| | | | It is less necessary just now to offer any elaborate apology for | the seemingly heterogeneous combination contained in the above | heading, than it would have been some ten or fifteen years ago. | That

"Religion has nothing to do with Politics"

~~ | once familiarly admitted, by Liberals especially, almost as a | truism ~~ is fast dying out as a paradox; and men are coming to | see that Religion has something ~~ much ~~ | everything to do with Politics. All our great | political questions are, in fact, daily running more and more into | religious questions. In Ireland, religion is ~~ what, indeed, it | long has been, but perhaps is now more than at any previous time | ~~ the chief element of the

"chief difficulty."

In | Scotland, religion has recently effected a dislocation and break-up | of political parties, the full consequences of which yet remain | to be developed. In England ~~ not to speak of the Church-rate | and Church-court questions, ~~ the first and greatest of all our | national interests, Education, is at a dead-lock, because religious | differences stop the way. All our politics are every day | becoming more religious, and our religion more political. | Free-trade orators quote Scripture like clergymen, and Free-trade | sermons are preached from pulpits. The Anti-Corn-Law League | receives aid from a Dissenting Ministers' Anti-Corn-Law | Conference; and the struggle between the ecclesiastical and the | dissenting interests. The leaders of the Complete Suffrage | movement are leaders also in the Anti-State-Church movement. | Again, if Free-trade has been taken up almost as a Dissenters' | question, the Ten-hours' bill has been made a sort of Church | question. We have seen the clergy of Leeds and Huddersfield | agitate side by side with Messrs Ferrand and Oastler; and that | very high-church divine, Dr. Hook, is of opinion (in which we | are very much of his way of thinking), that a clergyman is in his | proper place, when taking the chair at a working-men's meeting. | Chartism is a religion, and founds its churches; and Socialism | takes the benefit of the Act of Toleration, as a Protestant | Dissenting sect of Rational Religionists, and gets its lecturers and | missionaries licensed as Protestant Dissenting Ministers. | Puseyism is a political, as much as a religious movement. This | curious revival of the old ecclesiastical Christianity, was, in point | of fact, a re-action against Schedule A, and certain of its | anticipated consequences; and already is the theology of the | Oxford Professor of Hebrew respectably represented in | Parliament, where it forms the bond of a growing political party | ~~ a

"New Generation"

of British statesmen ~~ a | senatorial Young England. | In the tendency which these signs of the times variously indicate, | to a nearer connexion of religion with politics, there is nothing | that need surprise us. The connexion is rooted in the nature of | things. Whatever we may think of the alliance of Church and | State, the alliance of Religion and Politics is one of indisputable | legitimacy. Every religion, every mode of religious belief and | opinion, is more or less directly related to the social moralities; | and laws and institutions are the organs through which they are | the soul. Every theory of Divine Providence and government | draws after it, rather includes in it, a corresponding theory of | human destination; therefore, of human duties; therefore, of | human rights; therefore, of the civil and social arrangements | under which the destination may best be attained, and the rights | especially holds good of such a religion as the Christian ~~ so | practical, so human, so rich and full in its every-day moralities. | As Episcopacy, Presbyterianism, Puseyism, Puritanism, | Catholicism, Quakerism, Benthamism have, each of them, their | | politics ~~ have, each of them, a natural affinity to certain | political ideas and maxims ~ so we propose to inquire what are | the politics of that which was before them all, and will survive | them all, the religion of the New Testament. | By this we do not mean to ask, what form of Government, in | Church or State, does the New Testament authoritatively declare | to be the best? For we are not aware that the New Testament | declares anything about the | matter. In the obvious, superficial sense of the word, the New | Testament has no politics. The Founder | of Christianity and his first followers did not interfere with forms | and modes of civil government, otherwise than to teach (in | opposition to the popular judaical fanaticism, which refused | tribute to Caesar, on the ground that legitimacy and divine right | were limited to the house of David) that all governments, which | answer the common purposes of social union, are equally | legitimate and of divine right ~~ for

"the powers that be are | ordained of God."

