The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America
By C. M. S.
Anabaptist Influence in England and America
It will not be out of place at the beginning of this article to take a glance at the conditions prevailing in England at the time when Anabaptist principles (and incidentally the principles of soul-freedom) were being promulgated on the Continent in the face of persecution. Anabaptists fleeing from the bitter persecution of Catholic and Protestant alike on the Continent, crossed the English Channel by thousands, and settled in the eastern and southern counties of England. They were not received with open arms. Their doctrine, so inoffensive, so righteous, was looked upon by the state church, by the rulers, and by a great portion of the people, as a dangerous and revolutionary heresy. James I declared: “I will make them conform, or I will harry them out of England.” Richard Hooker denominated freedom of conscience “a loose and licentious opinion of the Anabaptists.” The Westminster Confession, which was adopted in 1647, set forth the illiberal principle 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.” It further declares that any one who maintains or publishes erroneous opinions, contrary to the teachings and practises of the 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.” A more perfect uniting of civil and ecclesiastical powers and functions could not have been presented by the Roman hierarchy itself. Whatever Rome did, the Westminster Confession authorized the church and the state officials in England to do. Forty-two years after the adoption of the Westminster Confession, 1689, the Toleration Act of William and Mary was passed. Toleration is always less than liberty; but this toleration act was not even full toleration. Quakers and Protestant dissenters were tolerated, but Catholics and anti-Trinitarians were outside the scope of its beneficence. Hallam, in the “Constitutional History of England,” Vol. III, page 170, says that the passage even of this kind of toleration act was not accomplished “without murmurs of bigoted churchmen.”5 With such a condition obtaining as late as 1689, it can readily be seen that there was little inclination to make it easy for the Anabaptists when they began to emigrate to England, more than a hundred fifty years before. But we do not need to infer what those conditions were. The same year that Henry VIII became head of the English established church, he issued two decrees against the Anabaptists, which show, first, that the Anabaptists were refugees from another country; and, second, that the spirit of the times was intolerance personified. King Henry’s decrees were filled with invective and a cruel purpose to rid his realm of these dissenters, taking the harshest measures if necessary. All were to depart within ten days from the date of the decree, “on pain to suffer death, if they abide and be apprehended and taken.”—“Wilkin’s Concilia,” Vol. III, page 776. Their only crime was “wicked errors and abominable opinions.” “Cranmer and eight other bishops and clerics were subsequently commanded to proceed inquisitorily against the Anabaptists, to search for their books, and to scrutinize with all diligence their letters. Martyrdoms followed. The fires of Smithfield were kindled.”—“Religious Liberty” (King), page 34. Thus a veritable Inquisition was established as a result of these decrees. Thus was demonstrated the fact that persecution does not depend upon what church is established, but upon the fact that a church is established. Church establishment and liberty of conscience can not dwell together in the same realm. In spite of the cruel persecutions from which they suffered, the principles which the Anabaptists held continued to be disseminated throughout the realm. One of their principles, which was most obnoxious to the officials of the government and of the established church, was that “civil government had no concern with religious matters.” Strange, is it not, that for holding such opinions, and promulgating them, Christian men should be hounded, exiled, tortured, drowned, and burned, and that by other men professing allegiance to the same Lord? But such was the ignoble inheritance from that black-cowled power regnant during the Dark Ages. It was an inheritance difficult to outgrow,—impossible to outgrow entirely where the condition that fostered it was continued,—and that condition was a union of church and state. Wherever the Anabaptists (or Mennonites) went, they found that condition; and wherever they found it, they opposed it, and taught the opposite principle. The influence of their persistent teaching in the Netherlands resulted in the establishment of religious liberty in that country when its independence was secured; and there is not the least doubt that the measure of tolerance achieved in England in the time of William and Mary was due to the diffusion of the principles of soul-freedom which the Anabaptists were promulgating throughout the land. Some of the tracts which they published were written in prison—not written in ink, for this was denied them; but written in milk on white paper, which, when heated, revealed the words of their arguments. Said one, “Their arguments were written in milk and answered in blood.” There comes down to us from that people a phrase that has become familiar to American ears. They taught, says Motley, that “every man was to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience.” We have used that expression until we have come to feel that it is a product of American thought; but it comes to us out of the bitter experiences of a despised people, who paid with their lives for advocating it. The relations between the immigrant Dutch Anabaptists and the common people of England became very close in this way. The Dutch immigrants were a people skilled in manufacture, and carried on their business in England. But it was required of them that each manufacturer should educate a certain number of English lads in the business which he was conducting. The enforced apprenticeship system opened a field for the Anabaptists, which they were not slow in improving, and operated perhaps as extensively as any other factor in bringing about toleration for dissenters. The Dutch Anabaptists thus planted in many English minds the idea of soul-freedom; and from a people thus educated, there came to the New World some who would carry on the struggle for freedom to worship God untrammeled by oppressive laws. There came others also seeking freedom to worship God, but unwilling that those who differed from them should enjoy the same freedom which they demanded for themselves. Concerning these two parties and their attitude toward freedom of conscience, we will study in our next article.