ing more just than
her demands. We should say that she had enlightened reason on her side,
for heresy can never be exterminated by force, unless the force is
overwhelming,--as in the persecution of the Huguenots by Louis XIV.,
or the slaughter of the Albigenses by Innocent III. or the princes
he incited to that cruel act. Ambrose, however, did not regard
the edict as suggested by the love of toleration, but as the
desire for ascendency,--as an advanced post to be taken in the
conflict,--introductory to the triumph of the Arian doctrines in the
West, and which the Arian emperor and his bishops intended should
ultimately be the established religion of the Western nations. It was
not a fight for toleration, but for ascendency. Moreover Ambrose saw in
Arianism a hostile creed,--a dangerous error, subversive of what is most
vital in Christianity. So he determined to make no concessions at all,
to give no foothold to the enemy in a desperate fight. The least
concession, he thought, would be followed by the demand for new
concessions, and would be a cause of rejoicing to his enemies and of
humiliation to his friends; and in accordance with the everlasting
principles of all successful warfare he resolved to yield not one jot or
tittle. The slightest concession was a compromise, and a compromise
might lead to defeat. There could be no compromise on such a vital
question as the divinity of our Lord. He might have conceded the wisdom
of compromise in some quarrel about temporal matters. Had he, as
governor of a province, been required to make some concession to
conquering barbarians,--had he been a modern statesman devising a
constitution, a matter of government,--he might have acted differently.
A policy about tariffs and revenues, all resting on unsettled principles
of political economy, may have been a matter of compromise,--not the
fundamental principles of the Christian religion, as declared by
inspiration, and which he was bound to accept as they were revealed and
declared, whether they could be reconciled with his reason or not. There
is great moral grandeur in the conflict of fundamental principles of
religion; and there is equal grandeur in the conflict between principles
and principalities, between combatants armed with spiritual weapons and
combatants armed with the temporal sword, between defenceless priests
and powerful emperors, between subjects and the powers that be, between
men speaking in the name of God Almighty