They contented themselves with | announcing broad and everlasting moral truths, destined, in the | progress of time, gradually to regenerate society, and remould | governments and polities into their own likeness. Neither shall | we now inquire, what do New Testament texts say as to the | proper objects and limits (if any) of civil allegiance? Whether | the Quaker interpretation of

"Resist not evil,"

and the | Tory interpretation of

"Be subject to the higher powers," |

be sound or unsound, are points which we leave to the | solution of theological exegesis. With any question of | controverted texts and dogmas we have here no concern. Nor do | we undertake the task of constructing from New Testament texts | a systematic confession of political faith, or code of political | morals; for we are not aware that the New Testament affords | data for anything | of the sort. It would, in truth, be wonderful if it did. All | the circumstances of our civilisation differ so widely from those | of the age and generation to which the gospel was first | promulgated, that the letter of its records cannot be expected to | throw much direct light on the details of our political rights and | duties. With reference, for example, to those two prominent and | all-influencing elements of our present social state ~~ | Representative Institutions and the Press ~~ with all the manifold | rights and duties connected with and resulting from them, the | New Testament yields us, of course, no specific textual guidance. | Our electoral and politico-literary morality we are left to work | out for ourselves, in the light of those broad principles of social | duty which constitute the essence of the Christian ethics. The | New Testament is so far from teaching politics systematically, | that it leaves even the question of private | property an open question, ~~ the earlier precedents of the | Church seeming to favour community of goods, its subsequent | history indicating the legitimacy, or at least permissibleness, of | individual appropriation. Leaving, then, all questions of texts | and textual controversy, as belonging to the theologian rather | than the political moralist, we shall simply inquire, What great | general truths in the philosophy of social morals, ~~ what ideas | and principles having a political bearing, ~~ are consecrated by | the general tone and tenor of the volume which Christians revere | as their rule of faith and practice? What moral lessons may the | politician learn from that vast fact in the economy of Providence, | that stupendous spiritual revolution, whose opening scenes the | books of the New Testament disclose? | , says Novalis, in words which frequent quotation has | rendered familiar to us, . We believe that this utterance | of high-flown

"German mysticism,"

as some worthy | people call it, is a piece of as sound and sober truth as ever was | spoken. The Christian religion, taken from the most general | point of view from which we can regard it, ~~ as a great moral | and spiritual fact in the history of the world, ~~ consecrates and | sanctifies those principles from which democracy most naturally | springs, on which it most securely rests, by which human rights | are most effectually vindicated, and which the tyrants and | oppressors of mankind most heartily detest. | Thus, Christianity consecrates the principle of | appealing directly to the common people on the very | highest and deepest questions of human interest. The gospel | treats the popular intellect with respect and friendliness. There is | nothing esoteric in its doctrines or spirit. , ~~ is the | mandate of its beneficent Founder. It recognizes no aristocracy | of caste or class, of birth or office, ~~ no aristocracy of intellect | even: it

"honours all men,"

by addressing itself to | faculties and feelings which all men in common possess. That | is adduced by Jesus as one of the most distinctive signs | of his divine mission: and it is this, | more than | else, which constitutes the gospel a | great fact, ~~ the greatest of facts, ~~ in the philosophy of the | Right of Man. This preaching of a gospel to the poor assumes | that the poor have faculties for the appreciation of the | profoundest of moral truths; that there is nothing too good to be | given to them; that the enlightening of their understandings, the | awakening of their feelings, the guiding of their aspirations to | spiritual beauty, truth, and good, is a work worthy of the highest | order of intelligence. The Christian religion is the loftiest | wisdom descending, without any parade of condescension, to | commune with the deepest ignorance, ~~ lifting up its voice, not | in the schools of learning and science, but in the highways of | human intercourse, in the very streets and market-places. Here, | we take it, is the Education question settled, once for all, on the | highest authority. The old Tory anti-education clamour about the | danger of raising poor people's minds above their station in life, | is rebuked by the example of the inspired Teacher of the world. | For, the sort of knowledge on which this dangerous tendency is | most obviously chargeable, the knowledge which most | powerfully raises men's minds above the level of the vulgar | working world, is given freely and without reserve to all. Surely, | | if the doctrines of the Christian theology are not too stimulating a | nutriment for common minds, neither is chemistry, nor geology, | nor poetry, nor mathematics. The whole circle of the arts and | sciences is, we apprehend, less calculated to raise poor people's | minds above the station of life in which it has pleased Providence | to place them, than is the disclosure of mysteries, into which, as | we are told, . | The gospel is, then, an appeal to the many, the millions, the | common people; assumes a capacity in the common people | receptive of the deepest and weightiest of moral truths. It is | more than this. It is an appeal to the many against the few, ~~ to | the people against their rulers . Such, | taken historically, is the most obvious external aspect of the | public preaching of Jesus. It was stirring-up of the soul of the | Hebrew commonalty into protest and spiritual revolt against a | vicious ecclesiastical government. It was an endeavour to create | in Palestine an enlightened public opinion, a pure and earnest | public morality, adverse to the influence of the constituted | authorities, and to the permanence of the existing order of things. | That it was infinitely more than this, ~~ that this politico-moral | feature of the teachings of Jesus was by no means the whole, nor | even the chief part, of their significance, ~~ we have, of course, | no intention to deny. Still, it was this: | to say that Christianity does present this aspect, among others, is | simply to state an historical fact. Jesus of Nazareth taught the | Jewish people, with the utmost freedom and plainness, a morality | subversive of the influence of their rulers; taught them to distrust | those rulers as

