EVILS OF A UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE. BY THE HON. J. L. M. CURRY, L.L.D., RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. THE subject assigned to me is the expediency or rightfulness of alliance between the civil and ecclesiastical power. Without aiming at strict verbal accuracy, the question may be variously stated. Is an "Establishment" proper? Can civil government rightfully interfere with liberty of conscience? Has not every rational being an inalienable right to worship God, free from molestation? Has government a right to discriminate among religions, as Mr. Gladstone phrases it, "to choose the national religion?" Should religious congregations receive the salaries of pastors from the State, and be consequently placed under its superintendence? fications, this wrong of Popery. Protestant governments, to resist papacy and promote the reformed religion, took religion under their fostering care. Kings and emperors and dukes claimed to be the head of the Church in their dominions, were recognized as such, and exercised some of the power that had been withdrawn from the Pope. In England, the Oath of Supremacy, required of persons taking office, distinctly and formally asserted the right of the sovereign to be the head of the Church. The government claims the right of legislating for the national Church, and the Parliament is as supreme over the Church as over property and life. When Church and State are united, the State practically assumes infallibility, arrogates the capability and the right to sit in judgment upon creeds, and to determine what is a Church, what is the Church, what is true, and what is false religion. An establishment prefers one denomination to another, and throws the weight, authority, power, and influence of the government in favor of a particular sect of religionists. From among several denominations, government selects one to receive its discriminating favor. It takes this denomination into part by special laws, public property, exclusive It ought to be premised that liberty is not unrestrained license, nor social anarchy, nor to be used "for a veil of wickedness." Liberty implies restraints and limitations, and exists where each person is guaranteed the full exercise of his faculties and rights so long as and provided that he does not interfere with a like full exercise on the part of others. "Sicutere tuo ut non alienum lædas." In the assertion of the rights of conscience, the peace or the existence of society is not to be disturbed. The legitimate authority of the magistrate is not to be impinged. Lib-nership, establishes it, patronizes it, supports erty does not license crimes against property, or society, or government, or individuals. This freedom of conscience, this right and prerogative of man, is sacred. It is correlative with obligation on the part of others. To disregard or interfere with this right is to be false to duty, to violate a sacred thing. Christianity has been often allied with civil government. Since the third century of the Christian era, such a connection has been, outside of the United States, the invariable rule in Europe and America. Such a policy was induced, in part, by the fact that under the old Covenant a theocracy | be. existed, and the civil government was insti- Separation of Church and State is the retuted, in large degree, to maintain and fos-moval of all political restraints and political ter religion. Civil rulers, for self-aggran- supports from a Christian denomination. It dizement, subordinated Christianity, or rath- means religious equality of citizenship, not er ecclesiastical organizations, to their cor- the placing above nor below, but on a platrupt purposes. Good but deluded men form of perfect equality. It is the proclathought it a duty to foster by political sup-mation that a citizen shall not be favored port the Christian religion. When the pa- or prejudiced in property, reputation, social pal hierarchy became predominant, it subsi- or official position, or in any right or prividized the civil power and held it in vassal-lege whatsoever, in consequence of his religage. The Reformation, which, in some re-ion. Divorce of Church and State is an asspects, was a protest rather than a reform, sertion of the wrong of civil interference in by a fatal blunder, copied, with some modi- matters of worship and an unmistakable declaration that it is better for the govern- | party. The different denominations are genment and better for religion to "render unto erally prosperous, enterprising, and widely Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." non-conforming churches are not generally inferior in purity of doctrine, unity of faith, harmony of purpose, strictness of discipline, or consistency of conduct, to the endowed church. Bible and Mission and Tract Societies are as well sustained by Dissenters influential. Ministers, in the aggregate, are as well supported as elsewhere. Churches The distinction between what is civil and are as numerous and as efficient. Christian what is religious may be made sufficiently activity is as intelligent. Sunday-schools clear for all practical purposes. What is are as numerous and as well conducted. civil belongs to the province of the civil Benefactions for Bible publication and disgovernment solely. What is religious is, tribution, for missions, church buildings, from grounds of expediency, as well as nec-education-for all benevolence-are as libessarily from its character, outside of civil eral. The people of the United States are control. Religion rests between God and as well supplied with the means of religion the conscience, and the kingdoms of this as any like population in the world. Church world have no right nor competency to pre-accommodations are as ample and as well scribe or control it. distributed. Infidelity and heresy have as The people of the United States in Feder- few perverts. This success of the voluntary al and State governments deny the jurisdic-system, amply