1770: On The Martial Decline Of Divinity Being a Consideration upon the Glories of Cesare Borgia and the Unfortunate Pacification of Christendom
By Lord John Mallard of Cressingham Hall, Aet. XX Printed for Private Circulation
It is one of the sadder curiosities of history that Heaven, which once sent thunderbolts, now dispatches pamphlets. I have lately been reading The Crimson Virtue: A Life of Cesare Borgia by that indefatigable Italian, Larvato Brunetti, and have concluded—not without blushes—that the Church of God was never more divine than when she was well-armed.
Borgia, that wolf in silk slippers, began as many saints do: misunderstood. He knew, as weaker men have only whispered, that virtue is more persuasive when it wears armour. The banners of God droop when unblooded; their embroidery perishes in the damp of reason. I do not say that Cesare was good—Heaven forbid! I only say that he was effective, and when one surveys the tepid modern missionary, pawing through lexicons while heathens sharpen spears, one cannot help but sigh for the efficient blasphemer who marched under the Cross because it gleamed so beautifully against a smoking city.
Of Soldiers and Sermons
I have been told that missionaries preach love. So does the sun preach warmth to the fish, which nevertheless remain cold. Preaching without compulsion is like music to the deaf: edifying to the performer, inconclusive to the listener. In The Geometry of Salvation, a small but wicked volume by Dr. Pemberly, it is argued that the Gospel itself is a kind of mathematical theorem, which must be demonstrated in action if it is to convince. A bayonet, properly applied, is an exclamation mark in the grammar of faith.
Once, saints rode out. Now, they correspond. In these faint modern days, the Church dispatches missionaries instead of armies and then wonders why converts multiply only in the footnotes of travelogues. The missionary is brave, no doubt, but his courage is domestic—the heroism of indigestion and endless translation. He builds schools where he ought to be building ramparts.
A Vision of Holy Strategy
If I were placed—by some whimsical act of Providence—in command of God’s army in England, I would first ensure that its drums were tuneable and its banners grammatically correct. Uniforms, I find, encourage the soul more efficiently than argument. Each regiment would bear the name of a virtue: the Grenadiers of Grace, the Lancers of Long-Suffering, the Light Infantry of Exhortation. Their chaplains would serve as colonels; their prayers would accompany the discharge of cannon as the Amen of gunfire.
The campaign would proceed as follows:
* Reconnaissance by Revelation—angels scouting the moral terrain; field reports written on parchment, sealed with candle wax scented faintly of lilies.
* Occupation of the Imagination—distribute elegant propaganda: engravings of Paradise and pocket-sized editions of The Tactical Psalter.
* Assault upon Vice—declare open hostilities on Apathy, Luxury, and Unsanctioned Improvisation in Sermons. Fortify taverns into cathedrals; conscript poets into precentors.
* Evangelical Logistics—supply lines maintained by monks on horseback, their saddlebags groaning with sacramental wine, gunpowder, and the occasional citrus fruit for health.
Let it not be said that I endorse cruelty; I merely refuse to separate conviction from competence. One may conquer gently if one conquers thoroughly. The soul of England would, I think, be improved by the occasional trumpet-blast of righteousness—a reminder that salvation, like empire, must sometimes march in columns.
Against the Tepid Republic of Virtue
The modern Church, obsessed with mildness, has forgotten that God Himself once drowned the world to make a point. The Bishops quote moral sentiments as if Heaven were a debating society. In my library stands a mildewed treatise entitled Pacifism and Piety; or, The Proper Posture for Martyrdom, written by one Reverend Caldecott Prothero, who complains that military Christianity contradicts mercy. Yet is it not crueler still to let sin flourish unopposed?
Borgia, for all his unprintable vices, at least believed enough to act. He crucified that which opposed him; our pastors merely correspond with it. When the sword disappears, corruption grows bold enough to wear a mitre. Had Borgia lived to command the synod, I daresay Europe might by now be redeemed, if somewhat smoking at the edges.
The Final Declaration
Therefore, I declare myself a partisan of divine logistics. Let faith be again terrible—not in cruelty, but in splendour. Let the glow of the Cross return to its rightful power of alarm. If salvation cannot be administered by army, it may yet be enacted as one. For the soul of England follows banners more willingly than sermons.
As I close this essay, I hear the faint rain tapping upon the windows of Cressingham, like a polite ghost rehearsing applause. I imagine it the echo of distant cavalry, God’s own host marching through time, their swords bright with a cold theology the missionaries will never quite understand.
When I am older, perhaps I shall be less certain; but for now, at twenty, I am content to believe that discipline is grace wearing a breastplate, and that Heaven, in her most serious moods, prefers uniform to persuasion.
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