The Rise and Fall of Religious Liberty in America
By C. M. S.
Struggling Upward on New Soil
WHENEVER a church has fled into the arms of the state for power or support, it has lost the grace of charity and kindness, and has harried the bodies of men with whip and rack, fire and sword, stocks and dungeon. Neither climate or creed affects the result. Out of the union of church and state there is evolved a poison that works with the same results, no matter what the creed or name of the state-wooing church may be. Lutheranism and Calvinism were as intolerant as the papacy against which they protested. Presbyterianism in Scotland and Episcopalianism in England made energetic application of the lessons in intolerance which they had learned of Rome. The realm of conscience has been the common hunting-ground of every established church, and the conscientious follower of the Word of God has been the common victim. Establish religion by law, and as sure as men study their Bibles, the prisons will be thronged with praying men, and men of the establishment will find their hands imbrued in their brothers' blood. In every age it has been so, and America is not exempt. Oliver Cromwell said: “Those that were sound in the faith, how proper was5it for them to labor for liberty, . . . that men might not be trampled upon for their consciences! Had not they labored but lately under the weight of persecution? And was it fit for them to sit heavy upon others? Is it ingenious to ask liberty, and not give it? What greater hypocrisy than for those who were oppressed by the bishops to become the greatest oppressors themselves, so soon as their yoke was removed.”—Cromwell’s speech at the dissolution of the first Parliament, Jan. 22, 1655. Cromwell’s stand for liberty of conscience was in marked contrast to the general spirit of his time, and that spirit against which he spoke came to America with its earliest settlers—and came in superabundance. Massachusetts Bay Colony was the embodiment of intolerance, nor did the dissenter fare peaceably in New Haven, New York, or Virginia. In these four were the most striking manifestations of intolerance. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Maryland presented a striking contrast to their sister colonies, while the remainder gravitated between the two extremes. New Hampshire seems to stand free of the charge of religious persecution until after her union with Massachusetts Bay. The conditions in Roman Catholic Maryland were far in advance of what they were in most of the Protestant colonies; yet the Maryland act of toleration, passed in 1649, provided that blasphemy against God and a denial of the trinity should be punished with death and confiscation of lands and goods, and that blasphemy against the Virgin Mary should first be punished by a fine of five pounds, and if persisted in, by a forfeiture of all possessions, and banishment from the colony. William Penn, who is thought to have been of Anabaptist descent, was opposed to any church establishment in his colony; and it was provided that in the colony of Pennsylvania, “All persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal God to be the creator, upholder, and ruler of the world . . . should in no ways be molested, nor compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship.” Nevertheless citizenship was granted only to those who professed faith in Jesus Christ; and the “separate” Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania “were arrested, fined, and imprisoned for dissent.” Religious liberty was not yet in full sway in Pennsylvania. Puritan Massachusetts established Congregationalism and propped it up with the very same instruments of oppression that made their own condition in England unbearable. Virginia established the Church of England, and made life for Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians one long record of hardships and grievances. New York began her colonial career with the Dutch Reformed Church of Holland established, and closed it with the Church of England established; and the red thread of persecution for conscience’ sake ran through the whole period. The chief purpose of the early colonizers of America, as expressed in charters and otherwise, was a religious one. True, it manifested itself differently in Massachusetts and Virginia. The Massachusetts Puritan insisted on conformity because he wanted to “make the State religious and to preserve the true religion in its purity,” whereas Virginia “insisted on conformity because the church was a department of the state, and all dissent was indicative of civil disorder and insubordination.”—Cobb. The end sought was not attained in either case. As Mr. Cobb says: “The Puritan experiment demonstrates that the effect of the union is essentially irreligious; while . . . the Virginian makes it clear that the law of conformity is the fruitful mother of disorder.” No one can read the history of either colony without attesting the truth of this statement. To show the dominance of the religious purpose in two of the colonies—Massachusetts and Virginia—we give some of the instructions sent out by the organizers of the companies in England to the governors of the colonies. The instruction to Governor Endicott reads: “The propagation of the gospel we do profess above all to be our aim: we have been careful to have a plentiful provision of godly ministers: we trust that, not only those of our own nation will be built up in the knowledge of God, but also that the Indians will be reduced to the obedience of God and Christ.” Again: “We appoint