substantiated by the census, tion of the magistrate in matters of relig- has been accomplished in spite of disadvanion, and enjoy "the distinction and the tages, and yet equals what has been done blessedness" of an entire separation, organ- for the Christian religion in countries where ically, of Church and State. Religion is millions are expended to uphold establishneither fettered nor endowed. The Federal ments that have existed for centuries. Constitution, in Article VI., Section 3, de- Voluntaryism finds corroboration in counclares that no "religious test shall ever be tries where an establishment is alleviated required as a qualification to any office or by toleration. A comparison of Dissenters public trust under the United States." When with the favored sect can be made without the projet of the Convention of 1787 was sub- prejudice to the argument of the inexpedimitted to the States for their separate rati-ency of the reliance upon State favor. The fication, three of them proposed additional guarantees of freedom of conscience. In deference to this jealousy of interference with the most sacred personal right, the first amendment of the Constitution provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit-proportionately as by Churchmen. The poor ing the free exercise thereof." These articles exclude the Federal Government from any administration of religion, and from all power to act on the subject. All the State constitutions are alike emphatic in the assertion of absolute religious liberty. This American contribution to the science of politics did not spring from indifference or opposition to the Christian religion. It proceeded, to quote Judge Story, "from a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects." It was incorporated into our organic laws in the in- 1. It is an injury to the State. When terest and as promotive of pure spiritual re-governments undertake impossibilities, they ligion. "To this consideration," said Gen- frequently do intolerable grievances or bring eral Washington, "we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulations respecting religion from the Magna Charta of our country." Liberty of worship was not regarded by the framers of our Government as derivative from civil power, nor as a concession or boon of political generosity, but as "a right inher-ters notions of arbitrary government, cultient in the personality of the individual con- vates opposition to liberal principles. Its science." Government is a political organ- pulpit often reflects the caprice and will, ism, and it is of the essence of American lib- and espouses the cause of the court. The erty that the government should be entirely advocates of the divine right of kings, of separate from churches and religious denomi- passive obedience, the opponents of revolunations. The separation is no longer an ex- tion, of civil reform, of popular liberty, have periment. It has the approval of every evan-uniformly been the adherents of an estabgelical denomination and of every political | lishment. The rightness of the union of and destitute are often compelled to rely upon Dissenters for religious instruction and public worship. It would be uncandid not to concede that State patronage has insured superior culture to a portion of the ministry, and has given to the world profound scholars and eminent preachers. In spite of this admission, I must advance a step and place the opposition to union on grounds more impregnable than mere inexpediency or unnecessity. It is wrong in principle and injurious in practical operation. themselves into contempt. Governments have no jurisdiction over the conscience. This is extra-territorial. Governments can not afford to lose the sympathy or encounter the just prejudice of the governed, or to do palpable injustice. An establishment fos Church and State by an inevitable logic | ship is an implication of the right to withleads to the rightness of absolutism, of des- hold liberty of conscience. It makes worpotism, to the denial of individual liber- ship an act of political grace, and is a palty and of the right of private judgment, topable contradiction, a license to neglect duty the suppression of free opinion and of the and run in the teeth of the constituted civil largest liberty of political action. English authorities. history is full of proofs of these assertions. 3. It is a wrong to citizens generally. It A reference to the troublous condition of proscribes merit and makes another qualifipolitical affairs in Brazil, Mexico, France, cation than fitness for office. In England, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Italy shows under Henry VIII., a good subject "acceptthat the union is perplexing governments, ed the mass without the Pope: under Edobstructing reform, fomenting strife and ward VI. he eschewed both; under Mary he war. State religions generated the Cru- took back the mass, and after a while the sades, the persecutions, and very many of Pope to boot; under Elizabeth he gave them the outrages of Popery. A State religion both up again;" during the interregnum, brings Great Britain into the anomalous Presbyterianism was established and the position of defending the Anglican Church prayer-book was interdicted in private with three orders of ministry in England, houses as well as in churches; after the Presbyterianism with one in Scotland, and Restoration, Parliament reinstated the Episthe Maynooth grants in Ireland. Accord-copal system; and now, in Great Britain, the ing to Hooker, a national church is founded union of Church and State makes a citizen on the fiction of making every subject a member of said church. Arnold of Rugby was not able to free himself from the same hypothesis. Two corporate powers, with distinct offices and ministries, thus enlist the same persons as subjects and communicants. Statesmen and Churchmen are thus united for mutual help and defense. The State offers a premium to insincerity and hypocrisy. To get honors and emoluments, men become members of the