- 
 guished, 251 ; wrong when between objects of desire, 252 ; 
 right when between an object of desire and a law of duty, 
 252; choice of teachers, 252. 
 
 Christianity has its philosophy as well as its faith, 46. 
 
 Church of England, causes of its present weakness, 276 ; de- 
 spoiled at the reformation, 276 ; is the only religious body 
 in this country that adheres to tradition, 287 ; not quiescent 
 under a system of indifferentism, 295 ; its re-organisation, 
 374. 
 
 Church, the, the restorer of the principle of loyalty, 166 ; 
 the antidote to the doctrine of expediency, 167 ; its doc- 
 trines, — their connexion with the political dangers of the 
 day, 170 ; in what sense it should be poor, 229 ; a develop- 
 ment of the home, 57 ; value of its testimony to the Divine 
 authority of the civil power, 115; conveys spiritual gifts, 
 120; danger of breaking up its organisation, 120; its use 
 in correcting the disorders of civil society, 120 ; how disci- 
 plined by the temporal disorders of the world, 125 ; how it 
 may correct the mischief introduced by the doctrine of e^- 
 pediency, 167 ; why its influence must depend upon its 
 external positive institutions, 169 ; the connexion between 
 its peculiar doctrines, — such as the apostolical succes- 
 sion, episcopacy, the sacraments, and tradition, — with the 
 remedy for political evils, 169, 264; how it differs from 
 sects, 191 ; gives laws to the independence of the subject, 
 192; its connexion with the state, 193; analogy between 
 its relation to the civil power and that of the wife to the 
 husband, 194; its testimony, 9, 11 ; scriptural account of 
 its fundamental law of unity combined with plurality, 21 ; 
 its corruptions by neglecting this law, 24 ; holds its tempo- 
 ral possessions under the monarch, 242 ; recognises, in a 
 certain degree, an appeal to the people, 249 ; the only cor- 
 rective to the evils of the modern representative system, 
 263 ; connexion with the family, 320 ; the only power able 
 to reform criminals, 357 ; the need of it to political society, 
 359 ; its re -organisation, 374 ; its spiritual independence, 
 how exerted, 395 ; restoration of its disciphne, 380. 
 Church-rates, 369. 
 Citizen, his character similar to that of the Christian, 129, 
 
 169 ; the independence of, how justified, 189. 
 Clergy, why a necessary elementary division of the State, 201 ; 
 their voice in the selection of the state, 204 ; the best organ 
 for elevating the lower classes, 216 ; ought to absorb a large 
 
INDEX. 409 
 
 proportion of the poor, 228 ; not a stepping-stone for fa- 
 mily rank, 229. 
 
 Colleges, how to be improved and formed, 396. 
 
 Colonies, their relationship to the mother country, 339 ; sys- 
 tem of British colonisation, 3H ; penal, their nature, 342 ; 
 their peculiar need of a Church, 343 ; the curse they will 
 bring upon the mother country, 344 ; home-colonies, 398. 
 
 Compact, the social, its full form when developed, 173 ; its 
 fallacies, 174 ; its connexion with the disparagement of 
 domestic relations, 174; its connexion with the doctrine 
 of equality, 174 ; between equals, 178 ; founded on faith, 
 178 ; involves the necessity of passive obedience, 179 ; how 
 far true, 180 ; if true between the Monarch and the State, 
 not between the Monarch and the people, 188. 
 
 Conjugal relation, the distribution of its offices and qualities, 
 58 ; embodies distinctly but conjointly the two main ele- 
 ments of the moral character of man, 58 ; involves recipro- 
 cal command and obedience, 59 ; how this is effected, 59 ; 
 the source of family life, t>0 ; how its binary character 
 preserves the obedience of children, ()2. 
 
 Creator, connexion between and His works, 6. 
 
 Conquest; foreign conquest, its sin and its curse, 340 ; how it 
 affects an empire, 341. 
 
 Conscience ; the conscience of the nation, how formed, 266 ; 
 necessarily placed in an individual, 267. 
 
