[This article is No. 29 in the series entitled “A Review of Sunday Legislation in Century Nineteen,” but it will be of equal interest to those who have not read preceding numbers.—ED. S. of T.]
THIRTY years later the Rev. William Hubbard, who, by the way, was the first historian, so called, of Massachusetts, in his election sermon at the inauguration of Governor Leverett, said thus:—
I shall not entertain you with any sharp invective, or declaiming against a boundless toleration of all Religions, lest it should be an insinuation that some here present are inclined that way, which I believe there was never any occasion given to suspect. . . . Such opinions in Doctrine, or professions and practices in Religion, as are attended with any foul practical evils, as most Heresies have been, ought to be prohibited by publick Authority, and the broachers or fomenters of them punished by penal laws, according to the nature of the offence, like other fruits of the flesh. God never appointed a Sanctuary for Satan, nor City of Refuge for presumptuous offenders. As Joab was taken from the Horns of the altar, whither he was fled, so let all such heretical transgressors that fly for refuge to the Altar of their Consciences, seeing their practices and opinions are rather fearfulness, than tenderness of Conscience, and therefore such weeds justly deserve the exercise of his power to root them up that bears not the Sword in vain.
Again, listen to that "silver trumpet," Thomas Shepard, the elder—"a poore, weake, pale-complexioned man, holy, heavenly, sweet-affecting and soul-ravishing":—
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 began. This opinion is but one of the fortresses and strongholds of Sathan, to keep his head from crushing by Christ's heele, who (forsooth) because he is kept into men's consciences, and because conscience is a tender thing, no man must meddle with him, as if consciences were made to be the safeguard of sin and errour, and Sathan himself, if once they can creep into them.
Such were the principles of the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay. Such were their principles as expressed by themselves. It is easy to see that such principles and such ideas could not result in anything else but persecution. And of persecution there was plenty.
Some historians of later times have tried in vain to gloss it over, and to make out that it was necessary in order to preserve civil society. All that can be said in answer to such an argument is the question, "What must be the state of things which makes that wholesome severity which elsewhere would be diabolical atrocity?" "Woe to that society which has no cement but blood! Woe to that government which, in the hour of success, must not dare to be merciful!"
They say that small societies cannot exist without a State religion. They hold that that which is but a small ripple and scarcely felt in large communities, becomes a large wave in a small community. But tried before the bar of history, the argument miserably fails. Holland was once a republic; Holland was never a large republic. But yet Holland existed with complete religious equality before the civil law. How about Rhode Island? It was a small colony. But at the time of the adoption of the Federal Constitution it seems to have had a government that was quite as stable as that of Massachusetts. Romeo Elton, writing in 1850, has expressed himself thus:—
In Rhode Island no man has ever been molested on account of his religious opinions; and civil officers, from the highest to the lowest, have been chosen without regard to denomination. The happy results have been apparent in the harmony existing among the different sects, as well as in the liberal support given to public worship and to religious institutions. In no part of the world is the proportion of churches to the population greater than in this State.
English travelers who have spoken favorably of the example presented in the New World of religion unsupported by the State, have frequently qualified their approbation on the ground that the experiment has been too short to afford conclusive evidence. Probably many of these gentlemen did not know that there was one State, at least, to which this objection cannot apply. Two hundred and sixteen years are surely long enough to judge of the results of any system. Protestantism itself can boast of only one century more.
It has proved to be an expansive system. The leaven, at first hidden in one small territory, gradually extended itself until Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other States, where Episcopalianism or Congregationalism was established by law, were penetrated by its influence. The last link which bound religion to the State was burst asunder by Massachusetts in 1833, and every part of the Union has now adopted that great truth which occasioned the persecution and banishment of Roger Williams.
So much for the argument that States cannot hold together without a State religion. But the Puritans themselves had another method of justifying their proceedings. John Cotton stated it in a few words:—
You thinke to compell men in matter of worship is to make men sinne. If the worship be lawful in itself, the magistrate compelling him to come into it compelleth him not to sinne, but the sinne is in his will that needs to be compelled to a Christian duty. . . . You know not, if you thinke wee come into this wilderness to practise those courses here which we fled from in England. We believe there is a vast difference betweene men's inventions and God's institutions; we fled from men's inventions; to which wee else should have been compelled; wee compell none to men's inventions.
The Puritans held that their worship was lawful in itself, and, therefore, when they compelled anyone to worship as they did,661that they could not possibly be telling them to sin against their consciences, but were only making them do what their consciences told them they ought to do. In other words, they held that their doctrines and practices were, all of them, "God's institutions," and that God would most certainly not instruct any man's conscience to go contrary to his own "institutions." And from this they drew the logical deduction that all men who did not believe and practice exactly as they did, were sinning against conscience; and, therefore, ought to be compelled by the civil law to desist from so pernicious a course. The whole theory shows a very close likeness to the principles advocated by the Papacy on the same point. Says Cardinal Gibbons:—
A man enjoys religious liberty when he possesses the free right of worshipping God according to the dictates of a right conscience, and of practising a form of religion most in accordance with his duties to God.
The question which would arise in both cases—the case under Puritan administration, and the case under Roman Catholic administration—simply resolves itself into this, What is a "right conscience?" The Honorable Edward Goddard, Esq., of Framingham, Mass., who had been a member of both the Lower and the Upper House in the Legislature of the State, admirably answered the question, when he wrote, in 1753:—
"Good conscience men allow (they say),
But must be understood
To say as they themselves do say,
Or else it can't be good."
Nevertheless there is one most important difference between the Puritans and the Roman Catholics, and it is a difference which favors the Puritan. As far as persecution is concerned, the conduct of the Puritan differs from that of the Papist only in degree. Both have been cruel and intolerant; each has been tyrannical and despotic. If any argument can be found to extenuate the guilt of the New Englander, the man who advances it must recognize that it will apply with equal force in the extenuation of the guilt of the Catholic. This is well stated by Adams:—
There that record is, and it will not out. Roger Williams, John Wheelwright, and Anne Hutchinson come back from their banishment; and stand there as witnesses; the Quakers and Baptists, with eyes that forever glare, swing from the gallows or turn about at the cart's tail. In Spain, it was the dungeon, the rack, and the faggot; in Massachusetts it was banishment, the whip, and the gibbet. In neither case can the records be obliterated. Between them, it is only a question of degree,—one may, in color, be a dark drab, while the other is unmistakably a jetty black. The difficulty is with those who, while expatiating with great force of language on the sooty aspect of the one, turn and twist the other in the light, and then solemnly asseverate its resemblance to driven snow. Unfortunately for those who advocate this view of the respective Old and New World records, the facts do not justify it. On the contrary, while the course in the matter of persecution pursued by those in authority in the Old World was logical, and does admit of defence, the course pursued by the founders of Massachusetts was illogical, and does not admit of more than partial extenuation.
When Mr. Adams says that the Papacy was logical, and that the founders of New England were illogical, he refers, doubtless, to this point, the Papacy claimed to be infallible. The Church of Rome practically held that there was no such thing as salvation outside of her fold. From this, her standpoint, it became a kindness to persecute, if, by the application of a few lighted fagots in this world, she could save the wandering sheep from ceaseless ages in hell. But the Puritans did not arrogate to themselves, in principle, at least, infallibility. They did admit that there might be salvation outside of their communion. They did hold that faith, to be of any value, must be a voluntary act. And then, admitting all of this, they did persecute, and in this their course was clearly illogical.