PART II. and contention.

not unbounded.

First limitation.

But now, in consequence of the express precept, all occasion of scruple or uneasiness" (with regard to taxes exacted for the general purposes of government, for the remark plainly does not apply to taxes demanded for a specific immoral purpose)" is removed. And as of old Christians were permitted to buy whatever was sold in the shambles, asking no questions for conscience' sake; so now, whatever is imposed as a tax" (for the general purposes of government) "it is our duty simply to pay, and owe no man any thing, but to love one another."*

Wide, however, as was the sphere of the obligation of tribute-paying, we apprehend that it was by no means unbounded; and its limits were, and indeed must have been, materially the same as the limits of the other forms of civil obedience. There is nothing arbitrary in the divine constitutions. They all proceed on great general principles, and any thing that claims to be an exception, requires to produce very satisfactory evidence before its pretensions can be admitted. That tribute-paying has no sound claims to the distinction of being the only duty of civil obedience which has no limits, will appear, we apprehend, very distinctly as we proceed.

If this law have limits at all, there can be but little doubt, that the payment of a tribute, exacted specifically for an immoral or impious purpose,

*The Duty of Christians to Civil Government, a Sermon preached in Lady Glenorchy's Chapel, Edinburgh, on the 29th November, 1798. By Greville Ewing. Pp. 25, 26. Edin. 1799.

or generally for a purpose conscientiously disap- PART 11. proved of by him from whom it is exacted, falls beyond these limits. There is something absolutely revolting to those moral perceptions and feelings, which lie at the very bottom, which form the ima fundamina, of our spiritual nature, in maintaining the opposite opinion. It is monstrous to suppose that, by any mere human arrangement, not only may what was not duty become duty, and what was not sin become sin; but what was sin become duty, and what was duty become sin. The principle would need to have strong support that warrants such a conclusion as the following:-voluntarily to have contributed money for defraying the expenses of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, on the part of his disciples, would have been guilt, if possible, fouler than that which makes the name Iscariot the type of all that is base and impious; yet had the Roman authorities imposed a tax on them for this most immoral of all purposes, it would have immediately become their duty cheerfully to pay it. This is the fair result of the principle. I have heard of men who, on being made to see this, still held by it. But such men are beyond the reach of argument.

tax for the

idolatry con

On this principle, we hold, that had the Roman The case of a Christians been required directly to contribute to support of the support of heathen idolatry, it would have sidered. been their duty to refuse compliance. It has been asserted, on the part of some defenders of

* Vide Note XXVII.

K

PART II. the right of a civil government to exact a tribute from its subjects generally, for the support of a particular modification of religious worship,that the Primitive Christians were subjected to such a tax, and that they cheerfully paid it.* The evidence in support of the first of these statements is far from being abundant: with regard to the second, the evidence is decidedly on the other side.

Tax for support of the

pitoline Jove.

The nearest approximation to proof, that the temple of Ca- primitive Christians were liable to a specific tax for the support of heathen idolatry, furnished by ecclesiastical history, so far as we know, is to be found in the undoubted fact, that after the destruction of Jerusalem, a date considerably later than that of the writing of this Epistle, the Jews, wherever they might dwell, were required by imperial authority to pay for the use of the Capitol -a temple of Jupiter, in Rome-the tax of half a shekel-or the didrachma, which they had been wont to pay for the use of the Temple of Jerusalem; and the not improbable supposition, that this tax might be exacted not only from Jews converted to Christianity, but also from Gentiles who had become Christians, as it seems likely that the Christians were considered by many as a Jewish sect. Suetonius, the Roman historian,

"We can conceive no fouler insult to the memory of the martyrs and confessors of the early times, than what is thrown upon it by the churchmen of the present day. It is almost enough to rouse their very souls under the altar, and to put additional vehemence into their cry for vengeance :- How long, O Lord, how long!"-Voluntary Church Magazine, vol. vi. p. 182.

