NOTWITHSTANDING the fierce aspect of religious affairs in the New World when the colonies were fully established, a titanic struggle was then inaugurated, upon whose issue hung the destiny of the nation soon to be.

While one of the chief purposes of the founders of the American colonies was to secure for themselves freedom to worship God, the records of those times prove it to have been equally the purpose of the majority of them to obliterate in those same colonies all religious exercises and all religious belief not in harmony with their belief and rituals.

The Reformation in Europe had taken the people one long step out of the darkness of the dark ages, but failure to follow out the principles of Christ in the matter of soul freedom had in great measure hindered the real work of reform. The conscience had merely changed masters. The Reformation had found men’s souls enthralled, and at the last had perpetuated the thraldom by establishing religion by law, and making non-conformity to the establishment a crime to be punished with avenging rigor.

The hand of God seems to have kept America hidden from the Old World until the time was ripe for a new order of things, a new step in the process of reformation. It was, however, the purpose of the enemy of truth to perpetuate in America the subtle modus operandi which had so materially interfered with the true progress of the Reformation, arrested its development, and robbed it of its crown of glory.

We have learned in previous chapters how every American colony save on established in some measure a union of religion and the state; and how as a natural consequence, all save that one hounded conscientious Christians for their faith. Was the New World to perpetuate the terrible tragedies of the Old, and so blight the purpose of God in bringing men to her shores? It was made evident from the beginning of the colonial governments that a notable struggle was to take place in this land over the question of whether the civil power should dominate men’s consciences.

TWO DIFFERENT SCHOOLS

Those early settlers had been educated in two very different schools. One class had been taught that "civil government is designed to support the external worship of God, to preserve the pure doctrine of religion, and defend the constitution of the church;" that persons maintaining of publishing erroneous opinions contrary to the creed of the established church "may be lawfully called to account and proceeded against by the censures of the church and the power of the civil magistrate;" that "the magistrate . . .hath authority, and it is his duty to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed." [Declaration of Westminster Assembly, quoted in Rise of Religious Liberty in America, page 57.]

The other class, far less numerous, had been taught that "the magistrate, by virtue of his office, is not to meddle with religion or matters of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that form of religion or doctrine; but to leave the Christian religion free to every man’s conscience, and to handle only civil transactions, injuries, and wrongs of man against man, in murder, adultery, theft, etc." [Confession of the General Baptist Church, article 84.]

TWO SWORDS

With views thus diametrically opposed, it is not to be wondered at that the turmoil of the Old World over matters of conscience was continued for a time in the New. John Robinson, the "canonized pastor of the Pilgrims," defended the use of magisterial power "to punish religious actions, he [the magistrate] being the preserver of both tables [of the law of God], and so to punish all breaches of both, . . . .and by some penalty to provoke his subjects universally unto hearing for their instruction and conversion, yea to inflict the same upon them, if after due teaching they offered not themselves unto the church." [Religious Liberty, page 70] "Bishop and king they had left behind, but the ghosts of both were with them still, in the union of church and state in the use of violent repressive measures to preserve uniformity of religious belief. The Bible was in their right hand, and the sword in their left hand." From the use made of these two swords, it would have been truer to fact to state that the Bible was in their left hand, and the sword in the their right.

Concerning the position taken by the leaders in the colonial establishments, Sanford H. Cobb says: "It is true that the Pilgrim Fathers, landing on the ‘stern and rock-bound’ coast of New England, sought and obtained ‘freedom to worship God.’ But the usual understanding of Mrs. Heman’s lines, that they desired to establish anything like general religious liberty, is very far from the truth. Their conscious desire was freedom for themselves, never dreaming extending an equal freedom to such as differed from them in religious opinion." [Rise of Religious Liberty in America, page 68.]

