theory has been lost, and, since its work is done and facts render it impossible of support by any loyal subject, its edge has been taken off. Yet, whittled down to a few harmless truisms, it still remains to stimulate the sense that obedience to law has some sanction higher than mere personal convenience.

To sum up out of the sentiment common to Summary. all Christians that subjection to lawful authority is in general a religious duty, since authority is part of the natural and Divine order, the Papacy developed a claim to complete supremacy, as the only Divinely ordained government. This claim was met by a counter-claim to Divine Right on behalf of the Imperial dignity. In the sixteenth century the doctrine is elaborated with greater rigidity,-the principle of absolute non-resistance is seen to be necessary to protect secular government from clerical interference. In combination with other causes, this theory gives birth to a theory of indefeasible hereditary right whose prevalence is largely due to the fact that both Henry IV. of France and James I. of England obtained their thrones by right of birth alone and without Papal sanction. In the seventeenth century the political side of the doctrine came out most strongly, and it is seen to be the form, in which alone could become popular the theory of sovereignty. It further accomplished a work in softening or preventing political changes. Its work done, it begins to become obsolete at the Revolution, and tends to pass into a mere sentiment. Meanwhile the older method of argument by means of a medley of Scripture texts has given place to the

contention that monarchy and obedience are a part of the natural order and therefore divine.

The basis of the theory is no longer Biblical and theological, but historical and utilitarian. Yet on this basis the ground cannot be maintained; and the theory gives way before the doctrine of natural rights of the people propounded by Locke, which is only the Divine Right of Kings in a disguised form. There is however far more weight allowed by Locke than by Filmer to the principle of utility. This conception may be expected to overshadow and then to supersede the artificial fiction of the original compact and the dream of natural inalienable rights. The doctrine of Divine Right not only was transformed by imperceptible degrees into the theory of natural rights, but it left behind it a legacy, in the sense that government in general is divine, because it is natural, and that obedience to law is a religious duty.

CHAPTER VIII.

PASSIVE OBEDIENCE AND THE CHURCH OF

ENGLAND.

Right to be con

relation to

theories.

THE doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings has now been considered in respect of the process of its development and decay. It remains to regard it Divine statically, so to say, to view it in relation to rival theories of government. It must be remembered sidered in first of all that the import of the phrase "Divine rival Right of Kings" is mainly negative. It implies that there is no foundation for the pretensions advanced by certain other authorities to supremacy by God's especial grant. The notion of Divine Right is in the air; all theories of government are theories of Divine Right, and most of them admit so much1. The Pope claims by Divine Right, so do the Presbyterians. Even the author of the Vindiciae contends, that since kings hold their crowns by God's grace, they may be judged by the people, as interpreters of the original Divine compact. Again, the English writers on behalf of resistance most of them assert for law and custom a claim to absolute authority by

1 On this point see Leslie's able paper, The Rehearsal, no. 53, Divine Right in Government acknowledged by all.

2 Vindiciae contra Tyrannos, Quaestio 1. passim.

All theories of seventeenth century

are

theories of Divine Right.

Divine Right. The theory of natural rights is but the theory of Divine Right under a changed guise, a fact of which the writings of Rousseau form the clearest evidence. Algernon Sidney contends that an unjust law ought not to be obeyed, since it cannot bind the conscience and lacks Divine authority'. This view is one, which only admits law to be law "simply and strictly so-called," when it is believed to be in accordance with the Divine will. Sidney's notion, that the sovereignty of the people is inalienable, as being a grant from God, which neither human ordinance nor the people's own consent may alienate, is every whit as much a theory of Divine Right as the views of Mainwaring or Sacheverell. The doctrine under investigation does not differ from contemporary theories of politics in alone claiming Divine Right for the supreme authority, but in claiming that the king is the supreme authority. All the theories alike are at variance with modern political philosophy, for they all assert or imply a claim to Divine Right. In this respect, they differ from the thought of to-day, but agree among themselves. If the Divine Right of Kings be, as is so often asserted, the stupidest of all theories of politics, it cannot be because it seeks to find a Divine authority for government. We have no right to condemn it beyond other theories for a notion, which they all hold in common. The point to consider is, how far it was a specially stupid theory of politics, as compared with other views prevalent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

1 Discourses on Government, I. § 11.

discussed.

It will be convenient to examine the theory first Religious of all in relation to those doctrines, which most theory will side of the directly controvert it and assert a Divine Right for be here some ecclesiastical authority. In this chapter the religious aspect of the theory will be the main element considered. Afterwards it will be examined on its political side, and its relations to other views of politics investigated.

papal

From the foregoing investigation it must have Its antiappeared sufficiently that the theory arose out of the origin. reaction against the Papal pretensions. It was the need of a controversial method to meet the claims of the spiritual power, which produced the doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings. This has been shewn to be the case in the Empire, in France, and in England. If further evidence be required, it is only necessary to take up at random any tract or pamphlet in behalf of royal rights written during the seventeenth century. In all probability the name of either the Pope or Bellarmine will be prominent on the first page. The royalist authors have the Pope on the brain. Whoever be their immediate antagonist, the Pope is always in the background, and it is against him that the long struggle is waged. Preachers on Jan. 30th assert that the martyrdom of Charles was really the work of the Jesuits, or they open their sermons with an elaborate proof not that resistance is a sin, but that Papal interference is against the laws and liberties of this realm of England'. Filmer was perhaps less

1 In a sermon preached before the King on January 30, 168£, Dr Turner's first thought is of the Pope and of the advantage to