less, even supposing the opinion erroneous, unless we suppose God to punish error absolutely and wholly involuntary. If, then, a man can truly say, I believe in my conscience such and such "religious doctrines are God's truth, and such and such religious usages most pleasing to Him,' it is no longer at his option whether he shall profess the one or practise the other; and in like manner, if he can truly say, I believe in my conscience such and such doctrines are false, and such and such usages displea'sing to God,' it is not in his power even to appear to sanction either. He must obey that which is his law-his conscience; in other words, if his private judgment be at variance with any authority whatever, not admitted to be infallible, he must obey the first and not the second. To this there is no exception.

It is not easy to find men who will avowedly dispute the maxim we have laid down. The opponent generally contents himself with daring those who maintain it to apply it to certain extreme cases. We should not shrink from the challenge. We believe that the general principle is universally applicable; and that the instances which seem opposed are either imaginary or irrelevant. Let us take the strongest conceivable cases, which some have been modest and reasonable enough to adducethat, for example, of a man who is conscientiously prompted to commit murder or robbery. Is the man,' they triumphantly ask, to be justified, and treated as innocent ? To this, the arguments in reply are many and obvious: First, If we are to suppose that such conscientious persons are impelled by conscience to commit murder or robbery as such-that is, under the persuasion of their being crimes-then, 1. The notion is simply a contradiction. 2. Such a case, so far as we are aware, has never been alleged, and might safely be left to be considered when it occurs. 3. Supposing such a case to be alleged, all mankind would feel constrained, on ordinary calculations of probability, to believe either that the parties were mad, and therefore truly excused on that ground; or that they pretended to hold such opinions for an evil purpose. They would, therefore, be either confined as lunatics, or punished as knaves, according to the evidence of their being the one or the other. 4. Whether they be conscientious or not, society must protect every one against any infraction of his civil rights; and for this reason, the conscientious persons who manifest their piety by infringing The mathem, may be very properly knocked on the head.

gistrate,' says Bayle, with a gravity which is almost amusing, having received a power from God and man, of putting murderers to death, may justly punish him who kills a man from

'the instincts of conscience; for it is not his business to stand winnowing those rare and singular cases, in which conscience may happen to fall into illusions in this matter.' But, secondly, if by those who commit murder or robbery for conscience' sake, be meant those who commit acts, which, under ordinary circumstances, they themselves would consider crimes; but which, in their judgment, cease to be so when performed at the prompting of conscience-for the repression, for example, of other people's consciences, or for the propagation of the true faith'-we might content ourselves with replying, 1. That we never heard of such cases among those who contend that conscience is the supreme law, and that every one must obey its dictates. All who believe this necessarily learn to respect other people's rights, as well as to assert their own; it is only amongst those who deny this maxim that we find such instances as the above; and we might safely leave these men, therefore, to their own dark books of casuistry, in which the precise modes and degrees in which they may do evil that good may come,' are duly set forth. Assuredly, it is rather hard to adduce, against the operation of any principle, instances which, if that principle were in operation, could not even exist. Nevertheless, we are ready to affirm, 2. That if the said persecutors be truly and conscientiously convinced that it is their duty, as in the sight of God, to persecute, they are justified in so doing while in that state of mind; though, in accordance with what has been laid down, they may have contracted a great amount of guilt in the process by which they have arrived at it. 3. That if they have arrived at it after having honestly investigated the subject, and without any voluntary error or self-deception-though we have our doubts whether there ever was such a case-they are wholly innocent; but, 4. that, as they are infringing other people's civil rights, though they do not think so, it is perfectly competent to those upon whom they are exercising their freaks of eccentric piety, to deal with them as with the aforesaid conscientious criminals; and punish them, (if they have the power,) not for tormenting men from the best possible motives, but for tormenting them -those who are de facto tormented,' not being capable of understanding such refined distinctions.

Thus the principle we advocate is liable to no abuse, nor does society lose any one of its present safeguards by its universal adoption. But even were it otherwise, whether would it be preferable that one man in a century should go unpunished, because, under a peculiar species of hallucination, he professed himself conscientiously impelled to perpetrate moral wrong; or that we should recognize a principle which would justify the

perpetual and universal oppression of conscience for speculative opinions?

In fact, however, nothing can be more ridiculous than to profess any alarm lest mankind should plead conscience in favour of the violation of any of the great laws of morals. In these, there has ever been, and ever will be, a remarkable unanimity. As Bayle has well said-We are all agreed about the doctrines which 'teach men to live soberly and righteously, to love God, to ab' stain from revenge, to forgive our enemies, to render good for ' evil, to be charitable. We are divided about points which tend not to make the yoke of Christian morality either heavier or lighter. The Papists believe transubstantiation; the Reformed believe it not. This makes not for vice one way or other.' To the same purport, a very different writer, Robert Hall, has observed- The doctrines of our holy religion may be wofully 'curtailed and corrupted, and its profession sink into formality; 'but its moral precepts are so plain and striking, and guarded by such clear and awful sanctions, as to render it impossible it can Let the

6 ever be converted into an active instrument of vice.

