Note 240.1 — CHRISTIANITY.

On the relation of Christian Ethics to civil Authority, on the one hand, and to the sacred right of Liberty on the other, much has been written, but most frequently by partisans too interested to be capable of an impartial judgment. The wisdom of the original preachers of the Gospel was in nothing more manifest than in the care with which they avoided mixing themselves up in any way with the social and political questions of the hour; while at the same time they did not omit to enunciate principles and to exhibit conduct opposed equally to the servility which despotism demands and the licence in which democracy delights. It would be easy to marshal forth an array of texts by which the doctors of divine right on the one hand, and the preachers of the sacred right of insurrection on the other, have endeavoured to enlist the Saviour of mankind as a recruit in the internecine wars which they have waged. But however Churchman and Puritan might expound and denounce, the serene face of the Son of Mary looked always strange through the smoke and sulphur of such struggles; his name was invoked on both sides with most vehement protestation; but it was difficult all the while for the impartial spectator to perceive that he was part of the battle; he seemed always to belong to both sides, or to neither. But sensible men of all parties have at length become convinced that to attempt to stamp the name of Christ as the special patron of our little partisan cliques and warfares is as absurd as to expect that the sun should come down from heaven and confine his illumination to our private parlours. As for purely secular parties, it is quite certain that both the extremes which divide the political world are equally remote from the spirit of moderation and toleration which is the very atmosphere that Christian charity breathes. Absolute despotism, or the unlimited authority of one man over his fellows, is a condition of things which, as Aristotle remarks, could only be natural and legitimate in cases where the one absolute ruler happened to be both the strongest and the best man in the community; but to acknowledge as absolute rulers those who have no authority for their rule but their own imperious will, and are always more likely to be the worst than the best members of the society to which they belong, is manifestly as directly opposed to the sense of righteousness in the Christian code of morals as to the dictate of reason in the Greek. On the other hand, the right of the mere numerical majority to rule, which is the characteristic principle of pure democracy, never can be admitted by a religion which teaches that the majority are bad, and that we ought not to follow a multitude to do evil. The equality which belongs to all Christians is not so much an equal right to rule as an equal duty to obey; an equal right only to participate in those privileges and obligations which belong to an independent human being, not a mere chattel, as a member of a moral society called the Church, and of a legal society called the State. The Christian rejoices indeed in his liberty; but it is not in the liberty to do what he pleases, much less in the liberty of a majority to outbawl and to overbear a minority by the mere power of numbers. He is free from the pollution of sin, from the slavery of the senses, from the forms of a cumbrous ritualism, and the exactions of a lordly priesthood; but he is not free, and never dreams of being free, from the homage which vice ought always to pay to virtue, from the natural subordination that ignorance owes to intelligence, and from the sacred authority of law. Here Christ and Socrates agree. “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers.” If laws are bad or impolitic, the guilt of their viciousness lies at the door of those who made them, or who gave themselves no concern to have them altered. But so long as they are laws let them be obeyed. The first duty of the Christian is obedience to all existing laws, respect for all established authorities, and a reverence generally for those gradations of dignity and excellence into which the fair proportions of the social architecture have been piled. Generally speaking he is not an eager politician; the inspiration of large human love which possesses his breast tenders him incapable of entering warmly into those party struggles in Church and State with which large human love has seldom much to do. He can neither despise the lowly majority of his fellow-men to please the oligarch, nor trample upon the intelligent minority to please the democrat. He has no great appetite for power; he does not covet office; he will not intrigue for place; he will not grasp the sceptre of civic rule with a forward hand, but wield it when it naturally falls to him with firmness as respects others, and with a holy jealousy as respects himself; and he will rejoice with trembling then chiefly when the victorious car of his party friends is riding over the prostrate army of his foes. Ambition is with him the love of usefulness, not the love of power; he comprehends the spirit which dictated the answer of a pious English clergyman when he refused the cure of a parish which was offered him, for the singular reason that “the emoluments were too large and the duty was too small;”[240.1] and he fears the dangers which may flow from the abuse of authority more than he desires the pleasures which are connected with its use.