A law of Massachusetts, passed in 1664, corroborates Mr. Cobb’s statements, and this is only one of many similar laws. After inveighing strongly against the Anabaptists, this law says: "It is ordered and agreed that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to induce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the administration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance of magistracy or their lawful right or authority to make war or punish the outward breaches of the first table [of the law of God], and shall appear to the court wilfully and obstinately to continue therein after due time and means of conviction, every such person or persons shall be sentenced to banishment." [Massachusetts Records, Volume II, page 85.] This law was not permitted to become a dead letter. It was passed in order to enable those who passed it to carry out a set purpose, and they went about it with vigor. "The question of religious toleration," says Charles Francis Adams, "was, so far as Massachusetts could decide it, decided in 1637 in the negative. On that issue Massachusetts then definitely and decidedly renounced all claim or desire to lead the advancing column, or even to be near the head of the column; it did not go to the rear, but it went well towards it, and there it remained until the issue was decided." [Massachusetts: Its Historians and Its History, page 11.] John Cotton, than whom no one was better able to proclaim the sentiment of the times, declared that "toleration made the world anti-christian;" that "it was not lawful to persecute any, till after admonition once or twice." [Rise of Religious Liberty in America, page 68.] And then, with that peculiarly sophistical reasoning characteristic of those wedded to the church-and-state idea, he goes on to justify persecution for conscience’ sake in these words: "If such a man, after such admonition, shall still persist in the error of his way, and be punished, he is not persecuted for the cause of conscience, but for sinning against his own conscience." [Ibid, page 69.] Thus did John Cotton and his contemporaries ride over the rights of men, making themselves lords and judges over the consciences of others, and attempting to establish in America a duplicate of the inquisitions of the state churches of the Old World.

In his discussion with Roger Williams, John Cotton frankly declared that "persecution is not wrong in itself; it is wicked for falsehood to persecute truth, but it is the sacred duty of truth to persecute falsehood." [Beginnings of New England, Fiske, page 178.] It cannot be questioned that the colony carried faithfully into practise what it believed to be its duty in regard to this matter.

Rev. William Hubbard, the first historian of Massachusetts, in the course of his election sermon preached at the inauguration of Governor Leverett, in 1676, spoke thus concerning liberty of religious belief and teaching:—

"As Joab was taken from the horns of the altar, whither he was fled, so let all such heretical transgressors, that fly for safety to the altar of their consciences, seeing their practises and opinions are rather searedness than tenderness of conscience, and therefore such weeds justly deserved the exercise of his power to root them up that bears not the sword in vain." [Massachusetts; Its Historians and Its History, pages 15-17.]

Said the Rev. Urian Oakes, in an inaugural sermon preached in 1673:—

"I profess I am heartily for all due moderation. Nevertheless, I must ad that I look upon an unbounded toleration as the first-born or all abominations." [Ecclesiastical History of New England, Volume II, page 504-506.]

Rev. Thomas Shepard, pastor of the Cambridge church, thus expressed the prevalent opinion of the times:—

"To cut off the hand of the magistrate from touching men for their consciences will certainly in time (if it get ground) be the utter overthrow, as it is the undermining, of the Reformation begun. This opinion is but one of the fortresses and strongholds of Satan, to keep his head from crushing by Christ’s heel." [See Massachusetts: Its’s Historians and Its History, pages 15-17.]

Had Dr. Shepard’s declaration been true, all the leaders of the Reformation would have been culpable and fighting against God in exercising the rights of conscience while Rome held sway over the consciences of men. It is beside the point to answer that the Catholic religion is false and Protestantism true. When Protestantism set itself over the consciences of men, it adopted the principles of the Papacy to that extent, — adopted the principles which made the Papacy what it was and is. The Roman Catholic church has the same right to his belief and his system of religion that the Protestant has to his. The great inquiry comes in when the Catholic claims the right to compel other men to accept his religion and be religious in his way, or suffer the penalties of the law for refusal. And if that is iniquitous in the Romans Catholic, it is iniquitous in the Protestant as well. In fact, the Protestant’s cry against the course of the Papacy in this regard only accentuates the inconsistency of the Protestant when he advocates or practices the same principles.

It is equally beside the point to declare, when men are made offenders for matters of faith, that they are not arraigned because of religion or conscience, but because of disobedience to law. Governor John Winthrop, of Massachusetts, asserted emphatically that the courts had not censured doctrine, but only "declared it to tend to sedition." "We do not challenge power over men’s consciences," he said, "but when seditious speeches and practices discover such a corrupt conscience, it is our duty to use authority to reform both." [Short Story, page 28.] Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was banished for her religious teachings; and yet the governor declared her "case was not a matter of conscience, but of a civil matter." [Massachusetts: Its Historians and Its History, page 21.]

