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Chapter XXXI: That the first Reformers in the last Age retain’d the Doctrine of Compulsion. - Pierre Bayle, A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’ [1686]

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A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14.23, ‘Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full’, edited, with an Introduction by John Kilcullen and Chandran Kukathas (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Chapter XXXI

That the first Reformers in the last Age retain’d the Doctrine of Compulsion.

I have already represented it as a matter of great Scandal, that Persons rais’d up extraordinarily for retrieving the Church fal’n into utter Ruin and Desolation, to use the Words of the Geneva Confession,319 shou’d not have consulted the sacred and inviolable Immunitys of Conscience; and that having rejected so many Follys and Heresys of the Church of Rome, they shou’d retain the Doctrine of Constraint; a Doctrine in virtue of which she had made her self drunk with the Blood of the Saints, and fal’n into the principal Enormitys, which oblig’d a good part of the Christian Church to disown her for a Mother. There’s no need of many words to prove the Charge against the first Reformers, for the Fact is but too notorious.

All the World knows, that at Geneva, the Mother Church and Center of Unity of the Calvinists, the Party for the Reformation having prevail’d over the other, the Republick in 1535 forbid the Exercise of the Romish Religion, and order’d those who wou’d not renounce it to depart the City in three days, on pain of Imprisonment or Expulsion. It’s well known too, that in other Countrys where the Prince or Sovereign embrac’d the Reformation, he not only authoriz’d the publick Exercise of Protestantism<770> (which so far was very just and laudable) but also abolish’d the Mass, and carry’d it to that Extremity at last, as not to suffer those who persever’d in their old Religion to live in the Country. Now this was plainly exceeding the Bounds of Justice: for the Ministers of those days did not found the necessity of abolishing the Mass, on the political Reason which I shall touch anon, nor on the non-tolerating Principle of Papists; but on the Idolatry of the Church of Rome, which Kings and Princes, said they, were bound to destroy, in imitation of the ancient Godly Kings of Judah, who destroy’d the high Places, and the false Worships introduc’d by their Predecessors, who had done what was not right in the sight of the Lord. All the Arguments, which I have so much press’d against the literal Sense of the Parable, strike directly at every Law or Injunction of the Supreme Power, requiring People to abjure the Mass, on pain of Imprisonment, Banishment, Confiscation of Goods, &c. For it’s by no means respecting the Empire of Conscience, to annex Punishments to her refusing to embrace or reject any particular Religion.

Let the Mass then be an Idolatrous Worship, as much as you please: A Prince who having once believ’d it the true Worship of God, comes afterwards to look on it as Idolatry, is not to attack it in his Dominions by carnal and temporal Arms, but by Instruction; and if the way of instruction fail, the only lawful pretence that he can have for expelling his Popish Subjects, is, not that their Opinions are false, and their Worship half Pagan, but that they want the<771> requisite Qualifications for making a part of any Society, whereof the Prince is a Protestant; in which case it’s plain, they may be justly depriv’d of all the Rights and Privileges of this Society. Let’s explain this a little more clearly, and by a Thought perfectly new, and different from what has bin offer’d in the Commentary Part 2, ch. 5. and in the Preliminary Discourses p. 47.

A Political Reason for not tolerating Papists.

It’s plain that all human Societys are a Confederation of a certain number of Men, who mutually engage themselves to be aiding and assisting to each other against the common Enemy, to observe certain Laws necessary for maintaining the publick Tranquillity, and to obey him or them on whom they confer the Sovereign Power, for the putting those Laws in Execution, which individuals have consented to; or even for reforming ’em. It follows then that the Sovereign is oblig’d to maintain the publick Peace, by putting the Laws in Execution; and that the Subjects on their part are oblig’d to obey him.

But the better to be assur’d of their Obedience, it’s necessary he have a double. Tye upon ’em: one of which consists in the Fear of being punish’d by the Criminal Judg, if they transgress their Duty; the other consists in the fear of incurring the Wrath of God, if they disobey the higher Powers. It follows then, that* Subjects must<772> take an Oath of Fidelity and Allegiance, as a Security and Test of their Obedience to the Prince, who hereby sees ’em subjected to the severe Laws of Providence, which beholds and avenges all the most secret Crimes, and especially those for the Punishment of which God is solemnly appeal’d to.

