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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of discussing whether the Punishments of the Hugonots in particular, be in the number of just Punishments; which wou’d only bring about the Dispute upon the main Question between us. If therefore they wou’d answer pertinently, they must lay it down as a general Position; and in this case, what will become of the Punishment of the Jewish Children, who were cast into the fiery Furnace? Must not we say, ’twas just? Were not they fairly warn’d and threaten’d by a Law, unless they kneel’d before the King’s Image? I ask these Gentlemen once more, what they wou’d think on’t, shou’d Lewis the Great make a Law for all his Subjects to kneel before the Statue, which the Duke de la Feuillade has lately erected him. I don’t here enter into the Conjectures of idle People, who talk, that if Affairs go on as they have done for fifteen or twenty years past, one of these three things must necessarily happen; either the Court of France will enjoin publick Worship to be paid this Statue; or shou’d the Court be coy, the People <119> will fall down before it of their own accord; or if these too shou’d be backward, the Clergy will lead the Dance by their Processions and Apostrophes from the Pulpit. What God pleases; for my part I’m too much employ’d at present to examine these airy Speculations on Futurity.
Prudens futuri Temporis exitum
Caliginosa nocte premit Deus,
Ridetque si mortalis ultra
Fas trepidat: quod adest memento
Componere aequus, caetera fluminis ritu feruntur. 53
But shou’d this really happen, I mean; shou’d the King enjoin his Subjects to invoke this Statue, burn Incense, fall prostrate before it, on pain of a Fine at discretion, or corporal Punishment; I desire to know whether fining the Catholicks, who refus’d to comply (some I don’t doubt wou’d, especially of the Laity) were not very unjust, and the punishing ’em very criminal? Neither Maimbourg, nor Varillas, nor Ferrand, dare even at this day affirm the contrary.
We read of Basilides, Great Duke of Muscovy, that he enacted very hard Laws, and enforc’d ’em with capital Punishments: he commanded one of his Subjects to cross a River half frozen over; another to bury himself stark naked in the Snow; another to leap into a Fire of live Coals; a fourth to bring him a Glass of his Sweat in a cold frosty Morning, a thousand Fleas fairly counted, as many Frogs, and as many Nightingals. He was the wildest Tyrant upon Earth; yet if you consider it rightly, he did not enjoin things more <120> impossible than the believing this or that in matters of Religion, according as some Mens Minds are made. There are those who shou’d run you down with Sweat in a Bed of Snow, extract Wine and Oyl from their Skin and Bones, sooner than such or such an Affirmation from their Soul. I own the difficulty is not near so great as to the Hand and Mouth; for a Man may easily say with his Tongue, and sign with his Hand, that he believes so and so, and put his Body into all the Postures that the Convertist demands: But this is not what a King, who wou’d preserve any thing of the Substance of Religion, ought to demand. He shou’d not require ’em to say, or to sign any thing till the Soul were inwardly chang’d; this inward Change, these Affirmations and Negations of the Soul, are what a King, who enacts Laws for the Conversion of his Subjects, ought in the first place to enjoin. Now this, I say, is altogether as impossible, and even more so than the Sweat which the Great Duke of Muscovy demanded. For if we consider, that no one believes things but when they appear to him true, and that their appearing true depends not on the human Mind, any more than their appearing black or white depends on it; we must allow, that it’s easier to find Fleas and Sweat in Winter, than mentally to affirm this or that, when we have bin train’d up to see the Reasons which produce a Dissent, when we are accustom’d to hold the Negative from a Duty to God, and our Minds prepossest with a religious Shiness for all the Reasons which incline to the Affirmative. I’m not insensible, that the Mind suffers it self to be sometimes corrupted by the Heart; and that in things <121> of a dubious nature, the Passions and Affections win the Soul’s Assent, where perhaps she has but a confus’d View. Yet even thus it were a horrible Wickedness to desire, that a Man shou’d determine his Choice of a Religion by a cheat upon his own Understanding; which besides is scarce possible with regard to some particular Doctrines, which People are accustom’d to look upon as absurd and contradictory: for example, that a Man shou’d eat his God; that Rats and Mice shou’d sometimes eat him; that a human Body is in a thousand places at one and the same time, without occupying any space. In a word, as it depends not on our Passions to make Snow appear black; but it’s necessary to this end, either that it be tinctur’d black, or that we be plac’d in a certain Situation, and with a certain kind of Eyes, which might cause such Modifications in the Brain as black Objects usually do: so it’s necessary, in order to make us affirm what we formerly deny’d, that the Matter be render’d true with regard to us, which depends on a certain Proportion between the Objects and our Facultys, and is a Circumstance not always in our own power.
But now for a few Comparisons less invidious than those of Nebuchadnezzar and Basilides. What wou’d the World have said of Alphonso King of Castile, had he sent his Soldiers about thro all the Towns, and Boroughs, and Villages of his Kingdom, to declare ’twas his Royal Will and Pleasure, that all his People shou’d be of his Opinion as to the Number of the Heavens, the Epicycles, Cristalins, &c. and that whoever refus’d to subscribe his Belief of these things, shou’d <122> be ruin’d by the quartering of Soldiers? What wou’d the World have said, if Pope Adrian VI who lov’d Gudgeon,54 and whose Example had so vitiated the Tast of his Court, that this which was look’d on as a very ordinary Fish before, bore a topping price under his Pontificate, to the great laughter of the poor Fishermen; had bethought him of enjoining, not as he was Pope, but as Prince of the Ecclesiastical State, that every one for the future shou’d comply with his Tast, upon pain of Imprisonment, or Fine, or quartering of Soldiers? There’s no reasonable Man but must condemn this Conduct as ridiculous and tyrannical. Yet take it all together, and ’twou’d not be near so ridiculous as saying, in a Country of different Religions, We will and ordain, that every one declare he is from henceforward of the Court-Opinion in all matters of Religion, upon pain of Imprisonment or Confiscation of Goods: I say, this Order wou’d be more unreasonable than either of the former, because it is harder for a Protestant to believe that JESUS CHRIST is present in his human Nature on all the Altars of the Catholicks, than to believe Alphonso’s System; and easier to reconcile one’s Palat to certain Dishes, than the Understanding to certain Opinions, especially where there’s a Persuasion that these Opinions hazard a Man’s eternal Salvation.
Every honest Roman Catholick will own, if he reflect a little, that he cou’d much easier bring himself to relish the vilest Ragoos in Tartary, and believe all the Visions of Aristotle or Descartes, than believe it’s an Impiety to invoke the Saints; which yet he must be oblig’d to sub-<123>scribe here, if the Papists were treated among us as the Protestants are in France. Away then, away all ye wicked or sensless Divines, who pretend that Kings may command their Subjects to be of such or such a Religion. The most they can do, is commanding ’em to examine or inform themselves of a Religion; but ’twere as absurd commanding, that what appears true to them shou’d appear so to their Subjects, as commanding that their Features and Constitution shou’d be exactly alike. Grotius* cites two fine Passages from Origen and St. Chrysostom, shewing, that of all our Customs, there is not any so hard to be chang’d as those in favor of Religious Tenets. He likewise cites Galen in the same place, saying, No Itch so hard to be cur’d, as the Prejudice for a Sect.
This Chapter shall be much shorter