A Philosophical Commentary on These Words of the Gospel, Luke 14:23, “Compel Them to Come In, That My House May Be Full”. Pierre Bayle
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and Abominations trail after this execrable Morality; since all the Barriers which separate Vertue from Vice, being hereby remov’d, all Actions, be they ever so infamous, must become Acts of Piety and Religion, if tending to the Extinction of Heresy. So that shou’d a Heretick by his good Sense, by his Eloquence, and by his sober Life, confirm others in their Heresy, or persuade some among the Faithful that they are deceiv’d, presently assassinating, poisoning, blasting his Reputation by the wickedest Calumnys, and suborning false Witnesses to prove ’em upon him, is all fair play. People may shake their heads, and say, it’s hard and unjust; the Answer is ready: It might be so in other cases; but the Interest of the Church interfering, nothing is more just. Every one sees, without my entring into the hideous Detail, that there’s no kind of Crime which does not become <79> an Act of Religion; Judges might conscientiously give the most unjust Decrees against Hereticks; others rob ’em with impunity, break Faith with ’em in the most important Affairs, force away their Children, stir up false Witnesses against ’em, debauch their Daughters, in hopes the shame of a big Belly might humble ’em into the true Religion: In a word, they might insult and outrage ’em all manner of ways, and Violence and Fraud play by turns, in a prospect of wearying ’em out of their lives, and obliging ’em at last to change Religion; and all this while persuade themselves, that acting from this holy Motive, they committed no Injustice. Can any thing be more horrible!
Nor are they the only Party privileg’d by the Result of this fine Management: all others wou’d think themselves authoriz’d to take the same methods, because each Sect looks on it self as the only true Religion, or at least much the truest; and looking on all others as Enemys to God, or imperfect at best, imagine they shou’d do great service to Truth by bringing about their Conversion. I shan’t in this place examine, whether all have an equal Right, supposing only a sincere Persuasion in all to endeavor the Extirpation of what they believe false: but this at least is plain, that JESUS CHRIST must have foreseen how his Command might prompt all sort of Christians to exercise Violence on those who were out of their own Communion, which wou’d be an inexhaustible Source of Iniquity, and an Iliad of Miserys to those of the really true. Now it’s not to be conceiv’d, but a bare prospect of the many Mischiefs to which his express Command might <80> give birth, and for which it might be a very plausible Excuse, wou’d have hinder’d him from delivering it, tho he had not bin otherwise abundantly bar’d by the essential and inherent Injustice of Persecution on the score of Religion.
Tho I don’t design to enter into a Detail of the abominable Confusions which might spring from hence, that the most unjust Actions become just by their Subserviency to the Extirpation of Error; yet I can’t but observe this grand Inconveniency arising from it among others, That Kings and Sovereign Princes cou’d never be safe when their Subjects were of a different Persuasion. Their Subjects wou’d think themselves oblig’d in Conscience to depose and expel ’em, unless they abjur’d their Religion; and still believe it a very justifiable Action: for in fine, say they, the Gospel will have us Compel to come in; and accordingly we must compel our King to turn, we must refuse our Obedience till he conforms; and if he obstinately persists, we must depose, and confine him a while to a Cloyster. It may be, the sense of so many temporal Afflictions will incline his Heart to Instruction, and deliver him from his Prejudices: Be that as it will, we shall however promote the Interest of Religion, by dethroning a Prince who’s an Enemy to it, and placing one in his room who’l be a Father and Defender. This Circumstance suffices to render Actions Just, which without it wou’d be exceeding Criminal. Let’s depose therefore, or even put to Death our heretical King, because, tho an infernal Parricide, when perpetrated from any other Motive, it’s yet a good Work if done for the Interest of the true <81> Religion. Thus Sovereigns and Subjects might conscientiously persecute one another by turns; those compel their People of a different Religion by main force to abjure; and these, when they had the Power, do as much for their Prince: each in the mean time religiously obeying the Command of the Son of God. Shou’d not we be mightily oblig’d to JESUS CHRIST for taking our Nature upon him, and submitting to the Death of the Cross for our sakes, if by these three or four words, Compel to come in, he had depriv’d us of those small remains of natural Religion, which were sav’d from the Shipwreck of the first Man; if he had confounded the Natures of Vertue and Vice, and destroy’d the Boundarys which divide the two States, by making Murder, and Robbery, and Felony, and Tyranny, and Rebellion, and Calumny, and Perjury, and all Crimes generally, when practis’d against a heterodox Party, lose the Character of Evil, and become Vertues of a most necessary Obligation? The drift of which must be the dissolving all civil Societys, and consigning Men to Dens and Caves of the Earth, for fear of meeting with any of their own kind, the most dangerous Beasts in the Forest.
What’s very absurd in a great many Roman Catholicks, and particularly the French, is their insisting on one hand, that JESUS CHRIST has enjoin’d Constraint, and yet denying, that this Command extends to Kings, or that the Church has any Right to depose ’em.43 This is in the last degree pitiful. They are satisfy’d, that Kings, by virtue of this Passage, are authoriz’d by God to destroy their heretical Subjects, imprison, dragoon, hang, and burn ’em; but they won’t allow, that the same Passage gives <82> Subjects a right, whenever the Pope or a General Council shall judg it a proper Season, to drive out an heretical King, and set up an orthodox Person in his room. Where’s the sense of this? Wou’d they have JESUS CHRIST enjoin Constraint in all, excepting the single Case, where it may be of the greatest Advantage to the Church, by the Destruction of just one Man? For who sees not, that the Downfal of one heretical bigoted Monarch may prevent more Mischiefs to the opposite Religion, than the Ruin of a hundred thousand Peasants or Mechanicks? So that granting the words, Compel ’em to come in, did signify in general, strip, smite, imprison, hang, break upon the Wheel, till no one dare boggle at signing; I can’t see the reason of laughing at Suarez, Becan,44 and a great many more, for saying, that in the words, Feed my Sheep, there’s a Power imply’d of treating heretical Kings as Shepherds do Wolves, which they are to destroy, Omni modo quo possunt,45 to wit, the shortest way.
They’l tell me, God expresly declares, that ’tis by him Kings reign; and that resisting their Ordinances is resisting the Ordinance of God. And what then? Is it not as plain, that Murder, Calumny, Robbery, and Perjury, are expresly forbidden by God? Yet, if notwithstanding the Prohibition, these Actions become righteous, when perform’d for the Good of the Church; mayn’t we say the same of every other prohibited Action, not excepting even that of deposing Kings? And the truth is, these very Men, who express such an Abhorrence of deposing Principles, when their Kings are orthodox, contradict themselves in practice, when they happen to be <83> otherwise, as was seen with a witness in France, in the days of the League. So natural a Consequence is it of the literal Sense that I refute, and so necessary not to spare even Crown’d Heads, or any thing else upon Earth, when put into the Ballance with the Prosperity of the Church.
I wish my Readers wou’d weigh these Reasons a little; and I assure my self they’d be convinc’d, that a Command, which (as the World is made) must naturally be attended with such a horrible train of Impietys, and so total an Extinction of the first Principles of Equity, which are the eternal and immutable Rule, cou’d never proceed from the Mouth of him who is the essential Truth. That literal Sense therefore, which I contend against, is utterly false.
I said I did not design to enter into a Detail of the mischievous Consequences which might follow from the Principle I confute; yet upon second thoughts I find it necessary to lay open a few of ’em, the better to discover the Horribleness and strange Enormity of the Command so <84>