Religion - And Civil Government

While in a Gujarat ruled by Narendra Modi of the BJP, I published a post titled "Hindu Terror? Or Terror On Hindus" in which I wrote about The Independent Whig, a journal dating back to England in the 1720s, or about 30 years after John Locke's Treatises on Civil Government, and commented on its strong anti-clerical tone. And how the authors say "tyranny destroys religion." We all know how Hindu Brahmins perverted religion until the British came and established "civil government." Indeed, various luminaries then emerged to reform Hinduism - like Raja Ram Mohun Roy.

As the introduction puts it, the authors of The Independent Whig, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, display a "general dislike of clerical pretensions to any kind of civil power or any form of special privilege or position. They viewed churchmen as the most ordinary of people at best and as men who have often perverted their role in society. Churchmen should, therefore, in the thinking of Trenchard and Gordon, be watched carefully and checked in their every effort to exceed their proper and very limited functions."

The Independent Whig was therefore of the opinion that "civil governments are instituted by men, according to their powers and to serve their purposes. They did not owe their existence to 'the immediate revelation of God'." In other words, civil government is not theocratic. Religion is a matter of private conscience, so tolerance should prevail, and the worst tyranny is that in the name of God - as Europe had witnessed for a long, long time.

Below is a long quote from the issue of The Independent Whig of February 1720, titled "Of the Contempt of the Clergy." This was a few years before the birth of Adam Smith - who called himself a "staunch Whig." It is noteworthy that in our own times Friedrich Hayek preferred calling himself a Whig rather than a "conservative."

Note that the capitalisation is as in the original; this is how they wrote those days:

All other Societies of Men are contented with the Esteem and Honour, which result from the Usefulness of their Employments and Professions, and the Worth and Capacity of their Members, and yet none stand in such a Situation, and have so many Advantages to acquire Respect and Homage, as the Clergy.

Their Office is evidently adapted to promote the Welfare of Human Nature, and to propagate its Peace and Prosperity in this World, as well as its eternal Felicity in the next: so that it is in the Interest of all Men to honour it; and none but a Madman will condemn and ridicule what has a manifest Tendency to the Security and Happiness of all Mankind.

The Temporal Condition of the Clergy does likewise place them far above Contempt: They have great Revenues, Dignities, Titles, and Names of Reverence, to distinguish them from the rest of the World; and it is too well known that Wealth, Power, and Learning, carry to the Vulgar a kind of Mystery, a distant Grandeur, and command not only Admiration and Reverence, but often a superstitious Veneration.

Added to this, they have the Possession and Direction of our Fears, and are admitted in Health and Sickness: Every Sunday they have the sole Opportunity to gain our Esteem by worthy and useful Instructions, and all the Week by their good Lives: They educate us while young, influence us in our middle Age, and govern us in our Dotage, and we neither live nor die without them.

A numerous body of Men, so constituted and endowed, so privileged and posted, are capable of being most useful and beneficent to Society, if their Actions are suitable to their Professions. All the World will acknowledge and pay a willing Homage to their Merit, and there will be no need of demanding, much less of extorting Respect, or of Complaints and Exclamations for want of it. The Danger lies on the other Side; for there are such Seeds of Superstition in human Nature, that all our Prudence and Caution will be little enough to prevent even Adoration of their Persons.

If Clergymen would avoid Contempt, let them not be starting and maintaining eternal Claims to worldly Power... Let them not be assuming to give Models of human Government... Let them not pretend to punish any Man for his Way of Worship...

Thus, The Independent Whig emphasises the fact that Tyranny destroys Religion. Rather, tyrants "establish and encourage a false religion." The BJPs Hindutva is one such false religion that seeks worldly power - and has obtained it in some parts of our country, with extremely disastrous consequences. Thus, between the utterly corrupt and brain-dead CONgress, the Communists and the BJP, and the other running-dogs of socialism, there is really nothing for the Indian voter to choose: they are all various shades of black.

The Independent Whig - as the very title suggests - stressed a distrust for the "regular party man." In the introduction to the volume, describing party politics in England then, it is stated:

As with parties in general, so it was with Whig and Tory in the 1720s. When in power, one party behaved much like he other, whatever its past declarations, and neither was to be trusted very much.

These precise words could be applied to the Republicans and Democrats of the USSA today.

The Independent Whig contrasted free government, the system of rule under which Liberty and the public prospered, with its opposite, Tyranny:

Civil Government is only a partial Restraint put by Laws of Agreement upon natural and absolute Liberty, which might otherwise grow licentious: And Tyranny is an unlimited Restraint put upon natural Liberty, by the Will of one or a few.

Thus, Tyranny can be "democratic" - for Legislation is nothing but the "will of a few." Of course, Tyranny can also be Theocratic. Tyranny can be militaristic, or it can be a "one party rule." Civil government is something else.

The book containing excerpts from The Independent Whig and another journal called Cato's Letters, also by Trenchard and Gordon, is The English Libertarian Heritage edited by David L. Jacobson, published by Fox & Wilkes of San Fransisco in 1965. I earnestly recommend this to all. These writings of Trenchard and Gordon, we are told, were extremely popular in America in the 1750s and thereafter, and had a profound influence on the libertarian bent of the original US Constitution.

These days, various nations of the Middle East are in revolt - and it is good to hear that the people are demanding Liberty and not Religion. I hope this post will be of use to them.

As for our own country, I am positive that wide reading of the above volume will surely produce the most beneficial effects.