INTRODUCTION.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF TOLERATION AS APPLIED TO

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION.

AMIDST the variety of opposing sentiments, by which all classes of persons have been so long divided on the question of catholic emancipation, it has too frequently happened that the first and leading principles of toleration, which are the professed basis of all reformed churches, have been overlooked. There are, it is true, minor shades of difference, relative to the practical application of general rules, even among men of liberal views; but, at the same time, there exist certain established maxims, held sacred by every friend to religious liberty, and by which we must direct our progress, in the investigation of this important subject.

The first of these leading truths is, we apprehend, the right of private judgment in all matters of religion. In other words, that every man possesses the unalienable right of forming his own opinion on all subjects of religious belief, uncontrolled by human authority, whether of individuals, or of the state. The only legitimate end of all civil government is the well being of society; the establishment and preservation of the civil rights of its subjects; and the guardianship of those laws which affect the conduct of individuals. Even in the punishment of crimes, by the civil magistrate, they are regarded rather in the light of offences against society, than as violations of the divine law. In the latter

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sense, they are the objects of a higher and more awful tribunal. But religion is a personal concern. As an affair of conscience, it regards man in relation to his Creator alone; and to him only is he accountable for the articles of his faith, and the mode of his worship. Actions, therefore, and not opinions, are the proper objects of human legislation; and whenever civil laws interfere with the latter, they overstep their proper boundary, and assume what is, in fact, the prerogative of the Deity alone.

From the foregoing premises we think we may adduce another maxim; viz. that every individual, whatever may be the religious articles of his belief, is entitled to a full participation in all the privileges of the state, so long as he continues obedient to the laws of that community of which he is a member. It has been well observed by a contemporary writer, that "there is no principle whatever, in the nature of things, which can justly give to any man, or any order of men, a right to forbid to others the holding or promulgating of any religious sentiment, or the exercise of any form of religious worship, which is not inconsistent with the peace and order of society." And with equal justice has it been inferred, that "the right which has been claimed by human governments, for so many ages, to tolerate or forbid, had its origin in the assumption of power, and not in the just exercise of it; and that the continuance of that assumption, under the name of toleration, is not sanctioned by the original laws of our Creator."

We now arrive at a third maxim, viz. that the infliction of any punishment, or the imposition of any disability, upon any individual, on account of his religious creed, is an unjust infringement upon the natural or social rights of that individual, and is, in its essence, persecution. Indeed, if we once admit the authority of the civil power in matters. of a religious nature, it will be impossible to set bounds to that power; to measure its extent, or to define its limits. Allow but the lawfulness of coercion, as to one article of

belief, or one mode of worship, and no reason can be given why the same authority should not extend itself to a second and a third, till, at length, each article of religious faith, and even the minutest forms of worship, might become the subject of magisterial prescription, and be enforced by the terrors of law. In like manner, give to the civil ruler the power of depriving the subject of any natural or social privilege, be it what it may, on a religious account, and the principle of persecution will be generated, and a door to its admission opened, even in its most hideous forms. These remarks extend, obviously, to every species of religious coercion, proceeding as well from the ecclesiastical as the civil tribunal. In short, if our premises are just, it will follow, that whenever human authority, of whatever kind, or in whatever degree, interposes itself in matters of conscience, it mistakes its province, and the reign of spiritual tyranny commences.

But the absurdity of the principle against which we contend is little less obvious than its injustice. To subject the understanding to the control of human laws, in its search after, or reception of truth, is in fact, to invest the legislator, or the judge, with the attribute of infallibility. For, if the power to whom we are amenable be itself liable to deception, there is a manifest inconsistency in awarding to it the prerogative to punish. But to whom shall we concede this high attribute? Civil laws have their origin in the voice of the people; they can prove no supernatural derivation. Ecclesiastical councils and tribunals exhibit, to our view at least, no signs of divine communications. Successive ages have been distinguished by most important alterations in national forms of religion; creeds and systems the most varying, and even opposite, have been alternately imposed and anathematized; while under each decision of the civil or ecclesiastical ruler, penalties have been annexed to the disobedient. Equally futile, too, as absurd, is the attempt to coerce the understanding, by the fetters of law. Persecution, it has often been remarked,

may make men hypocrites, but it can never render them sincere believers. The operations of reason cannot be controlled by any methods of coercion; nor can the natural influence of truth be counteracted by the terrors of suffering. Simple, however, and almost self-evident, as are these principles, it is strange how slow the minds of men have been to perceive their force, and in what a different direction, in all ages of the world, not only political governments, but professedly christian churches, have shaped their proceedings. No sooner had religion in its most pure and perfect form been developed upon the earth, than the sword of Herod, and the terrors of the Jewish sanhedrim, were employed to crush it. During the ten fiery persecutions which marked the first ages of its history, the powers of imperial Rome arrayed themselves against the meek and humble confessors of the christian faith, and sought its overthrow by every mode of barbarous and unrelenting hostility. In a succeeding age, when, after the conversion of Constantine, christianity had become the established religion of the empire, and a spiritual domination sprung up in the bosom of the church, the professors of this mild religion, forgetting its most distinguishing characteristic, and in direct opposition to the precepts of its founder, endeavoured to extirpate doctrines held as heretical, by corporeal punishments. Hence arose the persecutions of papal Rome, equal in virulence to those of her pagan predecessor. And when the venerable fathers of the reformation had broken the shackles of popery, even their vigorous understandings perceived but dimly the genuine features of christian liberty. Hence the conscientious Calvin was not guiltless of the blood of Servetus; and, in our own country, we see the pious Cranmer persuading, and almost compelling the tender-hearted Edward to sign the death-warrant of the maid of Kent. From the fathers of the English church, the spirit of intolerance unhappily descended to her sons; and we lament to see protestants turning persecutors, and episcopalians enjoining conformity to a religion established

by law, and visiting with paius, and penalties those who conscientiously seceded from its communion. But the roots of this baleful principle are still more widely ramified; for even among nonconformists themselves, whose very principles, one might suppose, would ensure the practice of toleration, history presents us with the affecting spectacle of different sects persecuting and abhorring each other, and wanting, perhaps, but the sword of civil power to give a practical edge to their anathemas. It was not till long after the light of the refor mation had dawned on our island, that, in the times of the commonwealth, and we believe among the despised independents, a sect arose who truly understood and inculcated the first principle of religious liberty, viz. that every kind of persecution for conscience sake, is adverse to the spirit of the gospel; a tenet which was then viewed with suspicion, as dangerous, and by many conceived to be criminal.

At the time of the revolution, however, the genius of civil and religious liberty began to emerge more clearly from the darkness which had so long shrouded it, and the existing government appeared to be, in some degree, awake to the absurdity of endeavouring to bind the conscience by human laws. Hence it was thought necessary to provide some remedy against the practical effect of the laws then in force, and the shackles of penal statutes were first relaxed by the toleration act. From that period, successive governments have made fresh innovations on the rigour of the statute books; particularly during the last reign, when several noble acts, conceived in the true spirit of religious freedom, received the sanction of the legislature. At length the period arrived, which was destined to complete the triumph of liberal principles; and in the recent abolition of the test and corporation laws, and the adoption of that wise and salutary measure, by which a numerous body of British subjects have just felt themselves emancipated from the shackles of civil disabilities, we have seen an enlightened parliament and a beneficent sovereign put the last hand to this grand