Established Church. Moral principle is eradicated when men affect conversion to be sheriffs, magistrates, and judges, and when a petty constable is forbidden to execute process until he shall have received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper from the hands of a regularly ordained clergyman as a part of the pre-legitimate affairs, it commits robbery. scribed induction into office. a turn-coat if, in crossing the border, he would keep pace with "the corporate reason." It deprives citizens of an equal participation in rights and privileges, because they can not conform to a religious standard set up by men who have no theological aptitudes and who were not selected for their piety. It makes a diploma of a college, a commission in the army or navy, a foreign mission, a crown, dependent on being loyal to the sect which happens, for the nonce, to be the favorite of the government. It compels support of a denomination which has not the approval of the tax-payers. It robs of property, for whenever a government takes from its citizens more than is necessary for a just and economical administration of its Gov ernment may thus lead its own people into a fatal delusion, cause them to neglect personal regeneration, and lull them into a false security by their membership in a national church. 4. An establishment is a wrong to our holy religion. Much of what has been said, especially concerning the identity of citizenship and church-membership, has equal per 2. It is a wrong to other denominations. Putting out of view the hostile decision of the government as between denominations, composed of equally worthy and patriotic citizens, the effect of governmental endowment is to lower the rejected party in the eyes of all those who regard the government as possessed of superior wisdom. What is called "society" is transferred to the Es-tinency to this point. Public profession of tablishment, and few things are more intolerant and despotic than that profanum vulgus which "lives, moves, and has its being" in the accidents of birth, wealth, or governmental favor. Government elects a portion of its citizens, sometimes the majority, and subjects them to inferiority, dishonors them and their religion, puts a penalty on their form of worship, degrades them at the bar, in the college, in the pulpit, in Parliament, and in places of honor and trust. Dissenter is a term of reproach, and such a person is under a stigma, and in a state of uniform degradation. This vexatious, prolong-lewd life and corrupt behavior. Moral deed, corroding insult is not relieved by acts of toleration. Toleration, by government, of the God-given, indefeasible right of wor a State religion is sometimes conjoined with private incredulity. Infidelity has taken refuge under cover of an establishment, abounds where religion is enforced by law. Germany and France with their skepticism are not persuasive of an establishment. All the sovereigns of England, from Henry VIII. to James II., during a period of one hundred and forty years, the boy Edward VI. excepted, employed their supremacy to extinguish vital religion (Noel's "Union of Church and State," page 59). Froude states that at one time ordinations were bestowed on men of fects were accepted in consideration of spiritual complacency. The Cornhill Magazine, of a late date, says (I quote not to indorse ་ than Simon Peters." Union of Church and State is an obstacle to reform and progress. "In England, it mutilated the Reformation; in France, in parts of Germany, in Spain and Italy, overcame and crushed it. It alone gave claws and teeth to the Inquisitions, and without its aid the powerful confraternity of Loyola would have been baffled. As the union had previously corrupted the churches, so at the Reformation it prevent but to show tendencies): "The Church of | in England to buy up livings as they beEngland is broad as to Rationalism, high as come vacant. to Romanism, and low as to Dissent; feeds State favor diverts attention from things all alike with the dew of her fatness, and spiritual to things secular, and by creating decorates each indifferently with her eccle- a sense of dependence enervates. To make siastical honors." Bishop Colenso holds offi- citizenship and church-membership identiccial connection with a national church. Un-al, begets formality and worldliness, and inion of Church and State degrades the Chris- troduces unworthy elements into churches. tian religion by making it dependent on civil"Simon Maguses are more easily fostered power. It submits questions of eternal significance, involving the essence of Divine truth and man's personal relations to his Creator, to men of most varied characters. "They may be men of high principle or of no principle; religious or profane; young men of gayety and fashion, or old men of inveterate immorality; they may be wealthy or steeped in debt; absolutists or democrats; sportsmen ever foremost at the death of the fox, or keener civic hunters after gold; loved their restoration to purity of discipline ers of pleasure, whose employments are seldom more serious than the opera or the racetrack, or lovers of party, whose highest ambition may be to keep one minister in or turn another out." It dishonors the Holy Spirit by doubting His omnipotence. It calls in the sword to do the work of spiritual weapons; it encourages distrust of God and promotes weakness of faith; it is adverse to humility and spirituality, and seeks for other elements of strength than righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. and to spiritual life." The power of the civil magistrate, used for the maintenance and support of religion, has had an incalculable influence in corrupting Christianity, and has been a prolific fountain of innumerable evils. The members of a State Church have their hands tied and labor under many disabilities in doing good. The facilities of the pious in this direction are lessened, while many members are indifferent to spiritual prosperity. 