 Conservatism admits a false theory of opinion, 262; so-called 
 of the present day, its fate, 287. 
 
 Continuity of generations how preserved, 126. 
 
 Creeds, their use in political science, 1 1 ; Athanasian, a gene- 
 ralised declaration of the mystery of the Divine nature, 15 ; 
 contains the parent truth of unity in plurality and plurality 
 in unity, 16; denounced by the State, 299; how invented 
 by the State, 299 ; the Bible now transmuted into a creed, 
 299 ; the foundation of education, 300 ; recognised in 
 Scripture, 300. 
 
 Democracy, the responsibility of, 3 ; why framed, and why 
 futile, 84 ; cannot be a good, 123 ; democratical element in 
 society, its character, 238. 
 
 Despotism, its object perfect unity, 40 ; to be corrected by 
 Christian patience, 41. 
 
 Dissent, how connected with sedition, 193, 196 ; when preva- 
 lent how to be met, 195 ; how to be won over to the 
 Church, 197 ; confesses that it abandons tradition, 286 ; 
 necessarily less restricted than the Church, 263 ; toleration 
 of, 371 : civil disorders consequent upon, 121. 
 N N 
 
410 INDEX. 
 
 Disorder of civil polities a discipline for the Church, 125. 
 
 Education, the duty of the State, 78 ; some fallacy in the pre- 
 sent profession of, 78 ; national education fails because it 
 neglects the family, 78 ; in its present form the seal of the 
 apostacy of the State from the Church, 298; assumed by 
 the State, 299 ; moral exclusive of religion, 304 ; intellec- 
 tual exclusive of morality, 305 ; united impracticable, 308. 
 
 Election ; popular election, right principles of, 255 ; why not 
 of primary importance to be considered, 260. 
 
 England, the fate which awaits it, 360. 
 
 Episcopacy, the only form which embodies positive external 
 law, 201 ; its connexion with monarchy, 202 ; a more po- 
 sitive institution than monarchy, 120 ; its violation more 
 criminal, 102. 
 
 Equality of man, why false, 175 ; would destroy the very na- 
 ture of society, 175 ; doctrine of, inconsistent with facts, 
 175; destructive of society, 175; of virtue, and affection, 
 and duty, 175 ; impossible to be realised, 176; destroyed 
 by the appeal to a majority, 176. 
 
 Exclusiveness of truth, of justice, of heaven, 322 ; of the gos- 
 pel, 333 ; duty of it, 333 ; already practised by dissent, 
 334 ; not presumptuous, 335. 
 
 Excommunication, 381 ; of a government, its effects on the 
 people, 118. 
 
 Expediency, its relative place as a bond of society, 159 ; doc- 
 trine of, its degrading and demoralising influence at this 
 day, 160; its effects, 160; a modified selfishness, 161 ; 
 destroys the belief in a lawgiver and a law, 161 ; destroys 
 the standard of good and of right, and consequently aU 
 moral obligation, 162 ; its result an unlicensed democracy, 
 162; the state of such a democracy, 162; no means of 
 preventing such a result from following it in the pre- 
 sent day in England, 163 ; its final end an ajipeal to phy- 
 sical force, 164 ; its demoralising effect on the higher 
 orders, 165; how its mischievous influence to be averted, 
 166 ; by the Church, 167 ; cannot preserv-^e the unity of 
 society, 184; limitation of, 272; how it differs from pru- 
 dence, 274. 
 
 Evil, operates under a divine commission, 100. 
 
 Faith, a principle of obedience, 132; necessary for the real 
 union of society, 133; how to be concentred round the 
 monarch, 143. 
 
 Father, character of his power, 57 ; his relation, how aflfected 
 by the latitudinarianism of the State, 325. 
 
