162
ESSAYS ON LIBERTY
an upholder of order as he. l Neither of these ,vriters understood that the same principle lies at the root both of revolution and of passive obedience, and that the difference is only in the temper of the person who applies it, and in the outward circumstances. Luther's theory is apparently in opposition to Protestant interests, for it entitles Catholicism to the protection of Catholic Po,vers. He disguised from himself this inconsistency, and reconciled theory with expediency by the calculation that the immense advantages which his system offered to the princes would induce them all to adopt it. For, besides the consolatory doctrine of justification,-" a doctrine original, specious, persuasive, powerful against Rome, and wonderfully adapted, as if prophetically, to the genius of the times which were to follow," 2-he bribed the princes \vith the wealth of the Church, independence of ecclesiastical authority, facilities for polygamy, and absolute power. He told the peasants not to take arms against the Church unless they could persuade the Government to give the order; but thinking it probable, in I 522, that the Catholic clergy would, in spite of his advice, be exterminated by the fury of the people, he urged the Government to suppress them, because \vhat was done by the constituted authority could not be wrong. s Persuaded that the sovereign power would be on his side, he allowed no limits to its extent. It is absurd, he says, to imagine that, even with the best intentions, kings can avoid committing occasional in- justice; they stand, therefore, particularly in need-not of safeguards against the abuse of power, but-of the forgiveness of sins. 4 The power thus concentrated in the hands of the rulers for the guardianship of the faith, he wished to be used with the utmost severity against 1 Ranke, iv, 7; Jürgens, iii, 60I. 2 Newman, Lectures on .Justijication, p, 386,
- i II Was durch ordentliche Gewalt geschieht, ist nicht für Aufruhr zu halten "
(Bensen, p, 269; Jarcke, Studie1l, p, 312 ; Janet, ii, 40), 4 .. Princes, and all rulers and governments, however pious and God-fearing they may be, cannot be without sin in their office and temporal administration. . . . They cannot always be so exactly just and successful as some wiseacres suppose; therefore they are above all in need of the forgiveness of sins" (see Kaltenborn, p. 209),
