Lecture III: Anti-Revolutionary Principles

© 1989, 2000 Harry Van Dyke. Reprinted with kind permission.

{#} Page numbers in the original 1847 Dutch 1st edition.

Let {42} us make a beginning tonight with the negative part of my argument; namely, that the Revolution cannot have been caused by the perversity of the former law, whether it be with regard to the principles, the forms of government, or indeed the abuses that prevailed at the time. To each of these subjects one lecture will be devoted.

This evening hour, then, I wish to argue that the Revolution cannot be explained simply as a reaction against the perniciousness of the foundations on which the various European constitutions used to be built. Let us first look at the basic features in question {43} and then examine a few specific points that have been considered particularly offensive.
 

There is simplicity in the basic principles underlying the former constitutions. (It is the erroneous notions that have made political science so cumbersome.) Let me summarize the theory, not as it was developed in the scholar's study, but as it was part of the universal consensus and lived in the consciousness of the nations.

The essence of the state, its sovereignty, was defined as independency of power and authority.

As for the origin of civil authority, it was universally acknowledged that states are not of man's making but of divine institution, inseparable from the nature and needs of fallen mankind. The first family in history, with husband and father placed in dominion over all the earth, possessed all the marks of the state.

As regards the various forms of government, they were known to have evolved in time from patriarchal authority, through power and dominion based on military conquest, expansion of landholdings, or people's recognition of justice and wisdom, to either Monarchies or Republics. In the former case a King is the centre and soul of government; in the latter, association resulted in a Commonwealth, in which the sovereignty belongs to the community by whose approval the administration is entrusted to an elected magistracy.

Finally, in regard to the limits of authority it was believed that everyone was limited {44} to his sphere of competence. Our fathers knew no better safeguard than to remind each other of the divine law of justice and love which renders acquired rights and liberties inviolable. They knew very well that the people are not children that must be chastised, or defenceless sheep that may be shorn for the benefit of the owner. But neither had they learned to discredit paternal tenderness and pastoral care as the affectionate symbols of the relation of ruler to subject.

These, then, were some of the maxims of theoretic and practical wisdom as they were once imprinted on the conscience of Christendom. This was the constitutional law, so clearly based on the simple pronouncements of Nature and Revelation, that came to be bitterly reproached and vehemently attacked by the Revolution. How so? I shall list and discuss the main objections.
 

1. Too much attention was paid to questionable historic rights, to the detriment of general principles of justice.

2. Too little attention was paid to the rule No state within the state, with the result that multiple internal clashes thwarted a strong and unified political power.

3. The {45} divine origin of authority served as a pretext in support of despotism.

4. The forced union of Church and State confused disparate things and so had many bad effects.
 

1. Is it true that the old regime was so attached to the historical elements and so tied to the status quo that it ignored the universal principles of justice?

To begin with, historic rights did not necessarily conflict with these principles. In fact, it was held that they reflected them. Historic rights were not simply derived from history, from the welter of all that comes to pass, beyond the control of higher powers, but on the contrary, they were respected as the slowly ripening fruits of the principle of justice whose action in time, far from bowing to the events, subjects the unformed mass of facts and circumstances to its regulating and purifying influence. Justice, in a philosophical sense essential {46} and historical par excellence, was placed above History. It was this dominion of Right over fact that gave rise to a whole series of acquired rights. Now, any particular combination of these rights determined the distinctiveness of a state, forming its natural constitution.

But what about all the injustices that occurred? For indeed, there is not a page and scarcely a line in history that is not soiled by sin. Did those works of unrighteousness not often lie at the origin of these historic rights?

Let us beware lest we force upon a previous generation what is the modern rule. Unlike today, men did not simply yield to faits accomplis. Might was not identified with right, a crime not exonerated, a conquest not legalized merely upon exhibiting proof that it had been successful. It was, however, possible that as a result of a committed deed a new right would arise with respect to a third party: namely, when the long-range outcome of an act of injustice, cleansed of its original stain through prescription or superannuation (which is not founded on some arbitrary decision or on the mere passing of time but on the nature of the case and on change in persons and circumstances), was ready to be received within the sphere of incontestable rights. Justice itself requires this expedient. In any case, far from yielding to the superior force of circumstances, men understood that no fact was to be recognized as valid unless it was thus marked at one time or another with the stamp of justice; nor {47} did they consider themselves authorized to thrust aside any fact so sanctioned just because it happened to stand in the way of some proposed action. Thus respect for acquired rights meant at the same time respect for the highest principles of justice.