"blind,"

and to scorn them as

| "hypocrites."

Here, then, we have another great political | truth, resting on the highest authority, and exemplified in the | most illustrious of precedents. The gospel consecrates the | principle of moral-force agitation. It recognizes the right and | duty of insurrection, ~~ the insurrection, that is, of the heart and | understanding against hypocrisy and falsehood, ~ though the | hypocrisy and falsehood sit in the very seat of Moses, and are | environed with the prestige of antiquity | and legitimacy. It keeps no terms, except those of truth, with | consecrated turpitude, and legitimate old-established iniquity. It | brings human authorities, the most reverend and time-honoured, | ~~ human institutions, the most securely hedged round by | tradition, popular veneration, and the use and wont of ages, to the | test of eternal and divine moralities, proclaiming that every tree | not of God's planting shall be rooted up. It speaks the plainest | truths about public men in the plainest way. , | , , , , ~~ such is the dialect in | which the New Testament speaks of corrupt and unprincipled | rulers. The spirit of the book is that of antagonism to existing | ideas and established authorities. The first preaching of the | gospel drove constituted authorities mad with rage; scared a | guilty tetrarch, and made a Roman governor tremble; and its | written page denounces the oppressions and frauds of

"rich | men"

of the landlord class, in a tone which now-a-days | would be thought to savour of the League, or even the Charter. | What, precisely, may be the meaning of , we do not | here undertake to say: but the meaning of this and similar texts | clearly is not that they to whom | Providence has given the power of instructing the minds and | stirring the hearts of their fellow-men, are to shrink from | denouncing public immoralities, and agitating against public | wrongs. Never was a greater mistake than that which is made | when despots and aristocracies encourage poor people to read the | Bible, in the hope of quieting them down under oppression. For | any such purpose the Bible is about the unfittest book in all | literature. Whenever the Bible is read with the understanding | and the heart, it will strengthen men's sense of right, and quicken | their sensibilities to wrong ~~ sanctify what tyrants call

| sedition,"

by the example of a long line of agitators of the | prophet and apostle class ~~ and consecrate, as religion, a sturdy, | defiant opposition to all manner of Pharaohs, Ababs, Herods, | Pilates, and Chief Priests. | The Politics of the New Testament are | anti-hierarchical . The whole book is an emphatic proclamation | of religious equality; not that mere equality of sect with sect | which seems to be at present our current interpretation of this |

"peculiar doctrine of the gospel,"

but the equality of | man with man. The Christian religion knows nothing of human | priesthoods ~~ other than the priesthood that is common to all | good men and true, who render to their Maker the sacrifice of | worthy deeds springing out of honest hearts. Not to a select and | episcopally-ordained few, but to

"strangers scattered | abroad,"

does the gospel address the honourable title of a | . Christianity broke down the old priestly monopoly ~~ | Jewish and heathen ~~ and made every man

"king and priest | unto God"

on his own account. It neither recognizes nor | constitutes any sacerdotal caste, any spiritual aristocracy, | (Episcopalian or Presbyterian,) any order of men standing in | ex-officio relations to Deity. It makes the | relation of man to God individual and immediate. The | Christianity that lifts a mitred front in courts and parliaments is | not the Christianity of Christ. Uppermost rooms at feasts, chief | seats in synagogues, and all the other great and small prized of | ecclesiastical ambition ~~ including the

"Rabbi, Rabbi," |

(or, as we phrase it, Very Reverend, Right Reverend, Most | Reverend,) ~~ are discarded and disowned by Him whose | kingdom is not of this world. Marvellous it is, how, not the spirit | only, but the very letter of the New Testament, is set at nought by | our modern priesthoods. Christ said, in that grandly-awful | which closed the series of his | public teachings, : yet , .