INDEX. 411 
 
 Family, established by the Almighty, 57, (i5 ; a form of society 
 essential to the existence of man, 57 ; the germ of political 
 society, 57 ; the type of religious relations, 57 ; its constituent 
 elements, 57 ; how distinguished from the State, (i5 ; does 
 not give scope for the full development of the man, 66, 67 ; 
 its relation to political society that of a smaller to a larger 
 concentric sphere, 69 ; office of, 70 ; how family life is sa- 
 crificed, 75 ; artificial families to be created, 77 ; ties of 
 broken both by monasticism and the modern poor-laws, 
 317 ; influence of Christianity on it, 319 ; effect of latitudi- 
 narianism on it, 319. 
 
 Feudalism, founded on faith, 142. 
 
 Fictions of law, why necessary ; analogy of them with mathe- 
 matical hypotheses, 153 ; with Chi'istian facts, 158 ; their 
 nature, 24-2 ; the monarchical character not one, 242. 
 
 Force, its use in forming civil society, 132; most efficient in 
 forming it, 135 ; provisions made by nature for its opera- 
 tion, 135; necessary to the supreme power, 138; not to 
 be lightly esteemed, 140 ; its triumph temporary, 142 ; de- 
 stroys itself, 142 ; superiority of, will often not justify com- 
 pulsion, 272 ; cannot command the mind, 273. 
 
 Forms, as positive institutions, equally obUgatory with doc- 
 trines, 280. 
 
 Formula, the highest of all, unity in plurality and plurality in 
 unity, 17 ; how exhibited in the material world, 17 ; in the 
 life of man, 18; in morals, 18; in art and imagination, 
 
 18 ; how evidenced by philosophers in political science, 
 
 19 ; in political history, 20; in the scriptural account of 
 the Church, 20 ; exhibited in the union of Church and 
 State, 35 ; to be accepted upon faith, 44 ; departures from 
 it followed by evil, 44 ; in States, 44 ; in the Church, 45 ; 
 why essential, 46. 
 
 (iood, temporal power not a real good, 124. 
 
 Government, its offices to be ramified and extended as far as 
 possible, 223 ; why not positively established in one form, 
 131 ; its authority destroyed by latitudinarianism, 292. 
 
 Grants of public money to religious bodies, 364 ; why not to 
 be asked for, 366. 
 
 Heathen, the duty of a nation to preach the gospel to, 346 ; 
 the facilities possessed by England for this work, 347 ; the 
 incapability of a latitudinarian State to do this, 348. 
 
 Hierarchies, eastern, their use and policy, 116; coimexion of 
 with temporal rule, 141. 
 
 History, philosophy of universal, 80. 
 
412 INDEX. 
 
 Hospitals, to be placed under colleges of clergy, o97. 
 
 Incorporations, one great function of the State, 329 ; a test of 
 the progress of a nation, 329 ; change in modern legislation 
 on, 329 ; exclusion of religion from them, 330 ; religious, 
 their power and growth, 330 ; how connected with religion, 
 331 ; their nature as at present created, 337 ; of the clergy, 
 389 ; i)rinciples of, 389 ; their secondary uses, lOO ; of the 
 Church enforced in Scripture, 40(j ; of the whole human 
 race, 79. 
 
 Individuals, not the elements of political society, 77, 219 ; not 
 U)st in the family, 21!) ; contemplated by Heaven as well as 
 tlu^ family, 220 ; Christianity bears peculiar regard to, 220 ; 
 iiulividuid merit necessary to be encouraged, 220 ; what ar- 
 rangements of society most fitted to cultivate them, 222; 
 to be nursed in families, 222 ; incai)able of perfection, /j2 ; 
 the legislation which follows from regarding them as the 
 constituent elements of political society, 7^) ; the act of 
 willing must reside in one, 83 ; subjection to an individual 
 essential for the unity of society, 85 ; less regarded by the 
 Deity than societies, 2()() ; the conscience of, how it becomes 
 a national conscience, 2()7 ; must commence the re-organi- 
 sation of the Church, '1()5. 
 
 Interest, a principle of obedience, 133. 
 