So you see, the accusation turns into praise. Without this rule, no right is sacred, no possession safe. With it, the natural course of things is secure against violent interference, reforms can be introduced gradually and wholesomely, and constitutions can grow sound and stable—bearing out the wise word of Cato, "The arrangement of a commonwealth is the work neither of one period nor of one man."[1]
 

2. Was political authority in the state enfeebled by the independence allowed its divisions and subdivisions?

No state within the State! A useful warning, if it means that in a well-ordered kingdom or commonwealth nobody possesses complete independence, that every inhabitant is a subject, that either alone or in union with others he is to some degree subordinate to the authorities in everything that falls under the jurisdiction of the state. But the warning turns into a dangerous dogma if men use it to demand passivity for subordination, to mistake autonomy for independence, to regard free activity as rebellion, in every respect to subject everything found within the state's territory to the arbitrary will of the state, to oppose on principle any self-government of private persons or corporations and thus, under the guise of {48} maintaining law and order, to destroy all self-determination and all genuine liberties. Our fathers believed and acted otherwise. In their day, every family head, every corporation, every estate was entitled, within the sphere of its competence, to dispose of person and property, to make rules for its subordinates, to regulate its affairs as it pleased; in short, to exercise a form of government that differs from sovereign authority only in this respect that it lacks independence, which is the distinguishing mark of sovereignty. They believed that general prosperity was inseparable from the free development of the orders, of the estates composing the state, whose rights were held to be sacred until the Revolution came, when they were called scandalous.

Behind the rebuke you recognize the bias for centralization. We shall have to come back to that many times. Centralization always begins by destroying the rights of provinces and municipalities and, if forced to be consistent, ends by tolerating in fact no right or activity or existence except under its supervision and control, as a benign favour. It has no place for autonomy, for independence within one's own sphere.[2]

So, again, we glory in the rebuke. Let the supreme power be free and unchecked in the execution of its rights, precisely for the good of the people. But remove the checks referred to above, and you have lost the only means to call a halt to state omnipotence and the only means to resist a political theory that would rather see the "masses" passive and the state machine irresistible than countenance self-help and organic vitality.[3]
 
 

3. Did {49} the theory of divine right function simply as a pretext for despotism?

I may be less successful in countering this charge. Even today the divine right of government is almost universally denounced as an antiquated misconception from the Dark Ages, a nonsensical fabrication of princely cunning and priestly self-interest, a tissue of iniquities tied to a multitude of fallacies and absurdities. Just a few years ago, to stand up as a defender of divine right was a daring venture if one prized the honor of man more than the honor of God: it was to place oneself voluntarily among the ranks of the most backward fanatics. And although there has perhaps been a shift of opinion, now that every other foundation of government has proved unstable, yet from a large number of people one can still expect only indignation or pity if one wishes to give a fair and Scriptural treatment of the subject.

All this will not keep me from affirming the excellence of the assailed doctrine. I shall do this by calling to your attention: a. the deformation, b. the meaning, and c. the consequences of this doctrine, which more than any other truth is worthy to be called a principle, inasmuch as the fear of the Lord is the principium of knowledge.
 

a. Its deformation. Here too we must first dispel the clouds, for victory is certain if we but contend in the full light of day.

How foolish and how wrong (it is said) to pay men homage which belongs only to God; to exalt princes to a category of superhuman beings stamped indelibly with a mark of sacredness; to look upon the Jewish theocracy, exceptional in Scripture itself, as a model for all states; to be partial to the autocratic form of government; to wrap worldly-minded intentions in a cloak of authority borrowed from Heaven; to smuggle into the hands of government a form of systemic violence which allows the sovereign every injustice, denies {50} the subject every resistance, and sacrifices to the new idol every liberty!