"Right | Reverend Father in God,"

is the style and title of modern | Christian Episcopacy. Why do not they, for very shame's sake, | score out the text at once, as an heretical interpolation? | The gospel is a consecration of the principle | | and spirit of Protestantism; of the | principle and spirit of free inquiry in matters of religious belief, | of individual earnestness in moral conduct, of progressive reform | in social institutions. Christianity makes no account of | legitimacy, antiquity, or majorities. It is a protest for the | practical spiritual needs of,

"the hour that now is,"

| against the tyranny of traditions inherited from the past. Such a | thing as the fastening of the creed of one generation on the faith | of all succeeding ones, ~~ | hedging round pulpits and university chairs with subscription to | dead men's articles of belief, (though the articles should happen | to be all true,) is proceeding utterly opposed to its free and | onward spirit. Christianity is a protest for the practical utilities | of human nature and life, against the mechanical, ceremonial | righteousness that exalts the means above the end, makes man | the creature and slave of institutions, instead of their lord and | master, and would have even withered hands and sightless eyes | remain as they are, until the Sabbath of Mosses has had its due. | How noble, and yet how simple ~~ simple as moral truth ever is | ~~ is that utterance of Christ's, . This has been in the | world these eighteen hundred years; but we are not come up with | it yet. If this sentence happened to be, not in the New Testament, | but in some parliamentary speech of Mr. Roebuck's, or Mr. | Hume's, many religious people would be dreadfully shocked, and | we should never hear the last of the

"blasphemy"

and |

"irreligion,"

the daring anti-Christianity, of the | sentiment. The gospel is a protest for spiritual equality and | brotherhood, against the overbearing assumptions and tyrannous | impertinences of a priestly aristocracy ~~ a protest for individual | judgment, against sacerdotal and ecclesiastical authority. It is a | true non-conformist's gospel. Ecclesiastics may talk ever so | learnedly and plausible about the incapacity of the unlettered | multitude to judge for themselves of the high questions of | religion ~~ about the need of adhesion to a centre of spiritual | unity, of docile submission to the | authority of a regularly-constituted | and legitimately-ordained clergy: they may even | quote texts in support of their claims, which the unskilled in | Hebrew and Greek cannot exactly explain. But the broad fact | remains ~~ stubbornly impervious to all the heaviest artillery of | sacerdotal logic ~~ that the Christian gospel is (historically) | rooted and grounded in antagonism to authority; that on the

| "authority"

principle it never could have got standing-room | in the world; that all the authorities which men then reverenced | ~~ the authority of the Jewish priesthood, the authority of the | heathen priesthood, the authority of the philosophers and | literati ~~ were confederated to crush it. | Non-conformity, dissent, free inquiry, individual conviction, | mental independence, are for ever consecrated by the religion of | the New Testament, as the breath of its own life, the conditions | of its own existence on the earth. The Book is a direct transfer of | human allegiance in things spiritual, from the civil and | ecclesiastical powers to the judgment and conscience of the | individual. With the New Testament in his hands, and a high, | honest purpose in his heart, no man need ever be afraid of

| "heretic," "schismatic," "sedition-monger," "babbler," | "blasphemer," "pestilent fellow,"

and other such missiles of | the vocabulary of insolence dressed in authority. The gospel | itself was once a heresy, a schism, a sedition, and a blasphemy, | and would have been crushed in the cradle, if authority and hard | words were arguments. The Christian religion is thus the

| "highest fact"

in the philosophy of that highest of human | rights ~ Liberty of Prophesying. | The gospel is

"the root of all democracy."