that all . . . surcease their labor every Saturday at three of the clock in the afternoon, and spend the rest of that day in catechizing and preparation for the Sabbath.” “We pray you, make some good laws for the punishment of swearers.” They made the laws, not only “for the punishment of swearers,” but for the punishment of “Sabbath breaking,” non-attendance at church, preaching without a license, entertaining strangers without permission, teaching religious liberty, failure to pay a portion of the minister’s salary, or for teaching any doctrine contrary to the tenets of the established church, etc., etc. Only church-members were full citizens, and no man was certain of his own safety or the possession of his property if he attempted to teach anything at variance with the creed of the state church. An idea of the minuteness of this state supervision over religion in Massachusetts may be gained from the following laws:—“Though no human power be lord over the faith and consciences of men, and therefore may not constrain them to believe or profess against their conscience, yet because such as bring in damnable heresies tending to the subversion of the Christian faith . . . ought duly to be restrained from such notorious impiety, if any Christian . . . shall go about to subvert . . . the Christian faith, by broaching . . . any damnable heresy, as denying the immortality of the soul, or the resurrection of the body, or any sin to be repented of in the regenerate, or any evil done by the outward man to be accounted sin, or denying that Christ gave himself a ransom for our sins, . . . or any other heresy of such nature and degree, . . . shall pay to the common treasury during the first six months twenty shillings a month, and for the next six months forty shillings a month, and so continue during his obstinacy; and if any such person shall endeavor to seduce others, . . . he shall forfeit, . . . for every several offense, . . . five pounds.”—Mass. Rec. 2, 179, 1646, Nov. 4. On page 177 of this same record is found a law against blasphemy, the penalty clause of which reads thus: “If any person or persons whatsoever within our jurisdiction shall break this law, they shall be put to death.” Certainly such laws indicate the religious purpose of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Commonwealth. So severe was the rule in this respect that friends of the colony in England remonstrated with the Massachusetts authorities. Sir Richard Saltonstall, as one of these protestants, wrote to John Cotton as follows: “It doth not a little grieve my spirit to hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecution in New England, as that you fine, whip, and imprison men for their consciences.” He also informed them that their “rigid ways have laid you very low in the hearts of the saints.” Thirteen eminent nonconformist ministers of England added their protest in a letter to Governor Winthrop, but the Massachusetts authorities resented the interference, and went on with the bitter work. The first article of “instructions” sent out by the founders of the Virginia Company directs the Virginia authorities “to take into their special regard the service of Almighty God and the observance of his divine laws; and that the people should be trained up in true religion and virtue, . . . to the order and administration of service according to the form and discipline of the Church of England; carefully to avoid all factions and needless novelties, which only tended to the disturbance of peace and unity; and to cause that the ministers should be duly respected and maintained.”—Anderson, “Colonial Church,” 1, 328. Back of this instruction, and doubtless leading up to it, was the declaration of purpose on the6part of the king, as recorded in the first charter granted to the Virginia Colony. King James I, in this charter expresses the hope and intention that “so noble a work may by the providence of Almighty God hereafter tend to the glory of his divine majesty in the propagating of the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness.” To this he adds a direction to the effect that “the said presidents, councils, and the ministers should provide that the Word and science of God be preached, planted, and used, not only in the said colonies, but also as much as might be among the savages bordering among them, according to the rites and doctrines of the Church of England.” This establishes the purpose of the founders of Virginia, and it also establishes the Church of England as the state church of the colony. The logical result of these establishments was persecution for dissenters or nonconformists. Massachusetts was a very uncomfortable place for Anabaptists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Baptists, and Antinomians; Virginia was equally bitter against Congregationalists, Baptists, Quakers, and Presbyterians. But in all the colonies there was from the first a minority of godly men earnestly contending against the rigorous intolerance of the church-and-state régime. The leaven of better things was working, but working under the most discouraging and forbidding circumstances. Out of such soil must spring the plant of soul-freedom and the equality of man. They who had fled from the Old World to seek for themselves freedom to worship God were to leave behind them a generation who would grant to other men the same freedom they asked for themselves in this regard. The next article will show something of the struggle in Massachusetts and Virginia to overcome “the establishment” and inaugurate religious liberty.