Now, woe betide us if we maintain or intend what we are charged with here! But what if I fail to recognize in this series of caricatures a single true image? I do not dispute that history provides us with examples in abundance of every abuse I have just recited. But I do dispute that the defense of a doctrine obliges one likewise to defend its many deformations. We do not identify the will of any sovereign with the will of God, as some peoples are reported to have done. We do not erect altars for any government, as the Romans did under the Emperors. We do not want any improper transfer of customs and precepts borrowed from the unique dispensation of Israel. We do not dream of any sacred dynasties with hereditary rights like the House of David. We have no desire to restrict the application of a universal truth for the exclusive benefit of the monarchical form of government, as though we were inclined to rave with James I of England about the absolute power of a king, or to join Napoleon in invoking God to sanction and not at the same time to regulate and bridle it. We do not wish to exempt sovereignty from restraints but are convinced, rather, that the subordination of rulers and subjects to the Supreme Power above the earth is sufficient restraint, and that it provides the best guarantee for the observance of mutual obligations.
 

b. What, then, is the meaning of divine right?

Although we could also appeal to classical antiquity, the simple and plain answer is found in Scripture: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God."[4]

All power is ordained of God. — {51} It is not permissible, whenever something seems too strong to us, to water it down by means of some insipid interpretation that conforms to what we consider acceptable. Therefore, we may in no wise try to evade the intention of these words, for example by pointing to the care of Providence which brings forth good out of the evil that it tolerates. The powers that be are not just tolerated. They are willed, instituted, sanctified by God himself. This is the only plausible meaning of ordained.

We must be equally on our guard against a distortion of Scripture invited by miscomprehension or inspired by base design. All power must be understood as referring to every kind of legitimate power, in the sound sense demanded in the context by the reminder of God's righteousness and holiness. Power here is not synonymous with might or force. To be sure, I realize that when Paul wrote this, Nero was in power; I also admit that the Christian is not always called to enter into disputes concerning the legitimacy of existing powers; and I am quite willing to allow that the expression "also to the froward,"[5] used in connection with masters over slaves, also applies, by analogy, to the injustices of civil authorities. Nevertheless, I will not subscribe to any interpretation that would oblige us to be obedient to the villain who holds a dagger under our nose, or to hail today as a power ordained of God the crowned robber who yesterday banished our legitimate prince.[6]

Furthermore, {52} it is plain that the nature of the submission required of us depends upon the nature of the power granted by God. In The Hague I am not obliged to submit to the type of authority that is lawfully exercised in Constantinople or St. Petersburg. Similarly, as a Netherlander I am not entitled to the liberties and privileges enjoyed by the subjects and citizens of London or Paris.

Every kind of lawful power. — Divine right is not the trademark of Monarchy. It applies to all forms of government. Thus, whatever we might want to hold against John de Witt and his fellow oligarchs, we would not fault them for their strenuous efforts, given their insistence on the sovereignty of the States of Holland, to defend their authority in that Republic by appealing to the divine origin of their rights to sovereignty.

All power is of God. A civil power is God’s lieutenant and God’s minister. In this duality of the relation—its twofold direction, upwards and downwards—lies the whole theory of divine right. We are to obey the higher power for the Lord’s sake; he is to be obedient to God. "For he is the minister of God to thee for good," writes the apostle.[7] The supreme power {53} is a gift of God which must be employed in His service, for the benefit of others, and to His honor.

But (someone will object) this is true of any gift of God. To be a lieutenant, minister, and steward of God is the calling of everybody, each in his own sphere. In every rank, in every relation, man has been given a talent, which is at his free disposal—on the understanding that God will call him to account concerning its use. A sovereign bears God's image on earth, but—thus runs the objection—so does a father with respect to his child, and a judge with respect to the accused. In fact, so does the possessor of any goods and talents whatsoever, since each talent is a gift and every possession is a loan. All men, therefore, are to walk in the Name and after the commandment of God in the good works which He has ordained for us.[8] The principle is the same for all, in the rights it confers, in the duties it imposes, and in the norm it implies. To what, then, are we to ascribe the strange and extraordinary position that is always so pompously granted to government?

I welcome this objection. I agree with everything said. For it seems to me that the very simplicity of the case reveals its incontestability. So far from being peculiar or extraordinary, divine right is but the most natural application of a universal truth. The objection raises the very point that has been such a fatal source of misunderstanding: those who appealed to divine right from self-interest considered it an exceptional right, those who opposed it out of resentment regarded it as an odious privilege. Away with this arbitrary restriction! The truth that a violation of rights is a violation of the divine right holds for no one or it holds for all. All have an interest in its observance. It gives stability to the entire structure of society. The promise, "War to the castles, peace to the huts," is deceitful, for the same reasoning which demolishes the palace of the prince will not spare the counting-house of the merchant {54} or the humble roof of the peasant or the lowly hut of a day-laborer. By contrast, the doctrine of divine right protects both the throne and the property of the least of its subjects.

