Separation of Church and State

Robin Hardy Online

In the following extracts from English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, C.S. Lewis discusses the Protestant/Catholic disputes in England during the late 1500s:

[Cardinal William] Allen will appeal most easily to moderns in the Apology and Modest Defence when he pleads, with great feeling but with great restraint, the sufferings of his church at the hands of Elizabeth's government, and disputes the claim that his brethren were killed and tortured not for religion but for treason. Yet we have with him the same disturbing experience as with all sixteenth-century theologians: when they speak for the persecuted we feel that they are men we can understand, but next moment they speak as persecutors themselves and a gulf yawns between us. Allen's opponents twitted him with the Marian persecution of Protestants, and his withers were completely unwrung. That was quite different [said Allen]. The whole argument of the third chapter in the Modest Defence leads up to the conclusion 'that as no lawe of God or man can force vs to be protestantes, no more can any reason be alledged nor iust excuse made for either yong or old why, being baptized or brought vp amongst Arrians or Calvinists, they may not be forced to returne to the Catholique Church'. . . . (p. 439)

Neither side questions the medieval assumption that unorthodoxy is sinful and that sin must be treated as crime. Their picture of Christianity always includes that disastrous figure 'the Christian magistrate' or 'godly prince'. As a result of his presence the puritan maxim 'that nothing be don' in the Church 'but that which you haue the expresse warrant of Gods worde for' (Admonition) has very serious political consequences. 'Gods worde' means the Bible as interpreted by a consistory. The prince, enforcing by law what the consistory declares to be God's will, thus becomes in effect merely the executive officer of the Church, and, as Bridges complains (Defence, xvi. 1335), the Church will thus have that very dominion over the State which the puritans blamed the Pope for usurping. The Anglican position, on the other hand, by freeing the prince from this strict dependence on scripture and yet making adherence to the prince's church compulsory, leaves the religious life of every individual in bondage to political power. Whatever they say, even whatever they wish, the puritans are driven to put the Church above the State, and the Anglicans to put the State above the Church. And until the confusion between sin and crime is cleared up, there is no escape. . . . (pp. 443-44)

Thomas Cartwright (1535-1603) is the most striking figure on the puritan side. . . . Cartwright's thought is twisted from the outset by the dangerous certitude (we have met it elsewhere) that God 'must have done' certain things. God does what is best for the church, this is best for the church, therefore God 'must have' done this; so runs the argument. The kind of faith which might be legitimately given to the major then gets attached to the minor, and facts repugnant to the conclusion have to be distorted. . . . The Discipline which Cartwright wished to impose, though ecclesiastical in name, would certainly have covered all things that 'can falle into anie parte of mans life'. . . . The criminal law of England must be altered accordingly. There must be capital punishment for every 'stubbern Idolater, blasphemer, murtherer, incestuous person and suchlike'. . . . The magistrate is to God simply as the sheriff is to the magistrate: he must carry out the sentence prescribed in Scripture ([Second Reply] ii. 99, 100). But a few pages later Cartwright relents. He will leave the magistrate a little more freedom: he will leave him free 'to appoint the maner of death sharper or softer' (ii. 103). He must not pardon those whom scripture (interpreted by the Consistory) condemns: but he may—Cartwright would fain be reasonable—he may add a few tortures. (pp. 445, 446, 448)

C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (Excluding Drama) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944.

RHO notes: Because America's Founding Fathers were well aware of these abuses, on December 15, 1791, the new Congress of the United States ratified ten amendments to the Constitution (known collectively as the Bill of Rights). The First Amendment dictates: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

posted Jan. 26, 2006