Note 407 — XI. CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS.

Law, Third letter to the Bishop of Bangor, second edition, 1762, p. 66.

[408] Martensen, Christian Ethics, special part, second division, Eng. Transl. p. 98.

[409] Church, Oxford House Papers, No. xvii, The Christian Church, p. 10.

[410] Holland, Creed and Character, first edition, 1887, p. 156.

[411] xix. 17.

[412] i. 6.

[413] Immortale Dei.

[414] Aug. De Civ. Dei, xix. 14, 15.

[415] S. T. Coleridge, Church and State, edited by H. N. Coleridge, 1839, P. 24.

[416] A. C. Bradley, 'Aristotle's Conception of the State,' in Hellenica, 1880, p. 243.

[417] 'Metu coercet,' Aug. De lib. Arb. i. 15.

[418] Compare Aug. De lib. Arb. i. 5.

[419] Art. on 'Future Retribution,' Church Quarterly, July, 1888.

[420] S. Matt. v. 48.

[421] Eph. iv. 13.

[422] S. Matt. v. 5, 11, 39, 40.

[423] S. Matt. xxii. 21.

[424] Rom. xiii. 1-10. Compare S. Peter's teaching in 1 S. Pet. ii. 13-17.

[425] Ad Scap. II.

[426] Oratio in Auxentium de basilicis tradendis.

[427] Aug. De Civ. Dei, v. 17, but cp. De bono Conj. 16, for a recognition of the possibility of the unjust use of legitimate power.

[428] Hom. xxiii. on Rom. xiii. 1.

[429] Tyrannicide was defended by some of the more extreme opponents of the temporal power, like John of Salisbury, the secretary of Thomas Becket (Policraticus VIII. 17, 'Tyrannus pravitatis imago; plerumque etiam occidendus'). But it was condemned by the sounder judgment of Aquinas (De Reg. Princ. I. 6, 'Hoc apostolicae doctrinae non congruit').

[430] Thomas Aquinas, Comm. Sent. XLIV. q. 2 a. 2; q. 1 a. 2. In Comm. Pol. v. 1 § 2 he goes so far as to make Insurrection in certain cases a duty.

[431] Janet, Histoire de la Science politique, third edition, 1887, vol. i. p. 330.

[432] Hooker, Eccl. Pol. VIII. ii. 5, 9. Cp. I. x. 4.

[433] Eccl. Pol. VIII. ii. 11.

[434] Eccl. Pol. VIII. App. No. I. (ed. Keble.) Cp. I. x. 8.

[435] Acts iv. 34, 35.

[436] Especially in S. Ambrose; the passages are collected in Dubief, Essai sur les idées politiques de S. Augustin, 1859, ch. vi. S. Augustine himself opposed the obligatory Communism, advocated by Pelagianism; cp. Ep. 157 (Ed. Bened.) to Hilary, quoted by Dubief.

[437] Sen. De vita beata, 24.

[438] Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, Eng. Transl. 1883, Bk. I. ch. i. pp. 18-21, 41, 42.

[439] Pater, Marius the Epicurean, Vol. II. ch. xxii. p. 127.

[440] 1 Cor. xiii. 3 (R.V.).

[441] Acts xi. 26-29; cp. also Acts iv. 34, 35, quoted above.

[442] Dubief, p. 11.

[443] II. 15.

[444] Overton, Life in the English Church, 1660-1714, Ch. v.

[445] Hooker, Eccl. Pol. VIII. i. 4. In all commonwealths, things spiritual ought above temporal to be provided for. And of things spiritual, the chiefest is religion. Cp. V. i. 2.

[446] We have already shewn reasons for thinking that though no doubt the State has a great co-ordinating and regulative function in regard to human life, it is not fitted for the part of the moral guide of mankind.

[447] Dicey, Law of the Constitution, second edition, 1886, lecture ii. p. 36, 'The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English Constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.'

[448] Westcott, Social Aspects of Christianity, ch. v. p. 76.

[449] The State in its relations with the Church, p. 41.

[450] Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, Vol. II. p. 601. Answers to questions,—Scotland, Established Church.

'No appeal lies to a Civil Court in matters of discipline or on the ground of excess of punishment. But if under the form of discipline the Church Courts were to inflict Church censures (involving civil consequences) on a minister for e.g. obeying the law of the land, a question ... might be brought before the Civil Court on the ground of excess of jurisdiction. It is believed that in no case would the Civil Court entertain an appeal from a judgement of an Ecclesiastical Court on a question of doctrine, or enter on an examination of the soundness of such a judgement before enforcing its civil consequences.

'Any questions which have arisen on points of ritual ... have hitherto been decided exclusively by the Church Courts.' (A qualifying sentence follows as to possible extreme cases justifying, on the failure to obtain redress from the General Assembly, an appeal to the Civil Court.)

[451] Report of Eccl. Courts Commission, Vol. II. p. 605. Answers to questions,—France.

'The State remains lay, and does not interpose, except when the acts of the clergy are offences at Common Law, or when there is a cas d'abus in which either the public order or individual interests are injured. In which case the Council of State is summoned at the instance of the Government, or on the complaint of the citizens, to repress abuses and annul the acts of abuse (actes d'abus) on the part of the clergy.

'To recapitulate, the minister, as citizen, has to submit to the Common Law; as priest, he belongs entirely to the jurisdiction of the Church, with which the State does not interfere, and with which it has not to interfere, for it is solely in the domain of conscience.'

[452] Martensen, Christian Ethics, special part, second division, English Translation, p. 100.

[453] Cp. Aug. De Civ. Dei, v. 24, of Christian Emperors, 'we think them happy if they remember themselves to be men.'

[454] Rev. xxi. 24 (R.V.).

[455] Aug. Ep. ad Marcellinum, 138, 15.