Not that it | specifically inculcates the overthrow of oligarchical and despotic | governments, and the establishment of republics in their room; | but it announces principles, it breathes a spirit, the universal | prevalence of which would at once make oligarchy and | despotism moral impossibilities. By its doctrine of human | equality and brotherhood it ignores all social distinctions, except | the immutable natural distinctions between wisdom and folly, | righteousness and iniquity. It denounces all mammon-worship, | and title-worship. Its social spirit is that of a republican | simplicity, equality and self-respect. It recognizes no aristocracy | but that of personal goodness, tested by social usefulness: | . It is a very levelling gospel. Its early triumphs consisted, | as the apostle eloquently boasts, in the foolish, and weak, and | base things of the world confounding the wise, and mighty, and | honoured. The history of Christianity is that of a revolution | which began with what cabinet-ministers and bishops call | , and mounted upward and upward till it scaled and captured | the throne of the Caesars. The raising of valleys, and laying low | of hills, was the burden of the prophetic announcement of the | gospel's approach; and the , which angels announced as | its final aim, can only be realized when shall be | established universally on the basis of political justice. | The politics of the New Testament are in direct antagonism to the | old heathen politics. These sacrificed the individual to the state; | treated the state as everything, | and the individual (except in his relations to the state) as nothing. | In Christianity, the individual is | everything; the state ~~ otherwise than as an aggregate of | individuals ~ nothing. National wealth, power, greatness, glory, | manufacturing interest, commercial interest, agricultural interest, | colonial and shipping interest, splendour and dignity of the | crown, glorious constitution, and the like, ~~ all these are | nothing, in the politics of Christianity, except as representative | of, or conducive to, the physical land moral wellbeing of | individual men, women, and children: all are worse than | nothing, if the happiness and virtue of individuals are to be | sacrificed to their support. Not as a mere

"member of | society,"

not as a mere fractional part of a vast and | multitudinous whole called

"community,"

does | Christianity take notice of the individual, but as an immortal | child of | | God, having his own life to live, his own character to form, his | own individuality of develop, his own soul to save. How deep | this doctrine goes! It is the most revolutionary thing we have. It | implies the radical falsity and wickedness of all social | arrangements which demand the sacrifice of individual intellect, | morality, and spiritual health, to the abstraction called Society. | Under the Christian charter of human rights and code of human | duties, man ~~ every man ~~ has a destiny of his own to work | out, a nature of his own to develop, up to its highest possibility of | health and strength; and whatever obstructs him in this, | Christianity implicitly condemns. , ~~ is the plea of the | Hebrew liberator for the emancipation of his race; and never | were the rights of man advocated on a broader ground. The | words are Jewish, but the spirit is Christian. Political | enfranchisement, as the condition preliminary of a true and entire | service of God; civil rights, as needful to intellectual and moral | health; social justice, as the atmosphere in which the virtues and | charities best grow, ~~ there is a principle here wide enough to | cover the whole field of political reform. The aim of Christianity | is the perfecting of the individual in whatsoever things are true, | honest, just, virtuous, and lovely; and whatever, in social custom | or legislative enactment, hinders the accomplishment of this aim, | is unchristian and anti-christian. | Here is the condemnation of slavery: and of some other things | beside. The question,

"Can a dependent elector be, in | mental honesty and self-respect, a perfect Christian man?"

| contains the core of the Ballot controversy. The question,

| "Can a clergyman, with his bread, and his children's bread, | contingent on his unfaltering profession of belief in a particular | set of theological opinions, faithfully discharge the Christian | duty of proving all things?"

is decisive as to the morality of | enforced subscription to creeds and articles. The question,

| "Can a soldier, whose trade is homicide by word of command, | whose profession is the abnegation of moral responsibility for the | most responsible act a human creature can commit, be a living | example of the Christian virtues of benevolence and justice?" |

settles the anti-christianity of standing armies. The | question,

"Can a grossly ignorant man be, at all points, a | thorough Christian man?"

is a short argument for National | Education. And the question

"Can a man, woman, or child, | that is over-worked, under-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clad, enjoy | intellectual and moral health, realize the spiritual development | contemplated by the Christian gospel?"