6. My last argument is that the union of Church and State is unscriptural. In an assembly where such contrariant opinions are held, I am embarrassed by my own individ 5. It is injurious to the denomination in alliance. If the strength of a church or a denomination be in its spirituality, what has been said may be sufficient to demon-ual convictions. A scripturally constituted strate the injuriousness of the alliance. An church of regenerated persons, chosen by establishment is injustice and oppression. Christ out of the world and not made up of No argument is needed to show to an as- bad and good, vicious and virtuous, infidel sembly of Christians that injustice and op- and believer-a separate, local, visible, inpression injure the wrong-doer as much as dependent congregation of believers, and not the sufferer. Unjust discriminations engen- a particular denomination of Christians, a der discontent, irritation, resentment, hostil-national organization, a collective corporaity, sometimes aversion and hatred. Patron- tion overspreading a whole land, co-extenage is invariably a source of corruption; and sive territorially with political boundaries the history of State religions shows that re--such an independent, local assembly of ligious communities are not exempt from its saints, in my opinion, can not be in alliance evil consequences. An endowment secular- with the State, nor be fused into the politiizes a denomination, aud attracts the world- cal power without losing the essential marks ly, the selfish, the ambitious. of an apostolic church. I am forbidden here by common Christian courtesy to argue the question on this hypothesis. I therefore take the common Protestant view, and from that stand-point make bold to assert the unscripturalness of the union. The system of presentation to benefices is an afflictive malady. Advowsons are regular articles of merchandise, advertised in the newspapers and sold at public outcry or private sale. From this legal right of presentment, regardless of the consent of the Religion, man's relation to his God, is inhabitants of the parish, have come non-personal and individual, and can not be viresidence, huge salaries, starving incomes, sporting and dissolute clergymen. Men of frivolous characters, of infidel principles, hold livings as property, and bestow them for other considerations than a desire to save souls or promote the Redeemer's kingdom. To prevent the presentment and induction of unworthy persons and secure a pious ministry, it has been found necessary carious nor compulsory. In the economy of God's grace, a national religion, strictly speaking, is a solecism, an absurdity. The Holy Spirit regenerates by units. The Holy Spirit's work upon the individual heart is indispensable to salvation. To love God with all the heart and soul is constrained only by the antecedent love of God. State policy may establish a creed and enforce its outward observance by penalties, but the mind, the heart, and the conscience can not be fettered. ernor. union has been the alliance of fraud and force to degrade the nations; the compact of the priest and the potentate to crush the rights of conscience; the combination of regal and prelatical tyranny to repress true religion." Christ's kingdom is not of this world, and he is the supreme, absolute, single Head. No temporal prince can be. Before Pilate, Jesus asserted his kingship, and in such a Inspiration enjoins giving us an act of manner as to show that his dominion was worship. Beneficence in support of churchcompatible with the rule of an earthly gov-es and ministers is a duty and a privilege. His kingdom is independent of civil authority. Over his subjects no earthly potentate has spiritual jurisdiction. For a State, by executive or legislative power, to give law to Christian churches, to prescribe creed or ministry, to determine the guests and the manner of their gathering at the Lord's table, is to act inconsistently with the character of Christ's kingdom and in repugnance to the teachings of the Scrip tures. Christ and his disciples proclaimed and practically asserted soul liberty, preferring imprisonment and death to submission to the claim to control their worship. Christ commissioned his disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature. The field is the world. Union has barred, until lately, one-half of Europe against zealous evangelists, and States even yet lay off their territory into parishes and prohibit Christ's ministers from preaching the Gospel therein. Church and State have different functions and different ministers. One looks to the overt act; the other includes the inner life. The early churches were organized, grew, and prospered under the principle of absolute separation from civil authority. Prior to 313, governments never offered assistance. "In many countries, through many ages, the The contributions are to be cheerful and voluntary. Christ never gave to civil rulers the right to make assessments and collect money for his kingdom. To patronize all denominations is none the less a violation of the New Testament than to patronize one. The improvement in public opinion on this subject has been wonderful. A few days ago, in the Hungarian Parliament, a course of legislation was proposed to bring about the same relations between the State and religious bodies in Hungary as exist in the United States. Much of reform is yet needed. Disabilities are still imposed by many governments, which undertake to prescribe and regulate and support religion. Russia now imprisons Baptists. The second article of the Constitution declares an object of the Alliance to be "to assist the cause of religious freedom everywhere; to hold up the supreme authority of the word of God." Religious freedom is a misnomer while an unhallowed union exists between Church and State. The longer such unions exist, the more difficult will be the solution of questions growing out of them, and the less successful will be the labors of this Alliance in assisting the cause of religious freedom. |