 Jews, their system not to be taken exclusively as a model of 
 
 political society, 5() ; a peculiar peojjle, 5li. 
 Judgment, private, how restricted, 282 ; how regulated, 282; 
 
 cannot be excluded fiom the acts of a reasoning being, 
 
 282. 
 Judgment, the faculty of judging goodness not common, 98; 
 
 duty of exercising it, 98 ; the great trial imposed on man, 
 
 98 ; of the peoi)le, must often be consulted, 99 ; is more 
 
 safely exercised in the election of the State than of the 
 
 Monarch, 99. 
 
 King, the person of the king distinct from the individual, 147 ; 
 iiow made visible to the people, 1;>0; in what sense a fic- 
 tion of society, 151 ; his character, 157; five external marks 
 of his divine apjiointment, 102; man unfit to choose, lOt; 
 regarded as an o])ji'('t of awe in Seript\ire, 1 -nS ; how to ga- 
 ther round him the faith aiul love of his subjects, 143 ; the 
 creator of the State, 211 ; how the defects of his individual- 
 ism arc to be remedied by the principle, of permanence, 
 245. 
 
 Knowledge of the Almighty how obtained, by nature, by 
 
INDEX. 413 
 
 conscience, by revelation, 8 ; conveyed by the Catholic 
 Church, 9. 
 
 Laity, share in the appointment of bishops, '679; division of, 
 207. 
 
 Latitudinarianism breaks the whole first table of the law, 290 ; 
 cannot maintain the .second, 292 ; its effect upon the fabric 
 of society, 292; cannot produce union, 294. 
 
 Law, the first table of, how broken by the statesman, 290 ; 
 the second table of vainly maintained, 290 ; its connexion 
 with the first, 292 ; maxims of, their analogy to the myste- 
 ries of Christianity, 351. 
 
 Lawyers, the inferior branch of the profession ought to be ele- 
 vated, 231. 
 
 Legislation, modern, its character, 48 ; its tendency to cen- 
 tralisation, 49; denies the chief functions of the State, 72 ; 
 modern, on marriage, 321 ; its tendency to encourage in- 
 cest, 321 ; civil legislation to be carried on according to the 
 analogy of the Divine dominion, 349 ; not to centralise 
 every thing, 349; how affected by latitudinarianism, 350; 
 how deprived of fundamental principles, 350 ; how it be- 
 comes full of inconsistencies, 352 ; must possess unity, 
 353 ; must confine itself to general principles, 353 ; penal, 
 its need of [)Ositive external authority, 354 ; how it becomes 
 too severe or too lenient, 354. 
 
 Liberty, not liberty to live without law, 228 ; honourable free- 
 dom what, 228. 
 
 Life, law of the growth of, 81. 
 
 Loyalty, compared with patriotism, 14G ; a sentiment not diffi- 
 cult to be generated, 144. 
 
 Magnitude, the just magnitude of a state, 67. 
 
 Majority, essential to society, 176 ; fallacy connected with, 
 85 ; its value, 85 ; virtually the rule of one individual in 
 each separate ?ict, 85 ; different cases of, 85 ; the danger 
 of, 88 ; destroys the sense of individual responsibility, 88 ; 
 analysis of into the half number and the one casting vote, 
 88 ; how the national conscience is formed by it, 268 ; how 
 it limits the duties of a state, 269 ; mere numerical majo- 
 rity often docs not justify legislation, 272. 
 
 Man, his dignity and capacity, 67. 
 
 Manufactures, result of our exclusive attention to, 72. 
 
 Marriage-laws, how affected by latitudinarianism, 320. 
 
 Matter, the power attached to it by nature, 137 ; precedes 
 mind, 139 ; bears the impress of spiritual glory, 140 ; can- 
 not be detached from mind in man, 140. 
 N N 2 
 
414 INDEX. 
 
 Medical students require to be brought up in colleges, 231. 
 
 Mind, its weakness compared with matter, 138 ; cannot be de- 
 tached from matter in man, 140. 
 
 Minority, a reluctant, how it affects the duties of statesmen, 
 272. 
 
 Miracles, subjected to laws of their own, 246. 
 