Viewed in this light, the ancient institution of anointing kings and the use of the formula Sovereign by the grace of God need give no offence. The ceremony of anointment, to be sure, was but a foolish superstition if some mysterious power was ascribed to it without any sincere invocation of God’s name; and it was a cunning trick if its purpose was to place the clergy above the king, or the king above the law. But it was anything but an empty show if done in accordance with its original purpose: namely, to have the people acknowledge their Sovereign as an agent and ambassador of the Most High; to remind the prince of his need for divine assistance; to teach him to realize his own unworthiness and to ask for a wise and understanding heart;[9] to add solemnity to his vow to uphold the laws of charity and justice; to add power to the pledges made on this occasion. In the same way the title ‘Sovereign by the grace of God’ {55} admonished a ruler to show his gratitude for the gift received by grace by performing his duty with humility. As such, the formula sums up the whole theory of divine right.
 

c. The consequences of this doctrine will have become apparent to you by now. This mark of authority is a safeguard against every false criterion that one might wish to put in its place. Responsible to no one but to God, the sovereign knows he is accountable to God. Master in the sphere of his own rights, he knows he is charged with respecting the rights of others. The rights and liberties of the people cannot be disregarded without undermining the rights of the sovereign. The subjects do not obey with eyeservice, as menpleasers, but for God's sake, as the servants of the eternal King who reigns over the kings of the earth.[10] That which is said to humiliate, exalts.

The obedience that is born of submission to God is defined and delimited in accordance with the laws of God. It does not entail surrendering one’s own proper rights and {56} liberties. It is founded on the word, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." From this it does not follow: "Render unto Caesar also the things which are not Caesar’s." It is grounded, much rather, in the commandment, "Render unto God the things which are God’s."[11] It does not exclude passive resistance, which can wear down force; nor does it exclude the right of modest private judgment, or even the right of firm refusal or fearless opposition although such opposition is not without its limits and injustice by itself is no warrant for breaking sacred relationships. It was in this knowledge that our godfearing fathers acted in the sixteenth century: they did not take up arms, and then only hesitantly and in self-defense, until forty years of patience and suffering had passed, and their scrupulousness was such that they would have been prepared to sacrifice all, short of God’s word, in order to remain loyal to a lord even such as Philip II was.

What more shall I say about this foundation of political wisdom? Authority is confirmed, arbitrary government bridled, obedience ennobled, liberty safeguarded, the basic truth held high which, in a plurality of applications, forms the cement of the entire state edifice. "All true legislation emanates from God. . . . Depart from this, and I see only arbitrary wills and a degrading rule of force, I see only men insolently lording it over other men, I see only slaves and tyrants."[12] In sum, the thesis that seemed to contain a string of vicious errors turns out to be a wellspring of salutary truths. "Thus all truths concerning society flow from this first and great truth, that all power comes from God."[13]
 

4. One weighty and controversial {57} point remains: the union of Church and State. It has many opponents, including Christians. I can best begin with the unadorned presentation of the grounds for it.

If a sovereign in all his acts is to be guided by the precepts of morality, this morality must find support in a religion, to whose faithful profession the sovereign grants protection and favors, in the interest of maintaining justice, virtue, and order. If a sovereign is God's lieutenant, he is obliged publicly to confess and worship Him, to aid others in the exercise of worship, and as far as his legitimate authority extends to apply the standards of God's law to all his deeds and ordinances. As Scripture says: "Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling."[14] As for the church, she is called to be the light, the salt, and the leaven of the world. The church ought not to seek martyrdom or humiliation. She should not withdraw if the state requests her co-operation. The church must endeavor to secure authority and influence for the Gospel, in order that the divine commandments {58} be observed. These are the grounds for the union of Church and State.

Notice that it is not an option but an obligation. Objections based on fear of harm or despair of profit are therefore not to the point. What does it benefit the state? people ask; it has often paid too dearly for the support of the church. And why would the church need any state support? She flourishes under oppression. Worldly favors are a temptation for her. The Gospel is strong enough without human assistance. All these commonplaces are irrelevant the moment union appears obligatory. The manner and the degree in which it is applied may run into obstacles in view of the requirements of toleration and the rights of conscience, but this may never lead to a denial of the principle.