brings religion into | the whole of our social economics. The right of the individual to | the means of spiritual life and growth, to leisure, rest, recreation, | physical and domestic comfort, as the conditions of his soul's | health, ~~ if this be not instantly decisive of the question of the | Ten-hours' Bill, it is only because some other and nearer | questions stand for the present, between us and that: and because | there would be no Christianity in legislating to make bad worse. | But there the question is, waiting for us, to be settled when those | other things shall have been put out of the way. That is not a | Christian state of society, which, for some millions of people, | renders the culture of the home virtues and affections little better | than a physical impossibility. The taint of anti-christianity is on | all social arrangements that hinder or abridge the spiritual growth | of human beings. | A still more delicate inquiry opens on us, in this connexion. Is | Royalty, thus tested, a Christian | institution? Looking at the manifold and sore temptations to | pride, sloth, self-indulgence, self-willedness, and | hard-heartedness, incident to a status | which hedges round, as with a sort of divinity, fallible, imperfect | (perhaps vicious and worthless) mortal; places him in artificial | and false relations to his fellow-men; blunts his human | sympathies by excluding from his ken the realities of human | action and suffering; raises him above the possibility of | anything like a free and equal | friendship, removes him out of the hearing of disagreeable truths, | softens down his vices into venial foibles, and exaggerates the | most common-place amiabilities of temper or manner into | extraordinary virtues; ~~ it seems fairly open to a question | whether the monarchical institution is one that could exist in a | thoroughly Christianized community. Has society a right, for the | sake of any mere temporal and political convenience (real or | supposed), to subject a human creature to such tremendous moral | disadvantages? The query may strike some readers as a rather | unorthodox one, but we have good episcopal authority for it. In | a sermon by the present Bishop of London, we find the sad case | of sovereigns stated in a way that cannot but awaken the keenest | sympathies, and seems calculated even to alarm the conscience | of society. After a feeling exhibition of the all-but unbearable | load of political anxieties and responsibilities that presses upon | crowned heads, the Bishop proceeds: ~~ ? | | The right reverend preacher is, it must be confessed, less happy | in his solution of the problem than in the statement of it. He tells | us plainly, it is a case for omnipotence : | ~~ . | From all which, the Bishop makes out a strong argument for | . The conclusion strikes us, however, as being much | narrower than the premises warrant and require. Have we any | right, as a Christian community, to place our rulers in such a | predicament that their salvation becomes (humanly speaking) an | impossibility, a subject for the noblest triumphs of almighty | power? ~~ is an inquiry which the episcopal reasoning | irresistibly suggests. The moral and religious grievances of the | sovereign class seem, like the physical and social grievances of | the negro-slave class, or the factory-child class, to call for some | more tangible and mundane mode of redress than

"prayer | and intercession."

Our preacher takes too desponding a | tone. He treats the royal soul as though it were already | in extremis, rejects all ordinary medical | appliances as unavailing, and has nothing to recommend for his | spiritual patient but the administration of the last rites of the | church. The writer of the above-quoted condemnation of the | monarchical institution ought, in consistency, to be, if not a | downright republican, at least a most strenuous advocate of | whatever tends to the relaxation or abandonment of an etiquette | adverse to Christian sincerity, the curtailment of prerogatives | perilous to Christian humility, and the retrenchment of a | splendour incompatible with Christian simplicity and spiritually. | Yet after all, why talk of royalty, when there is episcopacy? The | Bishop's own case is one of the hardest. Twenty thousand pounds | sterling per annum for life, with palaces, | patronage, and perquisites ~~ surely there is matter here for the | exercise of

"the duty of prayer and intercession."

What | spiritual dangers can be compared with those which , | , etcetera. | In virtue of this principle of the sacredness of | the individual, the Christian gospel is a vast regenerative, | revolutionizing force, permeating the whole structure of society | and its institutions. We are learning to feel that even the criminal | is within the scope of its operation. The

"vindictive"

| theory of punishment ~~ which sacrifices the individual to the | passions of the community ~~ is now pretty well exploded; and | the

"exemplary"

theory ~~ which sacrifices the | individual to the interests of the community ~~ its less | exclusively insisted on, than it was: we modify it with a large | admixture of the

