If injustice and wrong should ever disappear totally from the earth—if the peace of God were actually established thereon, then would the end of law be attained, and all institutions for its accomplishment would become superfluous. Law presupposes a condition of struggle, and is intended to endure as long as it lasts. It is itself nothing less than a struggle against wrong. The Christian view, accordingly, and theory of law, is far higher. In a scientific point of view, too, it alone is satisfactory on this account, that it recognizes a higher principle as the source of right, or as right itself, and that it alone contains in itself the historical key for the whole, and embraces at once the beginning and the end. But now the Christian idea of right is thus historical, not merely because it furnishes a complete explanation of the first beginning of wrong, and gives an historical derivation of the divine sanction of the state; but also in this sense, that in obedience to the principle of equity, as extended to the wider relations of political life, and to the law of toleration founded on this feeling, it respects even the imperfect and inferior degrees of right, whenever, at least, they are the unavoidable results of a previous course of things, and possess an historical foundation, and are established as less evil, and at least as comparatively good. And this explains, what is otherwise incomprehensible, how the Christian sense of right could reconcile itself to the absolute form, or, rather, formlessness of the later Roman world, and being gradually associated and fused therewith, led to its complete renovation in the exalted phenomenon of a Christian empire.
This peace-loving and tolerant recognition of imperfect political constitutions and forms of state is only applicable, however, where the absolute and the pernicious had its foundation in some historical occasion, and where, by a natural course of development, the evil has followed as the result of some previous defective condition of the political body. It has no place where the evil is radical and of spontaneous growth, as in the empire of Mohammed, and of his immediate successors; for a fanatical lust of conquest was introduced in the first germ of this dynasty, and indeed formed its foundation and its animating and vital principle. The brilliant success and personal talents of the first caliphs may indeed win our admiration and chain our imagination, but still in the very worst times of the old Roman world absolute power never presented itself in so unmitigated a form as it does in this empire of deadly fanaticism. This is the calm judgment of history. In the former case the evil sprung chiefly from the personal caprice of individual tyrants; in the latter, the pervading principle was despotism, which, on the whole, remained unchanged in the most famous and greatest characters. For such immutability is an essential principle of despotism whenever the spiritual and the temporal power are held by the same hand, and are united in one common center and sovereign.
In another point of view also, that, viz., of the moral estimate, the historical comparison between the old Roman and the Mohammedan empires turns out to the disadvantage of the latter. In the latter times of the Roman Empire, the family relations, and the sacred ties of married life, were no doubt greatly disturbed and perverted by the prevailing tone of immorality. But among the Mohammedans they were entirely overthrown by a false religion. Even in this respect, therefore, it is evident that there could be no place in the latter for that moral foundation of a long-established family unity, such as a civilized state like the Christian monarchy requires. It is nothing strange, consequently, if in the times of the Arabian dynasty, the Mohammedan state stood in more decided opposition, and proved less reconcilable to the Christian polity than ever heathenism did in the days of ancient Rome. But, notwithstanding this, we find, on the other side, the Christian principle of peace extending itself even to the historical phenomena and political relations of the Mohammedan world. For the most part (and in a greater degree with the advance of time) these events have been judged in that mild spirit of historical justice which, in its complete and comprehensive estimate, allows a due consideration to every motive and circumstance.
Moreover, a high principle of toleration has extended to them the benefit of the international laws of Christian states—a policy which only requires to be rightly understood to be pronounced in no ways deserving of blame or reprobation; for the evil can only be radically extirpated by the complete triumph of Christian truth over the false foundation and leading idea of this fanatical delusion.