And yet, as you know, its opponents are daily increasing. The church, they say, is sacred and the state is profane. The church is the community of God, the state is the world that lies in wickedness. What concord has Christ with Belial?[15] Don’t think I am putting words in their mouths; you will find even stronger expressions in many {59} a book and pamphlet, admonishing advocates of union to repent and inveighing against union as the Carthage that must be destroyed. Why, a zealous Christian in our own country has recently gone on record as saying that with the exception of ancient Israel all states are from the Devil.[16] And Professor [Alexandre] Vinet, that gifted scholar and humble believer, is not afraid to assert, in his widely known book published a few years ago, that the confusion of ideas which have led to union can be attributed only to Satan.[17]

According to Vinet, union is at all times, in all circumstances, under any government, an abomination.

So it is to me—in a revolutionary {60} state. I loathe a union such as we have had in the Netherlands since 1795.

Legally termed a separation, the present relation between church and state is such that factually the church is restricted in the enjoyment of her lawful rights, hindered in the exercise of her proper influence, placed under tutelage, and, breaking the reciprocal bond, is bound in fetters. From such slavery the church ought to wrest herself free. Indeed, with such a state the church should want to have no relation whatever.

But I reject Vinet’s general condemnation. Vinet errs in his conception of the state and, accordingly, in his evaluation of its historic relation with the church. He begins by adopting the radical definition of the state as an aggregate of individuals by whose consent the concentrated mass of the people is governed, a "civil society" whose individual members "have made a common cause of whatever is their common concern."[18] Then, to forestall having the government of such an omnipotent state, as a corollary, impose also a national religion, in violation of private conscience, he further defines the state as a "man minus {61} his conscience" concerned only with material interests.[19] Such a state, I grant, should have no relation with the church. But this is not the historic {62} state of which I speak.

In addition, Vinet frequently succumbs to the temptation of imputing historical misapplications to the principle as such. Then oratory has free play, evoking the specters of hypocrisy, self-interest, intolerance, fanaticism. But I hold no brief for the folly and wickedness of men. I defend only the principle and what necessarily follows from it.

Many claim, however, that past abuses followed from the very nature of this relationship. The sovereign will always make his supreme power serve his own ends. The financial tie will everywhere serve as a pretext for inspection and control. The clergy can be bought at any time by the tokens of honor and favor. Where the church is in union with the state, there independence in matters of faith cannot exist.

We readily admit that too often governments have used their power unjustly and have (not just in our days) used their position of paymaster of the clergy to obtain mastery over the church. We are aware that the clergy have not always remained immune to weapons of silver {63} or of steel. Yet, temptations can be resisted; a state’s attempts can meet effective opposition; nor will every sovereign want to dominate a church whose faith he shares. As Thomas Chalmers observes: "There might be an entire dependence on the state in things temporal, without even the shadow of a dependence upon it in things ecclesiastical. Although the church should receive its maintenance, and all its maintenance, from the civil power, it follows not that it therefore receives its theology from the same quarter; or that this theology should acquire thereby the slightest taint or infusion of secularity."[20] Nor are regular payments of money the sole or principal tie. Payments may cease yet the union continue if the church’s faith is but heeded in the drafting of laws and institutions. In short, abuses are possible but not necessary.

This is borne out by the union of church and state as it actually obtained in all nations prior to the Revolution. Here too Vinet, like many others among our Christian opponents today, is more at home in the flowery fields of philosophical speculation than in the arid deserts of historical research. On this point, do the annals of our fathers speak only of weakness, never of vigorous energy, only of neglect, never of vigilance {64} in the performance of duty? In Calvin's Geneva there was insistence on the independence of the church no less than on the independence of the state. From the history of the Reformed Church we can summon many witnesses whose deeds are a glorious testimony to the possibility of clinging unshakably to the rights of the church against the arrogations of temporal authorities.

I call your attention to Great Britain, where in recent years the Free Church of Scotland has sacrificed the benefits of union, however high she valued them, for the sake of preserving genuine independence. In the seventeenth century almost the whole of English history is taken up by the struggle of the courageous Puritans against the coercion of a caesaropapistic regime sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. After the Restoration of 1660 the believers in Scotland, because they wished to maintain a presbyterian polity against the designs of an ungrateful and unscrupulous king, suffered bloody persecution for twenty years, ceasing only when William of Orange arrived to put an end to the coercive and arbitrary measures.

