Honorable Toast-Master and Gentlemen—I think for the first time in my life I appreciate the feelings of the young shepherd, David, when Israel's proud king placed upon him his own plated armor; gave him a shield and a great spear with which to fight Goliath. David said: "I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them." He appeared before his antagonist in the simple garb of the shepherd, with his sling and a few smooth stones. And so, after the very flattering introduction that has been given me by the honorable toast-master of the evening, I feel myself unworthy to bear the honored title that he has given me. I disclaim it altogether and say in simple truth, I am not an orator, I am not eloquent, but, as you all know, "a plain, blunt man," capable only of speaking those things that you already know. I therefore most humbly beg to disclaim the proud place that the introduction of the toast-master would assign me.
When I was informed that I would be expected to speak upon this staid, and I may say threadbare subject, "Church and State," it appeared to me that the committee who had arranged this programme had gone somewhat out of the way in selecting such a subject; but I defer to their judgement and am willing to say it is all right, but ask that you gentlemen of the banquet will not hold me responsible for inviting your "sober" consideration to such a theme in the midst of such temptations to be otherwise than sober.
There are three relations which the church and the state may sustain to each other. First, the state may dominate the church; second, the church may dominate the state; and, third, church and state may occupy separate spheres, and be absolutely divorced the one from the other. Those who argue for the rightfulness of the first relationship will tell you that the state is not within the church, but the church is within the state; they will tell you that it is the state which rules the land, that wages war, that levies taxes and governs at least the external destinies of the citizen, and that whenever the religious creeds cease to be individual and result in associations, those organizations come within the proper cognizance and authority of the state; and that the state has a right to draw the lines of ecclesiastical policy, and to fix the constitution of the church as knowing what is best for the general society.
Those who contend for the second relationship—that the church should dictate to the state—argue that the church, as the representative of the divine authority, is also the superior authority; that indeed the state itself is but an outgrowth of that superior authority; that as the moon but reflects the light of the sun, so the state borrows whatsoever of authority it possesses from the spiritual authority—the church. Furthermore, they insist that in the matter of chronological order itself, the church antedates the state; it is the first society, primitive and eternal, and hence has the true sovereignty; that the state is properly but the instrument of the church to execute the divine decrees.
Those who contend that the church and state should exist separately, recognize the great truth that the church and the state have independent and different spheres. There is no proper connection between the two, and no necessity exists for interference one with the other. They contend that the church should exist unnoticed by the state; that religious creeds should approximate or separate according to the inclinations of the church members.
Mankind by the test of experience, has learned the relative value of these several relationships which may exist between the church and the state, and now, in the light of that experience, let me consider the virtues and vices of each. For the purpose of illustration I need go no further back than the time when Constantine became the patron of the Christian religion and elevated the sect from the condition of a persecuted society to the state religion of the great empire. He invited the Christian ministers to his court, gave them a seat at his table in the palace, loaded them with honors and riches, but was careful himself to draw the line of ecclesiastical policy and pattern the church organization very much after the constitution of the civil government of Rome. As a reward for these favors the ministry of the church stood in humble attitude at the foot of the throne. They overlooked the shortcomings of their great patron, guilty of putting to death without just cause a wife, a son, and in violation of his plighted faith, his brother-in-law.
There is another period in church history where the state becomes the patron of the church and dominated it. That occurred during the great "reformation" of the sixteenth century when Henry VIII, displeased because the pope of Rome refused to sever the bond of marriage between himself and the faithful Catherine of Aragon, took affairs ecclesiastical within his own realm into his own hands and founded a state church. In this period of history we find repeated just what was done in the case of Constantine. Notwithstanding the cruelties, the debauchees and the murders of Henry the ministers of Christ still awarded to him the title, "Defender of the Faith."
I mention these circumstances because they exhibit the vice of the state dominating a church. That vice consists in this, that such a relationship bridles the tongues of God's ministers, who are commanded to reprove sin in high places and demand the same moral standard of the prince that is demanded of the pauper. Whenever the ministry of a church stands in dread of the temporal power, when by it they may be unfrocked, it will be a rare thing indeed to find men of sufficient moral courage to be true to the divine commandment in preaching and executing the word of God; hence the mischief of state domination of the church.
One of the wise men of the east, Aesop, tells the story of a camel who in the midst of a terrible storm on the desert, begged his Arabian master to allow him the privilege of putting his head within the tent out of the storm. The indulgent master granted his request, but no sooner did the camel get his head into the tern than he crowded in his shoulders also, and then the whole huge bulk of his body, and, turning about, he kicked his master out of the tent into the storm. So did the Christian ecclesiastical power with the civil power in the Roman empire. Papal Rome rose upon the ruins of pagan Rome, and for centuries ruled the nations with a rod of iron. The evils growing out of the church dictating the state are to be read in that period of darkness which covered our earth from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries.
It is not necessary for me in detail to point out those evils. It will be sufficient if I call your attention in a general way to the vice arising from this relationship. That vice consists in this—that such a relationship between church and state tends to debase and weaken the ministry of Christ. All ministers of the gospel are not equal to the virtue of their great Master. When the evil prince of this world stood before the Lamb of God and, with a master hand, drew aside the curtain which covered the glory of the nations and pointed to them in all their splendor and wealth, and said, "All these will I give thee, only fall down and worship me;" the divine man could look the tempter in the face and say: "Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve." The ministers of the church today are not tempted to this extent. The arch-enemy of men's souls knows too well that it is not necessary. From the back door of the parsonage our ministers may see enough to seduce them from the work of the Divine Master; yea, so much of the yellow gold of this earth as may be clutched thus in the hand may sometimes be sufficient for their seduction.
When you make it possible for the state to dominate the church, such is the glamor and sheen of temporal power that men are willing and do forget the glories of eternity that they may revel in the pleasures and powers of this world for a season. Hence it becomes necessary to preserve the integrity of God's ministry that you separate the church so far from the state as to make the dictation of the latter by the former impossible, and thus lessen the temptation of the ministry to neglect the things of heaven in order to dabble in the affairs of state.
I have already said that those who contend for the separation of church and state recognize separate spheres for those two powers to operate in. This idea, I may say, had its second birth in the great revolution of the sixteenth century, sometimes called the "Reformation." John Calvin was a leader in that doctrine in his day. John Knox followed him, and there was a hot contest in the old world for the maintenance of this doctrine—not for the good of the state so much as for the good of the church—for these champions held that in order for the ministers of God to perform well and faithfully their duties they must be removed from fear of interference of kings and potentates.
But the most interesting period of the struggle for the separation of church and state is to be found in the history of the founding of our own great