 Missions, cause of their failure, 399 ; their right organisation, 
 400. 
 
 Monarchy, absolute, the only form of government, 82 ; why 
 disliked by man, 84 ; vain to struggle against the principle, 
 
 88 ; dependent for its power upon a majority of the nation, 
 
 89 ; by what law to be selected, 89, 95 ; in the selection 
 what evils have generally been kept in view to be avoided, 
 95 ; seemingly incompatible with the unity of the nation, 
 95 ; plans for regulating its movements, 95 ; responsibility 
 of elective monarchies, 99 ; its excesses, how guarded 
 against in different constitutions, 39 ; hereditary, the best 
 form of government, 126 ; not so positive an institution as 
 episcopacy, 130. 
 
 Moral attributes of the Deity, 13 ; analogy between the moral 
 and material world, 13 ; moral instincts, real and external to 
 man, and therefore divine, 7. 
 
 Mysteries of religion, their analogy with the mysteries of poli- 
 tical society, 171. 
 
 Nation, its analysis into the Monarch, the State, and the sub- 
 ject, 90 ; why resembling children, 145. 
 
 Nature, her provisions for remedying evils, 108 ; the state of, a 
 state of war, 177 ; contrary to nature, 177 ; her vis medi- 
 catrix, 251. 
 
 Nobility, to be conferred on individual merit, 225 ; to be 
 coupled with permanent property in land, 225 ; honourable 
 professions afford access to, 226 ; not to be conferred on in- 
 dividuals suddenly elevated, 230 ; how to be conferred on all 
 by the Christian system, 234 ; the fit rulers of the country, 
 as distinguished from the middle classes, 234. 
 
 Obedience, passive, its scriptural authority, 109 ; proclaimed 
 uniformly by the Church, 111; the limitations of it as a duty, 
 111; provisions of nature for its good effects, 113; the 
 principles of, 132; faith, interest, and fear, 133. 
 
 Obedience, complete, necessary for preserving the unity of the 
 State, 83. 
 
 Oligarchies, why framed, why futile, 64, 
 
 Opinion, degraded by being exposed, and exposed by being 
 rendered paramount, 197 ; how connected with universal 
 
INDEX. 415 
 
 suffrage, 262 ; the Church not founded on, 280 ; only cri- 
 terion of it numbers, 280 ; its supremacy fatal, 282 ; re- 
 jected by the Christian as the reason for maintaining the 
 Church, 282 ; distinction between its use and its abuse, 
 282. 
 Origin of society, the meaning of the words, 128. 
 
 Papacy, fallacy in justifying its usurpation, 120 ; the generator 
 of civil convulsions, 120; its operation in Ireland, 279; 
 abandons the control of tradition, 28G ; destroys its autho- 
 rity, 287 ; its existence involved in the claim of universal 
 dominion, 295 ; its political intrigues against England, 
 344. 
 
 Paradoxes, when excusable, 4. 
 
 Parentage, the relation of, concentrates in itself all the power 
 and authority of the family, 60 ; consecrated, 60, 63. 
 
 Parishes, their division, 386. 
 
 Parochial clergy, their organisation, 388. 
 
 Parliament, to be formed in two chambers, 239. 
 
 Party, why necessary in civil society, 269 ; why excluded from 
 the Church, 269 ; compromises of opinion rendered neces- 
 sary by it, 270 ; how far they may be carried, 270. 
 
 Patriarchal, the patriarchal theory of monarchy, 102. 
 
 Patriotism, why inferior to loyalty, 146. 
 
 Perfection, the nature of, 66. 
 
 Permanence, the principle of, 245 ; how it operates to produce 
 regularity, 246 ; confidence, 246 ; caution in establishing 
 precedents, 246 ; restriction in the creation of organs, 246 ; 
 its corrective remedial nature, 247 ; of power, how it afiects 
 duty, 270. 
 
 Persons : personality, how it varies and is produced, 147 ; theory 
 of political persons, its analogy with mysteries in Christi- 
 anity, 158 ; relations between the foundation of morals, 
 275 ; union of different in one mind, 147 ; abstract persons 
 the frame work of society, 152 ; abstract persons, why to 
 be maintained, 155. 
 