The reply that John Cotton made to Roger Williams is characteristic of this style of reasoning:— "To excommunicate an heretic, is not to persecute; that is, it is not to punish an innocent, but a culpable and damnable person, and that not for conscience, but for persisting in error against light of conscience, whereof it hath been convinced." [Answer to Williams, in Narragansett Club Collection, Volume III, pages 48, 49.]

Says Rev. Thomas Shepard again:—

"As for New England, we never banished any for their consciences, but for sinning against conscience, after due means of conviction." [Quoted in Massachusetts: It’s Historians and Its History, page 23.]

The sophistry of such arguments should be apparent to all. It made the courts the judges of men’s consciences. The courts must decide whether men, in following their religious convictions, were actuated by a good conscience or a perverse one. It made one man’s conscience the judge of another man’s conscience. It established a reason for an inquisition, if it did not establish the Inquisition itself. The fallacious character of such reasoning is fittingly laid bare by the historian Buckle in these words: —

"This is the stale pretense of the clergy in all countries, after they have solicited the government to make penal laws against those they call heretics or schismatics, and prompted the magistrates to a vigorous execution, then they lay all the odium on the civil power, for whom they have no excuse, but that such men suffered, not for religion, but for disobedience to law." [History of Civilization, Volume I, pages 338, 339.]

This indictment should not lie, however, against all the clergy; for the freedom we enjoy today is concrete evidence that not all the clergy have been guilty of the charge.

In 1631 Roger Williams landed in Boston. He had left England because of Archbishop Laud’s animosity toward him and the views he held. He was not long in New England before he began to proclaim the doctrine of soul freedom, and the unrighteousness of the magistrate’s interference in the realm of conscience. He proclaimed it openly, fearlessly, and in spite of the admonitions of friends and the warnings and threats of enemies. Realizing finally his imminent danger, Williams left Salem and went to Plymouth, where the more tolerant Pilgrims received him, and to them he ministered for two years. His return to a pastorate at Salem was soon followed (October, 1635) by his trial and banishment.

One year previous to Williams’ banishment, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson landed at Boston, and soon found herself in the toils of the law for holding independent meetings, and for criticizing some of the clergy. Mrs. Hutchinson was banished from the colony, as was also her brother-in-law, whose offense lay in preaching a sermon defending her views. Banishment was the portion of many another who dared to assert his right to belief and to teach in accordance with his own convictions.

In those days there was not sin so heinous in the eyes of the established church in Massachusetts as the sin of being a Quaker. Ship captains were forbidden to bring Quakers into the country, under penalty of a fine of one hundred pounds, with imprisonment until paid. [See Massachusetts Records, Volume IV, part I, page 278.]

A number of these proscribed people were beaten on the bare backs with whips through three towns; some (and these included women) were taken long distances into the wilderness, and left without food and shelter; others were imprisoned for as long as six days without food; their meetings were forbidden under pain of heavy penalties, and those who informed upon them were given on third of the amount of the fine. Four were hanged, and a fifth was sentenced to death; but the latter’s fearless stand for his rights as a British subject averted the execution of the sentence. But the cruel persecution did not cease with that. There has, perhaps, been no more shocking illustration of the cruelty of the church-and-state régime than the sale, as slaves, of two Quaker children who had been deprived of their parents by the execution of the laws against the Quakers. [See the references for this paragraph in History of the Quakers, Volume II , page 184, 228, 229. And Massachusetts Records , Volume IV, part I, page 366.]

Into such terrible iniquity have professed men of God been led when they have abandoned the example and teaching of their Master, and so have made religion a matter of civil legislation, regulated under corporal pains and penalties in the interests of theological uniformity. Concerning that purpose Thomas Clarke says: "The Church of England was never in a worse condition than when the prisons were crowded with the victims of uniformity. Her ministers had not occasion to emulate the zeal and assiduity of schismatics; they could incarcerate them. . . To promote and establish uniformity all means have been tried, not excepting the worst, and long tried, and tried under every diversity of circumstances, and with all the aids of subtlety and address. The experiment has failed and wholly failed." [History of Intolerance, Volume II, page 416.]

The Puritans establishment had outlawed conscience, and in so doing it wrote a record from whose rehearsal later generations recoil in shame and pity. The suffering of the persecuted was a bitter cup, but their cruel tormentors and executioners will never cease to be reprobated so long as history is read. And yet their deeds were but the logical outgrowth of that iniquitous wedlock—a union of religion with the state.