from Chris

tians, not

states, that in the reign of Domitian, "the Jewish PART 11. tax," plainly referring to the imposition just mentioned," was exacted with the greatest severity, and was demanded of those who lived according to the Jewish customs, without entering themselves as Jews, or who dissembling their original, had omitted to pay the tax laid upon that nation," words which plainly intimate that the tax was not cheerfully paid. The learned, candid, and sagacious Lardner, says, that "it cannot be doubted that some Christians met with sufferings upon this account, under the name and character of Jews, from whom they received their religion, and perhaps this story of Suetonius has a reference to Domitian's persecution of the Christians, commonly called the second persecution." Gib- If demanded bon speaks of the refusal of the Christians to pay paid by them. this tax, as an undoubted fact," It was impossible that the Christians who had so often sheltered themselves under the shade of the synagogue, should now escape this rapacious persecution. Anxious as they were to avoid the slightest infection of idolatry, their conscience forbade them to contribute to the honour of that demon, who had assumed the character of the Capitoline Jupiter." If Lardner's and Gibbon's conclusions be admitted to be just, then so far from it being true that Christians cheerfully paid a tax for the support of the heathen idolatry,-their refusal to pay such a tax was the immediate cause of a bloody persecution. It deserves notice, also, that Lardner distinctly enough states, that in his estimation these scruples to contribute to a heathen

PART II. temple, were sufficient reasons for declining to pay this impost.*

If such a tax had been imposed on the primi

66

"Judaicus fiscus acerbissime actus est; ad quem deferebantur, qui vel improfessi Judaicam viverent vitam, vel dissimultata origine, imposita genti, tributa, non pependissent."-Sueton. Domit. cap. xii. Φορον δε τοις ὁπου δηποτ' ουσιν Ιουδαιος επεβαλε, δυο δραχμας έκαστον κελευσας ανα παν ετος εις το Καπετωλιον φερειν ώσπερ προτερον εις τον εν Ιεροσολύμοις νεων συνετέλουν. Fl. Jos. Bell. Jud. L. vi. C. vi. vol. v. p. 143.-Lardner's Testimonies of Ancient Heathens, Chap. viii. Sect. iv.-Works, vol. iii. p. 620.-The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. Ch. xvi. p. 538. 4to. Lond. 1776. It appears then probable, that one of the principal causes of the persecution under Domitian, and likely of other persecutions also, was the refusal on the part of the Christians to pay “the vectigalia templorum," and otherwise to support the heathen superstitions. That there was a great falling off, appears not only from the oft-quoted passage from Tertullian, but also from the following citation from Pliny: "Satis constat prope jam desolata templa cepisse celebrari * *passimque venire victimas quarum adhuc rarissimus emptor inveniebatur."-Epistolæ, Lib. x. 97. The diminution of the gains of the priesthood-augurs "et hoc genus omne," is assigned by the judicious Mosheim as a leading cause of the early persecutions. "Publicus tot numinum cultus, stolidæque populorum de illis opiniones infinitam sacerdotum augurum haruspicum, et aliorum hominum turbam commode et copiose alebant. Mercatores pariter haud pauci, qui bestias, thura, resque alias vendebant, magno religionem habebant questui, ne quid nunc de opificibus dicam, quibus ea fructuosissima erat."—Acta xix. 25. Proceres et magistratus ipsi, amplissimis, lautissimisque fungebantur sacerdotiis. Qui quum omnes animis prospicerent, aut esmiendum, aut multis sibi commodis et ornamentis carendum esse si hæc sacra funderentur per populos, initiis existimabant resistendum, et Christianos extirpandos esse."— Mosheimii Institutiones Historiæ Christianæ Majores, Sec. i. Pars. i. Cap. v. Sec. x. p. 120. 4to. Helmstad. 1739. It is mortifying to think that there has been so little honest, though mistaken, religious principle in the upholding of ancient religious institutions; and that by far the greater part of what professed to be religious zeal, was indeed one of the lowest varieties of selfishThus was it in the primitive age-thus was it at the era

ness.