 Political Society, the poetry of common life, 156; its elemen- 
 tary portions, 176 ; analogy with the family, 194 ; its his- 
 tory a struggle between the two opposite tendencies of 
 unity and of plurality, 21 ; embodies the Divine Image 
 upon earth, 25 ; to be regarded with reverence, 25 ; how 
 degraded by modern views, 25 ; consequences of false views 
 of, 26 ; not a means but an end, 27 ; effects of such a view, 
 28 ; in what spirit to be modelled, 29 ; should be framed to 
 last for ever, 41 ; its great problem, how to reconcile plu- 
 rality with unity, 55 ; how distinguished from domestic, 65 ; 
 
416 INDEX. 
 
 by its development of the principle of plurality, 65 ; its 
 relation to the family, 70 ; its office in education, 70 ; its 
 relation to the kingdom of heaven, 71 ; its duty, the deve- 
 lopment of the whole man, 71,73; its gi'owth when a par- 
 tial view is taken of its duties, 73 ; a divine institution, 74; 
 why crimes against it less abhorred than crimes against the 
 family, 74 ; identity of its system with that of the family, 
 75 ; the chief duty education, 78 ; the matrix of man, 78 ; 
 origin of, 128 ; in what sense a divine creation, 129 ; how 
 formed by force, 132 ; how affected by latitudinarianism, 
 292. 
 
 Political Science, why necessary to be generally studied, 2 ; the 
 heathen's mode of studying it, 5 ; how studied by a Chris- 
 tian, 7, 127 ; must be studied deeply, 46 ; modern, its cha- 
 racter, 4(), 48. 
 
 Poor, to be invested with self respect, 225 ; his wages ought 
 to provide for a superfluity beyond bare subsistence, 225 ; 
 enslaved at present, 22G ; the care of them undertaken by 
 the State, 313 ; theory of the present poor-laws, 313 ; how 
 affected by latitudinarianism, 315. 
 
 Poor-houses contrasted with religious houses, 315 ; to be placed 
 under associated clergy, 397. 
 
 Popular voice, how to be exerted in the selection of the State, 
 249 ; appealed to in the system of the Church, 249 ; re- 
 cognised in the moral government of God, 249 ; what func- 
 tions may be legitimately exercised by it, 250 ; a proper 
 organ for the expression of grievances, 250 ; may acknow- 
 ledge and recognise their rulers, 253 ; in what sense ap- 
 pealed to in the coronation- service, 253 ; judges of charac- 
 ter, 254 ; principle of popular election, 255 ; assents to 
 laws, 257. 
 
 Power, precariousness of, limits duties, 271 ; all power de- 
 rived from Heaven, 97 ; moral title to, 97 ; of a divine com- 
 mission, 100 ; not assigned exclusively to goodness upon 
 earth, 101; submission to unjust power, its moral disci- 
 pline, 102; external ai)pointment of, 102; the powers that 
 be, 110; existing power when an evidence of divine ap- 
 pointment, 110; the laws of its accumulation, lod ; its 
 natural supremacy, 137. 
 
 Plurality, the law of, proclaimed by the voice of the people, 
 K) ; inexplicable to the philosopher, I(i ; essential to a State, 
 20 ; to be especially guarded by a Christian, 32 ; to be pre- 
 served in mankind at large, 32 ; in the relation between 
 the governor and the governed, 33 ; in the people, 34 ; 
 in the governing body, 35 ; in the officers of government, 
 36 ; in the checks to the ruling power, 38 ; in the control 
 
INDEX. 417 
 
 over subjects, 40 ; in the permanent duration of the State, 
 41 ; its adaptation to the nature of man, 49 ; neglected by 
 modern legislators, 48 ; when combined with unity is the 
 law of beauty, 50 ; an essential condition of human affec- 
 tions and duties, 50 ; necessary for the realisation of indivi- 
 dual perfection, 52 ; even when it occurs in the shape of 
 evil, necessary to exercise our virtues, 53. 
 