But, however improbable it may seem, regarded merely in an historical light, that the Mohammedan races will ever adopt Christian sentiments, morals, and principles, still in the great course of mundane things, or, in other words, in the counsels of Providence, nothing, however it may contradict human expectations, can rightly be held to be impossible. And, indeed, recent times furnish many speaking indications of a growing tendency to such an approximation. Many signs might be pointed out, which, while they bear witness to a widening and deepening feeling of its desirableness, encourage us to entertain higher and better hopes. To promote, and indeed to co-operate in bringing about so great and divine a consummation, so long as it can be done without violating higher duties and principles, does not appear to go in any degree beyond the sphere of a truly Christian and pacific policy, or to interfere with the relations which it is right to observe in regard to non-Christian states. On the contrary, the worst violation thereof, and one that most surely menaces danger and mischief, is for a Christian state, in direct opposition to its natural principle and vocation, to be seized and actuated by a fanatical lust of conquest similar to that which animated the Saracens. Such a subversion and confusion of all moral ideas, and of political life, was publicly manifested, for the first time in the Christian world, during the French Revolution. Breaking out with furious violence, in the brief period of its duration it developed itself with fearful rapidity. How many, or, rather, how few steps it would have required, had its reign been longer, to convert it into a military despotism, thoroughly heathenish, such as the Revolution indeed was from beginning to end; into a despotism which, like that of the caliphate already mentioned, should unite in the same person all spiritual, as well as temporal authority, we need not here further investigate. The dreadful possibility of such a contingency has been brought only too closely home to our fears.
The essence of despotism, as I said before, lies in the union in one person of the civil and spiritual powers—or in a most anomalous state, which is, by a rare and faulty combination, at once spiritual and temporal. And since the distinction between the two powers is involved in the very notion of a Christian state, it is of the highest importance that the state should carefully observe and respect the boundaries between the two domains. It is extremely difficult to establish any general standard for all the cases of collision between the two that either have actually occurred or are conceivably possible. For it is evident that this contingency must be modified in an infinite number of ways, by existing treaties, the local circumstances and political constitution of the different states. The chief point is the general spirit and feeling. The question turns principally on good will and honest intentions; but pre-eminently on a right conception of both powers, as alike possessing in their respective spheres a higher sanction, a divine foundation, and a sacred character. This must be recognized in every case and time, and all circumstances belonging to either sphere must be treated accordingly.
Many and serious cases of such collision between the church and the state have occurred and are perpetually recurring. Many and grave errors have been committed on both sides. But for the most part they have been unfairly judged, or, rather, misjudged, through ignorance both of the times, and of the actual circumstances of the case. The day is not long gone by when in this respect it was the habitual rule to subject certain of the early popes especially to an unqualified vituperation and censure. And it must be told, to the praise of German impartiality, that Protestant writers were the first, by their historical researches, to do justice to and to form a fair estimate of these, in their day, truly great and eminent characters. Still we do not by any means pretend to deny that both in these and later times grave blame rests with many of the popes individually. On neither side, however, and at no time, were the limits which divide the two powers overstepped so far as they were by Henry VIII. of England, that absolute monarch in temporals, and who wished also to be equally supreme in spirituals. The most despotic sovereign that ever sat on the throne of England, by founding [the independence of] the Anglican Church,[59] became undesignedly and unconsciously the true author of that much-lauded constitution of England, which, essentially resting on this foundation, furnishes the only instance of a dynamical polity, as the only remedy of an otherwise incurable tendency to division and anarchy, attaining to a highly perfect shape and development. As for the schism in the faith, which in these latter times has in so many Christian countries made the problem of religion only the more difficult, and its relation to the state more delicate and liable to aggression, it has in England, through this royal reformer, assumed so complicated a shape that, unsolved as yet, it appears to many, judging of it in a merely human light, totally and forever incapable of solution.
We must reserve to the succeeding Lecture the enumeration of all the results which flow from these premises, and this first outline of a truly Christian justice, which as such involves the principle of equity, and is even truly historical.
LECTURE XIV.
OF THE DIVISION OF RANKS, AND OF THE RECIPROCAL RELATIONS OF STATES ACCORDING TO THE CHRISTIAN IDEA.—OF SCIENCE AS A POWER; OF ITS CONSTITUTION, AND OF THE RIGHT REGULATION OF IT.
WHENEVER philosophy, setting up any conceit of its own as a principle, intrudes either into the domain of religion or of politics, such an intrusion is, in every case, an aggression. And if the aggressive idea, once formed and entertained, is, nevertheless, externally and in appearance held in check and restrained—if, from ulterior considerations and for the sake of some remote object, science accommodates itself to the established system of law or religion—then is the case only so much the worse. The deep and pervading hostility of sentiment is but concealed beneath the external servility of language, and the rankling wound has but skinned over the surface. The influence of evil is far from being checked and destroyed; or, to say the least, that of good is nipped in the bud, not being allowed fully to expand itself. And at the same time the dignity of science, which can only be maintained by its independence, is fatally and irretrievably endangered.