appeal be made to facts. Look through all the different sects and parties into which professed Christians are unhappily di'vided. Where is there one to be found who has innovated in 'the rule of life, by substituting vice in the place of virtue?' We may safely restrict ourselves, therefore, to the case of speculative opinions; and we will take the strongest. It may be said, Is a man conscientiously convinced that the Bible is false, no longer bound to believe it?' We answer, he has a prior duty to perform. To believe the Bible true, in that very state of mind in which he believes it false, is a simple impossibility, and therefore not directly his duty. But it is his duty to enquire; and we put sufficient faith in the variety and conclusiveness of the evidences of its truth, to believe that, if he enquire honestly, he will believe it true. If there be a case of one who has thus honestly enquired, and still conscientiously believes it false if he can truly allege that he has left no means of investigation unemployed, and suffered no prejudice to interfere with his judgment-we shall rather choose to believe that he labours under some invincible obliquity of intellect, which in the eye of the Omniscient renders his error innocent, than admit the monstrous dogma, that he incurs guilt for error absolutely involuntary. But whether there be such a case is quite another question.

We maintain, then, the principle asserted by the illustrious writers we have cited-and we apply it consistently and universally.

By the assertion of this principle, we are far from justifying separation from any religious communion; merely because there are some things we disapprove, or would abstractedly wish otherwise. If this were acted upon, there would be as many sects as individuals: we merely contend, that, when such objections have assumed the form of conscientious scruples, so that he who feels them can honestly say, In my opinion I cannot pro'fess such a doctrine, or practise such a rite, or appear to sanction either the one or the other, without offending God, or fearing lest I should do so'-his separation is not only justified, but necessitated. Be it about the most insignificant matter that ever disturbed a weak brother,' it matters not; for while in that state it is not insignificant to him. If actually in the wrong, still it appears to him that he is in the right; and while in that state he must act in harmony with his convictions.

*

People have not been slow to acknowledge this doctrine in words; but they need to be reminded of it, since they will not fairly act upon it. They will still charge the Separatist-even the conscientious Separatist, with sin'-forgetting that, in doing so, they not only assume that they infallibly know his opinions to be erroneous, which (if their modesty be no obstacle, and it seldom is) they have a perfect right to do; but that, whether right or wrong, there has been negligence, want of candour, or some sinister bias in the process by which he has arrived at them, and this no man has a right to assume unless he has the prerogative ' of discerning spirits.' We were particularly amused with an example of this sort of inconsistency in one of the Oxford Tracts,* in which, while it is admitted that the conscientious Dissenter is not necessarily a sinner,' still it remains true that his dissent is a 'sin.' We can imagine the perplexity of one who, meditating the crime of nonconformity, comes to a clergyman professing these delightfully puzzling doctrines for solution of his doubts and difficulties. Can I,' he might say, separate from the Church of England without "sin" seeing that I cannot 'affirm what she affirms, nor practise what she enjoins, without, in my opinion, committing a sin?' If that be the 'state of your conscience,' would be the reply, you cannot belong to the Church of England; but remember, that 'neither can you secede from her without sin.' Why, then, I am in a hopeful case,' rejoins the miserable recusant: I am ' ruined either way; for whether I remain in the Church, or go

* No. 51.

' out of it and one of them I must do I commit a sin.' Then how glad will his spiritual adviser be to administer that consolation, which his revered teachers of Oxford have, for this very case, made and provided. He will say You must distinguish here: Though you cannot secede from us without sin, yet it 'does not hence follow that you are a sinner.' On this his countenance brightens up, and he is most eager to learn that supramundane doctrine, by which it appears that a man may commit a sin and yet be no sinner. Whereupon his oracle cites the ipsissima verba of the Tracts,' and responds:-'To say that a particular thing is a sin, is a very different thing from saying 'that every one who does it is a sinner. To kill a fellow'creature is undoubtedly a crime; but you would not say that the person who killed another by accident, or in defence of his country or of his own life, or by command of lawful authorities, ' is a criminal?'* No, would be the easy reply; neither should we say, in that case, that killing was a crime. By parity of reasoning, if the conscientious Dissenter be no sinner for dissent, it can only be because dissent, in that case, is no sin. You ought upon your principle to say, that the executioner, in hanging a man, commits a crime, though it is true he is no criminal! This distinction, therefore, will not much help him; and he is still left to decide the miserable alternative-of sinning by remaining in the Church, or sinning by going out of it.

But we must conclude; and we shall do so with a few reflections of a general nature on the advantages of the Right of Private Judgment;' amongst which, with some risk of being charged with paradox, we shall venture to enumerate many of its reputed evils.'

Whatever the evils incidental to the Right-and we by no means deny that there are evils-they are trivial compared with the advantages it secures. It frees us at once from every form and degree of persecution; it leaves inviolate the supremacy over conscience to Him who alone is its fitting and rightful Sovereign; it permits the conscience itself to move freely in obedience to its essential laws; it secures for the propagation of truth the only weapons which she can successfully employ-argument and persuasion; and it robs error of the only weapons she can successfully employ-penalties and violence: in a word, it prevents truth from resorting to that in which alone she is weak, and error from resorting to that in which alone she is strong.

Oxford Tracts, No. 51, p. 3.