II. vours to prove at great length. Even if the mem- СНАР. bers are elected by the church, the magistrate may reject those whom he reckons unfit; he may preside in the assembly, confirm, reject, annul its decisions. He may also legislate about the whole organisation of the established church.* It is for him to determine what form of religion shall be publicly exercised; an essential right of sovereignty as political writers have laid it down. And this is confirmed by experience; "for if any one shall ask why the Romish religion flourished in England under Mary, the protestant under Elizabeth, no cause can be assigned but the pleasure of these queens, or, as some might say, of the queens and parliaments." In this manner Grotius disposes of a great question of casuistry by what has been done; as if murder and adultery might not be established by the same logic. Natural law would be resolved into history, were we always to argue in a similar But this, as will appear more fully hereafter, is not the usual reasoning of Grotius. To the objection from the danger of abuse in conceding so much power to the sovereign, he replies that no other theory will secure us better. On every supposition the power must be lodged in men, who are all liable to error. We way. Cap. 8. Nulla in re magis elucescit vis summi imperii, quam quod in ejus arbitrio est quænam religio publicè exerceatur, idque præcipuum inter majestatis jura ponunt omnes qui politicè scripserunt. Docet idem experientia; si enim quæras cur in Anglia Maria CHAP. must console ourselves by a trust in divine providence alone.* II. 47. The sovereign may abolish false religions and punish their professors, which no one else can. Here again we find precedents instead of arguments; but he says that the primitive church disapproved of capital punishments for heresy, which seems to be his main reason for doing the same. The sovereign may also enjoin silence in controversies, and inspect the conduct of the clergy without limiting himself by the canons, though he will do well to regard them. Legislation and jurisdiction, that is, of a coercive nature, do not belong to the church, except as they may be conceded to it by the civil power. He fully explains the various kinds of ecclesiastical law that have been gradually introduced. Even the power of the keys, which is by divine right, cannot be so exercised as to exclude the appellant jurisdiction of the sovereign; as he proves by the Roman law, and by the usage of the parliament of Paris.‡ 48. The sovereign has a control (inspectionem cum imperio) over the ordination of priests, and certainly possesses a right of confirmation, that is, the assignment of an ordained minister to a given cure. And though the election of pastors belongs to the church, this may, for good reasons, be taken into the hands of the sovereign. Instances in point are easily found, and the chapter upon the subject contains an interesting historical summary of this Cap. 8. + Ibid. Cap. 9. Cap. 10. Confirmationem hanc summæ potestati acceptam ferendam nemo sanus negaverit. part of ecclesiastical law. In every case, the sovereign has a right of annulling an election, and also of removing a pastor from the local exercise of his ministry.* CHAP. II. upon this 49. This is the full development of an Erastian Remark theory, which Cranmer had early espoused, and theory. which Hooker had maintained in a less extensive manner. Bossuet has animadverted upon it, nor can it appear tolerable to a zealous churchman.t It was well received in England by the lawyers, who had always been jealous of the spiritual tribunals, especially of late years, when under the patronage of Laud, they had taken a higher tone than seemed compatible with the supremacy of the common law. The scheme, nevertheless, is open to some objections, when propounded in so unlimited a manner; none of which is more striking than that it tends to convert differences of religious opinion into crimes against the state, and furnishes bigotry with new arguments as well as new arms, in its conflict with the free exercise of human reaGrotius, however, feared rather that he had given too little power to the civil magistrate than too much.± son. * Cap. 10. + See Le Clerc's remarks on what Bossuet has said. Biblicthèque Choisie, v. 349. Ego multo magis vereor, ne minus quam par est magistratibus, aut plusquam par est pastoribus tribuerim, quam ne in alteram partem iterum (?) excesserim, nec sic quidem illis satisfiet qui se ecclesiam vocant. Epist. 42. This was in 1614, after the publication of the Pietas Ordinum Hollandiæ. As he drew nearer to the church СНАР. II. 50. Persecution for religious heterodoxy, in all its degrees, was in the sixteenth century the Toleration principle, as well as the practice of every church. tenets. It was held inconsistent with the sovereignty of religious of the magistrate to permit any religion but his own; inconsistent with his duty to suffer any but the true. The edict of Nantes was a compromise between belligerent parties; the toleration of the dissidents in Poland was nearly of the same kind; but no state powerful enough to restrain its sectaries from the exercise of their separate worship had any scruples about the right and obligation to do so. Even the writers of that century, who seemed most strenuous for toleration, Castalio, Celso, and Koornhert, had confined themselves to denying the justice of penal, and especially of capital inflictions for heresy; the liberty of public worship had but incidentally, if at all, been discussed. Acontius had developed larger principles, distinguishing the fundamental from the accessory doctrines of the gospel; which, by weakening the associations of bigotry, prepared the way for a catholic tolerance. Episcopius speaks in the strongest terms of the treatise of Acontius, de Stratagematibus Satanæ, and says that the Remonstrants trod closely in his steps, as would appear by comparing their writings; so that He had a regard for Laud, as the re- quod episcopi nimium intendendo potentiæ suæ nervos odium sibi potius quam amorem populorum pariunt. Ep. 1390. II. he shall quote no passages in proof, their entire СНАР. books bearing witness to the conformity.* Claimed by 51. The Arminian dispute led by necessary the Armiconsequence to the question of public toleration. nians. They sought at first a free admission to the pulpits, and in an excellent speech of Grotius, addressed to the magistrates of Amsterdam in 1616, he objects to a separate toleration as rending the bosom of the church. But it was soon evident that nothing more could be obtained; and their adversaries refused this. They were driven therefore to contend for religious liberty, and the writings of Episcopius are full of this plea. Against capital punishments for heresy he raises his voice with indignant severity, and asserts that the whole Christian world abhorred the fatal precedent of Calvin in the death of Servetus.† This indicates a remarkable change already wrought in the sentiments of mankind. Certain it is, that no capital punishments for heresy were inflicted in protestant countries after this time; nor were they as frequently or as boldly vindicated as before. + * Episcop. Opera, i. 301. (edit. 1665.) +Calvinus signum primus extulit supra alios omnes, et exemplum dedit in theatro Gebennensi funestissimum, quodque Christianus orbis merito execratur et abominatur; nec hoc contentus tam atroci facinore, cruento simul animo et calamo parentavit. Apologia pro Confess. Remonstrantium, c. 24. p. 241. The whole passage is very remarkable, as an indignant reproof of a party, who, while living under popish govern- De hæreticorum pœnis quæ |