The architects of this modern faith were not wrong in their estimate of the English people, for, perhaps, the great body of the nation willingly adopted the new scheme. Yet there were bitter opponents both among the Catholics and Calvinists, whose extreme violence admitted no compromise, either with each other, or with the Church of England. For them there was no resource but in dumbness or rebellion; and, as many a lip opened in complaint or attempted seduction, the legislature originated that charitable and reconciling system of disabilities and penalties, which a pliant judiciary was not slow in enforcing with suitable rigor. While the Puritan could often fairly yield a sort of abstinent conformity which saved him from penalties, the Roman Catholic, who adhered faithfully and conscientiously to his ancestral church, made no compromise with his allegiance. Accordingly, on him, the unholy and intolerant law fell with all its persecuting bane.
"About the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth there arose among the Calvinists, a small body, who bore nearly the same relation to them, which they bore to the great body of the Reformed; these were ultra Puritans, as they were ultra Protestants. These persons deemed it their religious duty to separate themselves entirely from the church, and, in fact, to war against it. The principle upon which they founded themselves, was, that there should be no national church at all, but that the whole nation should be cast in a multitude of small churches or congregations, each self-governed, and having only, as they believed, the officers of which we read in the New Testament,—pastor, teacher, elder and deacon."[1]
Such was the ecclesiastical and political aspect of England, and of a part of Scotland, about the period when the First James ascended the British throne. As there is nothing that so deeply concerns our welfare as the rights and duties of our soul, it is not at all singular to find how quickly men became zealous in the assertion of their novel privileges, as soon as they discovered that there were two ways of interpreting God's law, or, at least, two modes of worshiping him,—one wrapped in gorgeous ceremonial, the other stripped in naked simplicity,—and that the right to this interpretation or worship was not only secured by law, but was inherent in man's nature. Personal interests may be indolently neglected or carelessly pursued. It is rare to see men persecute each other about individual rights or properties. Yet, such is not the case when a right or an interest is the religious property of a multitude. Then, community of sentiment or of risk, bands them together in fervent support, and when the thing contended for is based on conscience and eternal interest, instead of personal or temporary welfare, we behold its pursuit inflame gradually from a principle into a passion,—from passion into persecution, until at length, what once glimmered in holy zeal, blazes in bigoted fanaticism. Thus, all persecutors may not, originally, be bad men, though their practices are wicked. The very liberty of conscience which freemen demand, must admit this to be possible in the conduct of those who differ from us most widely in faith and politics.
Religious Conscience, therefore, is the firmest founder of the right of forming and asserting Free Opinions; and when it has securely established the great fact of Religious Freedom, it at once, as an immediate consequence, realizes Political Freedom, which is nothing but the individual right independently to control our personal destinies, as well as to shape our conscientious spiritual destinies. The right of free judgment asserts that Christianity put into vital exercise, in our social or national relations, is, in fact, the essence of pure democracy. It is liberty of action that produces responsibility—it is equal responsibility that makes us one before the law. To teach man the humility and equality of his race, as rights; and to illustrate the glorious lesson that from the cottage and cabin have sprung the intellects that filled the world with light, it pleased the Almighty to make a stable the birth-place of our Redeemer, and a manger his lowly cradle!
When the valiant men of olden times had checked the corporate system of theology in England and Germany, and established their right, at least, to think for themselves; and when the Reformation had subsequently received a countercheck in Germany, England and France,—the stalwart, independent worshippers, who could no longer live peacefully together within their native realms, began to cast about for an escape from the persecutions of non-conformity and the mean "tyranny of incapacitation."
The Reformation was the work of the early part of the sixteenth century. The close of the fifteenth had been signalized by the discovery of America, and by the opening of a maritime communication with India. The East, though now accessible by water, was still a far distant land. The efforts of all navigators, even when blundering on our continent, were, in truth, not to find a new world, but to reach one already well known for the richness of its products, and the civilization of its people. But distant as it was, it presented no field for colonization. It was the temporary object of mercantile and maritime enterprise, and although colonial lodgments were impracticable on its far off shores, it nevertheless permitted the establishment of factories which served, in the unfrequent commerce of those ages, as almost regal intermediaries between Europe and Asia.
But the Western World was both nearer, and, for a while, more alluring to avarice and enterprise. It was not a civilized, populous, and warlike country like the East, but it possessed the double temptation of wealth and weakness. The fertility of the West Indies, the reports of prodigious riches, the conquests of Cortez and Pizzaro, the emasculated semi-civilization of the two Empires, which, with a few cities and royal courts, combined the anomaly of an almost barbarous though tamely tributary people—had all been announced throughout Europe. Yet, the bold, brave and successful Spaniard of those days contrived for a long while to reap the sole benefit of the discovery. What he effected was done by conquest. Colonization, which is a gradual settlement, either under enterprise or persecution, was to follow.
The conquest and settlement of the Southern part of this continent are so well known, that it is needless for me to dwell on them; but it is not a little singular that the very first effort at what may strictly be called colonization, within the present acknowledged limits of the United States, was owing to the spirit of persecution which was so rife in Europe.