 Prayer, analogy of with the legislation of parliaments, 93. 
 
 Presbyterianism, how connected with rationalism and heresy, 
 202 ; its establishment in Scotland the first overt step to 
 the ruin of the British empire, 278. 
 
 Primogeniture, order of precedency intimated by Providence, 
 103 ; its accordance with natural instincts, 106 ; cannot be 
 observ^ed without a State, 106. 
 
 Prescription, its object in legalising usurpation, 122 ; its limi- 
 tation, 122. 
 
 Principles, how connected with facts, 305 ; how involved in 
 special statutes, 352 ; legislation not to be conducted with- 
 out them, 352. 
 
 Prisons, how beset with religious controversy, 357. 
 
 Professions, liberal professions a remarkable feature in this 
 country, 227 ; they act as organs of secretion to elevate in- 
 dividual merit among the lower orders to rank and station, 
 227; how they act, 227; exemplify and work out the free- 
 dom of the British constitution, 227 ; the clergy not to be 
 considered in this light, 228 ; not to be brought too closely 
 into contact with the upper or the lower ranks, 229 ; ought 
 to be regarded and desJt with as schools of a noble disci- 
 pline, 231 ; not to be regarded as the spring and moving 
 power in the state, 232 ; circumstances which have given 
 them weight in this country, 232 ; why not designed to 
 take the lead in government, 232 ; regarded as means of 
 elevation, 232; means of aggrandisement, 232; too prac- 
 tical, 233 ; do not command reverence, 233 ; their value in 
 the nation, 233. 
 
 Proselytism will not be abandoned by any religious body, 296 ; 
 enjoined on the Church, 295. 
 
 Punishment, its chief object the exhibition of moral reprobation, 
 355 ; its secondary objects to deter and correct, 355 ; these 
 must fail without the Church, 356. 
 
 Pyramidal form of natural objects, 81. 
 
 Reformation, English, how falsely criminated, 120; not the 
 cause of the weakness of the English Church, 276 ; de- 
 stroyed the incorporations of the poor, 316. 
 
 Religion, the fate of a State which has none, 72 ; the first 
 
418 INDEX. 
 
 duty of a statesman, 275 ; by what steps the British Legis- 
 lature ceased to regard it as its first duty, 276. 
 
 Representative principle of the British constitution, 255 ; how 
 altered, 256' ; the present theory leads to bribery, 256 ; uni- 
 versal suffrage its legitimate conclusion, 260 ; extravagances 
 of the representative system how to be corrected, 263. 
 
 Resistance, civil, its consequences, 112. 
 
 Schools, how beset with religious controversy, 302 ; collegiate 
 for the poor, 392 ; for females, 397. 
 
 Science, cannot rest without ascending to theology, 5. 
 
 Sects, the position of the State between them, 279 ; senses of 
 the word, 279 ; the Church, how it differs from, 299 ; would 
 enforce religious neutrality, 293 ; render the government 
 despicable, 293. 
 
 Selfishness, its expansion the cause of society, 135. 
 
 Servitude, how affected by the latitudinarianism of the State, 
 323 ; how to be mitigated, 326 ; present state of in Eng- 
 land, 328. 
 
 Slavery, in what sense natural and right, 223 ; a child a slave 
 at his birth, 224. 
 
 Society, political, the poetry of practical life, 156. 
 
 Spiritual, difference between a spiritual and a temporal polity, 
 123 ; not separable from temporal considerations, l'i2. 
 