From whence I conclude, that he who can’t give the Sovereign these two Securitys, is unqualify’d to be a Member of the Commonwealth, and may be justly expel’d on this score, and banish’d, with Permission however to withdraw, and retire whither he please, he, his Wife, his Children, and Effects, &c. Now such is a Roman Catholick, with regard to a Protestant Sovereign, since he may without shocking his Religion, make a mock of all Oaths of Fidelity sworn to him.

I don’t say (and this is what I desire may be remark’d) that his Religion necessarily obliges him to look upon his Oath as null; I only say, that it permits him to do this, and furnishes him a Spiritual Sovereign, who can absolve him from this Oath, if he will have recourse to him, and who offers him withal the Felicitys of Heaven, and the Crown of Martyrdom, if he suffers by the Hand of his Prince for any Enterprize against him in favor of Catholicity; which weakens the Fear of the Civil Laws, and thus dissolves both the Tyes which the Subject was under. This is ground enough for a Protestant Sovereign’s never having an intire Confidence in a Catholick Subject. Yet I can’t think, unless there be other particular Reasons, that they ought to be banish’d out of Places where they<773> behave themselves quietly, and where their Numbers or Force give no Jealousy.

There being therefore only this one political Reason, which can render the Non-toleration of Roman Catholicks excusable; and the first Reformers not having this in View, it follows, that they were not quite so deep as the Papists, but however that they were in this fatal Error, That it is lawful to compel into the true Church; or which comes in the end to the same thing, That it’s lawful to condemn those to certain Punishments, who refuse to come into the true Church from a Principle of Conscience.

They cou’d not fairly alledg, in defence of their Non-Toleration, that the Roman Catholicks tolerated none; for had this bin their reason, they ought to have tolerated those Sects which do tolerate, but this they were far enough from. For not to speak of the Exploits in several Places against the Anabaptists, it’s notorious to all the World, that Servetus was punish’d with Death at Geneva; Valentine Gentilis imprison’d there, afterwards expel’d, and then beheaded at Bern; Ochin and Laschus ignominiously thrust out of Geneva in the depth of Winter:320 Men who undoubtedly held great Errors, but by no means that of Non-Toleration.

Before I come to make some Reflections on these things, it mayn’t be improper in this place to anticipate a Word or two of the Confutation of the Treatise of the two Sovereigns, and shew what a gross Mistake this Author is guilty of in his thirteenth Chapter. He pretends that my Principles destroy our Answer to the Popish Writers, when they object, that the Reforma-<774>tion was made in a tumultuous manner, by two or three Monks stirring up the People to shake off the Jurisdiction of the Church of Rome, by their own Authority: Our Answer, I say, that in Scotland, England, Swisserland, Geneva, and in several other Places, the Business of Reformation was carry’d on by the Authority of the Supreme Power, who order’d the inspecting into the State of Religion, and the examining it maturely by learn’d Men, and chang’d the Worship, and restor’d the Purity of God’s Service with the greatest Regularity and Order. He pretends, that by my Principles ’twas unjust in the Secular Authority to interpose, and that it renders the Reformation vicious in the manner of it; but he’s mistaken, and hides from his Reader the principal part of the Cause, as if he had lost his Minutes or green Bag. All that he says was transacted by the Sovereign Power, is very just, according to my Doctrine; my Principles assert the Authority of the Magistrate in Matters of Religion up to this Point: but that which I condemn, and he suppresses, is, That not content to establish the Reform’d Religion in their Dominions, and give it the Preheminence as they might justly do, they abolish’d every other kind of Worship, and condemn’d those to Punishments who cou’d not in Conscience depart from the Religion of their Fathers, or conform to that Plan of Reformation which had bin approv’d by their Princes,

FINIS.

appendixes

[319. ]For the text, see http://www.creeds.net/reformed/gnvconf.htm.

[* ]This touches not the Quakers or Anabaptists, for the reason hinted before. [See above, p. 554, note.]

[320. ]On Servetus, see above, p. 198, note 83. On Jean Gentilis and Bernadin Ochin see articles on them in DHC.