Church and State in the Seventeenth Century
By J. O. CORLISS
POLITICAL parties, as a rule, have been the offspring of religious controversy. This was particularly the case in Europe during the Reformation period. The bitter hatred generated between the Jesuits and the followers of Luther, became so tense by the opening of the seventeenth century that, because of a fancied insult given an adherent of one party by the followers of the opposite school, in one of the free cities of Germany, the Protestants of those parts formed an organization for mutual protection, which was known as the Protestant Union. The following year (1609), the Catholics formed a similar combination, which they called the Holy League. Upon the formation of these two hostile camps, both parties were ready to take the field against each other as soon as an occasion presented itself. Bohemia soon furnished the opportunity. The doctrines of Luther having penetrated that kingdom, the emperor attempted to overthrow them, but finding them too well-rooted to drive out, he professedly accepted them. The charter of the government practically established freedom of worship for Bohemia; but Rudolph, and especially his successor, Matthias, becoming wearied of tolerating the Protestants, cast contempt upon that faith, until the Protestants, angered beyond endurance, rose in revolt. Going to the castle in Prague, they threw out the emperor’s representatives, and set up a government of their own. Thus the gauntlet being thrown down, the bloody Thirty Years’ War was begun, which involved the entire north of Europe, and the loss of many prominent statesmen. The peace of Westphalia closed this religious war, and established a basis upon which both Catholics and Protestants might put up with each other, that is to say, those of the upper and cultured classes. In the course of a century or more after, however, the principle of toleration, such as it was, did extend to the lower classes of subjects. It simply amounted to this, as expressed by the well-known phrase of that time: “He who rules the country may settle its religion.” Of course, when the religion of the country was settled by its ruler, toleration meant little more than an uncertain sufferance to all known or suspected heretics. The year following the restoration of Charles II of England, there assembled in London a party of lawmakers, which history has denominated the Cavalier10Parliament. But one religious opinion was held in that body, and that one was for the maintenance of the Church of England. So religiously radical was this Parliament, that it quickly promulgated what is known as the Corporation Act of 1661. This provided that in order to hold office in any municipal corporation, one must “take the oath of non-resistance to the king, and receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England.” This, of course, deprived every non-Anglican of holding office in city government. And as if this Act was not sweeping enough, the next year (1662) witnessed the passage of a new enactment, entitled the Act of Uniformity, by which “every clergyman and schoolmaster who did not accept every prescription of the Book of Common Prayer was expelled from his living.” Hundreds of the clergy, among whom were Presbyterians, Puritans, Baptists, and a few Quakers, gave up their charges, and with their adherents were classed under the common term of Dissenters. From henceforth all these proscribed ones were left to formulate their own modes of worship. The Puritans especially sought to acquire an act of toleration for their own distinct forms of church service. For this effort they received just what might have been expected. Parliament directed that the proper way to treat Dissenters was to suppress them entirely. Accordingly it passed the Conventicle Act in 1664, which prohibited all meetings for religious purposes, except those allowed under the Corporation and Uniformity Acts. Penalties for the violation of this act ranged from low to high fines, and from these to transportation, according to the heinousness of the violation. This was followed in 1665 by the Five Mile Act, the terms of which forbade any Dissenting minister to reside within five miles of a borough town, or any place where he had once ministered to a flock. All this seems very severe upon those who would think for themselves, but it was only the natural outgrowth of the theory that the state may legislate in behalf of the church. Men were made to suffer whose characters were above reproach, simply because religion and politics were permitted to enter a common field of pursuit. So strong had hatred become between Episcopalians and Catholics that when the former would deprive the latter of political preferment, all Dissenters from religious forms prescribed by law must be put under interdict, so as not to leave any loop-hole through which Catholics might climb to equal honor with Episcopalians. Charles II, having secretly embraced Catholicism, desired to see the Catholics freed from their religious disabilities, and so in 1672 he published a decree of indulgence, overriding the statutes of Parliament, which set Catholics and all Dissenters free. When Parliament met, it obliged the king to withdraw his declaration of indulgence. Parliament then passed the Test Act, which excluded from every office whatever, those who refused to take the sacrament as prescribed by the Church of England. By this act, the king’s own brother, the duke of York, being a Catholic, was “forced to resign his post of High Lord Admiral.” Then followed the celebrated “Popish Plot” of 1678. Upon this, Parliament added a paragraph to the Test Act by which Catholics were barred from the House of Lords, the only place where they had not before been disturbed. Before the death of Charles, which occurred in 1685, the question of toleration became so acute that Parliament split into two well-defined parties known as the Whigs and Tories. These were terms of reproach, applied to each party, as significant of their attitude on this burning question, as is evident by the derivation of the names. “Whig” came from whiggum, a word which, it is said, Scotch peasants used when hurrying their horses. As a party name, it was intended to mean a “sneaking Covenanter.” Tory is derived from the Irish, and signifies “robber.” These last were country members, and stood for no toleration to Dissenters. The Whigs were largely from the upper classes, and stood for toleration as an act of justice. But strange to say, they, equally with the Tories, were against toleration to the Catholics. Looking back from our time, it seems strange that men’s minds ran in such a peculiar mold. Theirs was, however, but the inevitable experience of all who act upon the basis that civil power has the responsibility of regulating religious customs. While the Whigs of that day contended for religious liberty, as applied to some forms of religion, they were as intolerant as the Tories regarding those things which were no part of their own religious faith. It could not be otherwise under a church-and-state government, because no one can enable himself to legislate in behalf of a religious system which he believes to be gross error, and subversive of the orthodoxy of the unwary. In other words, those who are positive that all outside of their creed must be eternally lost, can not possibly be tolerant. Religious legislation must, therefore, ever be class legislation. To avoid this great evil, let the church and the state be kept forever separate.