The history of our own country, too, affords witnesses in word and deed. I could open the pages of Trigland where our friend Van der Kemp here could, better than I, point to the numerous places where this able author {65} lucidly defines, in harmony with the Biblical teachings of our church, the boundaries of church and state as well as their mutual relationship and reciprocal obligations.[21] The Dutch church was not in the habit of giving in whenever she was threatened with the naked sword of the sharpest ordinances and placards. The deplorable decade of the Arminian quarrels was but an episode in a constant struggle, under the leadership of a prince of the House of Orange, for the liberties of the church against the lust for power of some of the regents.[22]
 

But it is time to close with a general remark.

My statement of last week fully holds for this evening’s topics: never before—if we exclude the Sophists—no, never before the dawn of the Revolution {66} have these basic maxims been subject to doubt. It has only been since then that {67} historical development is exchanged for the Constitution factory, that the free action of the nation’s organic parts is replaced by the lifeless whole of a centralized administration, that Divine right yields to the sovereignty of the People, and that the union of Church and State is abandoned in favor of political atheism.

The Revolution can be attributed neither directly nor indirectly to shortcomings in principles which are as eternal and unshakable as the being of God and which will always remain, though men should depart from them in order to build on sand, the pillars of freedom, justice, and order—for the state, for the church, and for the whole structure of society.

"He who does not bring the moral law to his historical research will never be able to evaluate the facts of history correctly. . . . By nature Justice stands above history and may only be sought, since moral freedom can only acknowledge the Divine law as its norm, in the Divine will." Berliner Politisches Wochenblatt, 1834, p. 259.
 
 

1. [Quoted in Cicero, De Republica, II.21.37.]
2. {43n} No state can do without a centralized government, but administrative centralization is a bane to any people.
3. {44n} I see where Tocqueville in his book of 1856, L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, p. 49, adduces evidence that administrative centralization was not a product of the Revolution but of the Old Regime. Only, if this form of centralization did occur it was a degeneration of the constitutional law of Europe (compare England), whereas the Revolution adopted it on principle, as part of its program.
4. Rom. 13:1.
5. [I Peter 2:18.]
6. Cf. Otto von Gerlach, Das Neue Testament, nach Luthers Uebersetzung, mit erklärenden Anmerkungen (Berlin, 1840).
7. [Rom. 13:4.]
8. [Cf. Micah 4:5; Eph. 2:10.]
9. [Cf. I Kings 3:8–12.]
10. [Cf. Eph. 6:6.]
11. [Matt. 22:21.]
12. [51n] Lamennais, Essai sur l'indifférence, ch. x. Vinet writes: "He who obeys only men, without regard to God, obeys badly and will not obey for long. Anarchy makes no recruits among men of conscience; it makes innumerable ones among the partisans of blind obedience. Slaves today, rebels tomorrow." (L’Education, p. 430.)
13. Lamennais, ibid.
14. [Psalm 2:10, 11.]
15. [Cf. I John 5:19; II Cor. 6:15.]
16. Pastor [H.P.] Scholte, in the periodical De Reformatie [vol. IV, no. 5 (1843), p. 249].
17. Vinet, Essai sur la manifestation des convictions religieuses et sur la séparation de l’Eglise et de l’Etat, p. 22.
18. Ibid., p. 215.
19. Ibid., p. 256.
20. Chalmers, Works, XVII, 197.}
21. E.g. Trigland, Kerckelijcke Geschiedenissen, pp. 440, 448, 454.}
22. [60n]Church and state should not be separated but kept distinct, united in joint consultations from a position of mutual independence: the ‘laic state’ as opposed to ultramontanism. If the Christian church loses its priority, freedom of conscience is without defenses against the intolerance of unbelief. Unbelief becomes the civic religion of a secular state. Referring to the toleration decrees of 1793, [Christian von] Palmer writes: "Every state accepts a religious principle and if a state abandons it this does not mean that it stands in an equal, that is to say, indifferent relation to all religions: this indifference is in reality always positive rationalism or deism or materialism." (Evangelische Pädagogik, p. 457.) As for Vinet's "Christian individualism," it relinquishes the public institutions and leaves us defenseless against humanism, the church of humanity, the civic religion of modernism.}