 State, an essential element in society, 184; its functions, 184; 
 corrective of the defects in the Monarch, 185; danger in 
 framing it, 186 ; must be independent of the Monarch, 186; 
 and yet dependent on him, 186 ; theory of analogous to 
 mysteries in Christianity, 187 ; the problem of how to be 
 solved, 188 ; the independence of the State, how prevented 
 from running into abuse, 190 ; not to be measured by rea- 
 son only, 190 ; nor by morals, 190 ; nor by vague religion, 
 191 ; but by the rule of the Church, 191 ; analysis of 
 its divisions, 2U0 ; qualifications of the citizens who form 
 it, 203 ; how these qualifications are to be discerned, 203 ; 
 not exclusively either by the sovereign, or the people, or 
 the clergy, 203 ; how marked out by Providence, 207 ; its 
 evils remedied by the Church, 120; its disorders a disci- 
 pline for the Church, 125 ; how it differs from the Church, 
 123 ; how to be formed, 241 ; to be evolved from the king, 
 241 ; its duties, 266, 268 ; its conscience, 266; its duties, 
 how limited, 268 ; by what steps it came to disregard reli- 
 gion, 278 ; its fate when it abandons apostolical tradition, 
 28 1 ; its position as educating without a creed, 304 ; its duty 
 with regard to the marriage of Dissenters, 320 ; criminality 
 of in its present system of incorporations, 337 ; its duty 
 
INDEX. 419 
 
 with regard to religion at present in its colonies. 343 ; its 
 duty to other nations, 34() ; may not presume to undertake 
 the offices of the Church, 3()1 : restricted use of the word, 
 90 ; its analogy to the relation of the wife in the family, flO ; 
 its relation to the Monarch, 91 ; analogy to the material 
 world, 91 ; to the moral world, 92 ; to the intellectual 
 world, 92 ; to the problem of free agency and fate, 93 ; to 
 be in harmony with, but subordinated to the Monarch, 
 97. 
 
 Statesman, his duty to witness to the external and divine insti- 
 tution of the Church, 3(>2 ; to maintain the existing privi- 
 leges of the Church, 363 ; to extend to it the privileges 
 possessed by dissenting bodies, 363 ; to take high ground, 
 370 ; his duty and interest to maintain the peculiar doctrines 
 of the Church, 198 ; his duties, 275. 
 
 Suffering, a necessary condition for ruling and doing good, 
 2o9 ; the long-suffering of the Deity, 258. 
 
 Suffrage, universal, consequence of the modern theory of repre- 
 sentation, 260 ; cannot be restricted by education imder it, 
 261. 
 
 Tanistry, the law of, why objectionable, 105. 
 
 testimony, the foundation of, experience, 7. 
 
 Tithes, 3o9. 
 
 Tradition, apostolical, consequences of its abandonment by the 
 State, 280 ; the fact not difficult of research, 286 ; the evi- 
 dence of civil rights, 285 ; if valid to prove the Bible, valid 
 to prove the system of the Church, 3U1. 
 
 Truth, dependent on an external standard, 283 ; that standard 
 in the Divine mind, 283 ; made known to us through the 
 senses, 283 ; perceived through tradition by the evidence 
 of the senses, 283 ; religious, when abandoned by the states- 
 man, his criminality, 289 ; how to be asserted by the states- 
 man, 294 ; definite truth, the condition of union in belief, 
 294. 
 
 Understanding, a logical faculty distinct from instinctive rea- 
 son, 7 ; cannot rest satisfied with plurality or mystery, 31 
 its business in classification and generalisation, 82. 
 
 Unity, the law of, proclaimed by the voice of philosophy, 16 
 inexplicable to the vulgar, 16 ; the essence of a State, 19 
 the law of reason, 31 ; the object of the logical faculty, 31 
 contrivances to preserve it exclusively in ^tates, 37 ; how 
 to be reconciled with plurality, 55 ; in society produced by 
 the surrender of all wills to one, 83 ; cannot exist without 
 plurality, 294; cannot be produced by latitudinarianisra, 
 294. . 
 
420 INDEX. 
 
 Usurpation, duties of a Christian under, 113. 
 Voluntary principle, 368. 
 
 Wealth, a power of accumulating it should be opened to all, 
 226 ; when safe, 226 ; represents and confers power, 226 ; 
 honourable wealth to be distinguished from dishonourable, 
 226. 
 
 Wife, the relation of, 57. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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