"reformatory"

theory, in which the | individual is paramount. The feeling gains ground in society | every year, and from time to time expresses itself in legislation, | that whatever rights the criminal may have forfeited, he cannot | forfeit his right to the means of moral improvement; and that any | punishment, however well-deserved and exemplary, is | essentially defective if it be not adapted to promote (otherwise | than in the ecclesiastical-courts' fashion,) the soul's health of the | offender. That punishment which dismisses the culprit from the | world as an incurable ~~ cuts him off from all opportunity and | possibility of restoration, with the miserable mockery of a | judicial prayer that ~~ is gradually dropping into | desuetude: and society seems less and less willing to despair of | the moral amendment of those who have most deeply sinned | against it. | The Christian doctrine of human brotherhood, so nobly | enunciated by St. Paul at Athens ~~ ~~ this doctrine of | the unity of the human race, in nature, in rights, and in | destination, is a distinct condemnation of another point in the | politics of heathenism: if, indeed, it be fair to charge on the poor | heathen, vices which have been faithfully copied, with additions | and improvements, by every Christian nation under the sun. We | speak of that exaggerated and exclusive | patriotism, which treads down, without a scruple, the rights | of weaker rivals, and counts all things fair in war. On the | hackneyed objection to Christianity, that it does not inculcate | patriotism, we need not waste a word: to this sort of patriotism | ~~ whether it takes the form of military aggression, or of | diplomatic lying and chicane ~~ Christianity stands, without a | question, in strong antagonism. Of the politics of the New | Testament, a great first principle is international justice, | sincerity, and magnanimity ~~ the subordination of all mere | national interests, or supposed and seeming interests, to the one | eternal, impartial law of right. Will it be said that this is a truism, | scarcely needing a special and formal statement? Unfortunately, | the truism is not yet allowed by our rulers to pass as a truth ~~ | not even in the abstract. The present Prime Minister of this | Christian empire, which has its missionaries and its Bibles out at | the ends of the earth, converting the heathen, does not hold, even | in the abstract, that barbarian, Seythian, bond and free, are one in | the eye of God and God's law. He does not hold that the moral | law of nations is an equal and impartial law. He believes not in | the Christian faith that, as God has made all nations of one blood, | so he has subjected all to one rule of right. He believes rather, in | the heathen faith that there is in the intercourses of | civilisation with barbarism, which from that which the | principle of Christian | | equity demands. He believes, in short, that the political morality | of the New Testament, though all very well in its way and place | ~~ among gentlemen and gentlemanlike nations ~~ will not do at | the antipodes: the rule of doing to others as we would that others | should do to us, is inapplicable to the peculiar and complicated | circumstances of our Indian empire. A more heathenish doctrine | than this of the

"great uncontrollable principle"

for | dispensing with principle when and where convenient, could not | be devised; it is worthy of some old robbing and murdering | Roman general or proconsul. And the thing passed in our | Christian House of Commons, with only an honest word or two | of protest from one or two voices, went quietly through the press | along with the rest of the day's news, and circulated over the | Christian country without a syllable of objection from the | Christian bishops, priests, and deacons. There was no clerical | agitation got up against the great uncontrollable principle, as | there was against the Whig Church-rate and Education schemes | ~~ nothing said about converting Sir Robert Peel and his | majority to the Christian religion. Our ecclesiastical Christianity | has other work on hand, of a more interesting kind ~~ mounting | guard on Irish tithes, and barricading the Universities against | Dissenters. Its solicitude for the soul's health of the people is all | expended on recusant rate-payers. | It must be allowed that the Christianity of this country rarely | appears to much advantage in our politics. On nearly every one | of the public questions which politicians make religious | questions, the Christianity of our legislators ~~ those of them | who are most given to talk about their Christianity ~~ will be | found one the wrong side. The Christian religion is seldom | brought into politics except to do mischief, to stop the way of | rational and beneficent legislation. Our political and | parliamentary Christianity is a Christianity that wages fierce war | against poor men's hot Sunday dinners, and Sunday walks in | green fields, and Sunday excursions by steam-boat and railway, | and Sunday visits to museums, picture-galleries, and zoological | gardens ~~ against everything | that can refine the tastes, stimulate the intellect, refresh the heart, | and do good to the health and spirits of the pallid week-day | dwellers in city lanes and alleys. It is fond of extending the list | of the theological It is never | so well pleased as when it is restricting somebody from doing or | enjoying something: there are men who would not if they could | help it, let poor people do the very thing that Jesus Christ himself | did ~~ walk through the fields on the Sabbath-day. It is an | obstructive and teasing, a frivolous and vexatious Christianity. It | stops the people from being educated. In the present state of | opinion and feeling on this subject, there is positively nothing in | the way of a large and effectual measure of national education, | except our ecclesiastical and sectarian Christianity: the thing | might be done to-morrow, but that the Jews of the established | church will have no dealings with the Samaritans of dissent. It is | a Christianity that makes a conscience of keeping Ireland, year | after year, at the boiling point of peaceable and constitutional | insurrection, rather than relinquish its uppermost room at the | feast of fat things, and its chief seat in courts and parliaments. It | is a Christianity that cannot live without its orthodox hands in | heretical pockets. Church surplices must be washed and | mangled, church organs tuned, church clocks wound up, and | church roofs new slated, at the cost and charge of the people who | do not go to church: ~~ and they call that | . It is a meddling, busy-bodied Christianity, about | trifles or things indifferent, and politely dumb in view of evils | which it ought to denounce with voice of thunder. The church | has not a word to say against the iniquity of taxing the poor | man's bread, to swell the rich man's rent. Our political | Christianity lifts up its voice, not against fraud, hypocrisy, | oppression, class-legislation, and the spirit of wickedness in high | places ~~ but against heresy, schism, unbelief, and misbelief; | forgetting that the of the Founder of the Christian | church was pointed, not at the Samaritan schismatics or the | Sadducee infidels, but at the orthodox, duly consecrated, and | legitimately-ordained

"Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites." |

| The political ideas and principles of the New Testament, like all | other great moral truths, tend ever ~~ with an inherent, resistless, | though slowly-working force ~~ to their own realisation. It says | nothing against this, that we have had Christianity in the world | these eighteen hundred years, without having yet properly | learned one of its lessons. We have had the sun and moon these | six thousand years, day unto day uttering speech, and night unto | night showing knowledge ~~ and we have not yet learned | their religion. The Christian gospel of | brotherhood and spiritual equality, in the laborious slowness of | its progress, the limitation of its influence, and the extent and | seeming inveteracy of its corruptions, only shares the fate of | other moral truths. Meanwhile, it furnishes us with abundant | encouragement, under the tardy and imperfect character of its | own successes. | | The symbols in which its Founder pictured its future progress are | indicative, not of miraculous metamorphosis, but of natural | growth ~~ : nor are the enemy and his tares forgotten. | Truly, , as the Apostle says; and their power is great as | their natures are various: ~~ the Antichrist of Mammon, the | Antichrist of aristocracy and class-legislation, the Antichrist of | spiritual tyranny, the Antichrist of Pharisaism and hypocrisy, the | Antichrist of the

"great uncontrollable principle"

that | loves a gainful iniquity better than a losing honesty. But the | Politics of the New Testament ~~ the politics of justice and | mercy, of spiritual liberty and equality ~~ are stronger than all | the Antichrists together. The Christian gospel is, at this moment, | all external hinderances and internal corruptions notwithstanding, | the mightiest moral force we have, both as a conservator and | destroyer. There are no signs of old age upon it. It can, in truth, | grow old only when the world grows old. The nations of the | European family received it in their infancy; and, in the life of | nations, as of the individual, those are the vital and enduring | characteristics which are impressed during the age of early, rapid | growth. The religion whose author loved, under the title of Son | of Man, to identify himself with universal humanity; the religion | which began its life with putting down polygamy, gladiatorship, | serfdom, and other such abominations; which, in our own time, | has reformed our penal code, stopped our slave-trade, | emancipated our slaves, and is still fighting the good fight | beyond the Atlantic, showing abundant signs, by the way, where | the real strength lies; this religion, which, despite of all the | corruptions that have been fastened on it, and all the crimes that | have been perpetrated in its name, has ever been a civilizing | influence in the midst of barbarism, and a moralizing influence in | the heart of an effeminate and artificial civilisation, will live | while any part of its benign mission remains unaccomplished ~~ | will live till it has exorcised all the evil spirits that haunt and vex | the world. The moral ideas that constitute the life of Christianity | contain within themselves the promise and programme of our age | to come. | The world has long since had out its laugh at the Fifth-monarchy | men. The notion of those people has, indeed, a sufficiently | grotesque look, as clad in the garb of the century before last: yet | the idea is a grand and true one ~~ of a kingdom different from | the old kingdoms of the world, ruled by other laws and in another | spirit ~~ a kingdom of heaven, a reign of truth and right, a | Republic of the Virtues, a universal | Tugendburd. In another name, and under another form, the | world will have its Fifth Monarchy yet. Such, at least, is our | reading of the Politics of the New Testament.