1 
 
 
 I 
 
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 I 
 
THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 CONCERNING BAPTISTS, AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE C. LORIMER, 
 
 MINISTER AT THE TEMPLE. 
 
 
 BOSTON : 
 LEE AND SHEPARD, PUBLISHERS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 CHARLES T. DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1877. 
 
o 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 or CONGRESS 
 
 W SHINGTOH 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 
 LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 1877. 
 
 Franklin Press: 
 
 Electrotyped and Printed by 
 
 rand, Avery, & Co. 
 
TO 
 
 KEY. W. W. EYERTS, D.D., 
 
 MY FIRST PASTOR AND MY LIFE-LONG FRIEND, 
 
 GKjeae Pages 
 
 ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 
 
" We ought to obey God, rather than men." 
 
 Peter the Apostle. 
 
 " 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower 
 Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; 
 And we are weeds without it. All constraint, 
 Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 
 
 Is evil." 
 
 Cowper the Poet. 
 
 La liberte de conscience est certainement la plus necessaire de 
 nos libertes ; elle est la condition et la source de toutes les autres. 
 C'est comme creatures pensantes que nous portons la responsabilite' 
 de notre avenir ; et quand on ^touffe la force de la pensee ou qu'on 
 en contrarie le d^veioppement, on nous ote du meme coup le droit 
 et les moyens le disposer de notre volonte*. 
 
 Jules Simon the Statesman. 
 
This little book is the outgrowth of a discourse on 
 Eeligious Liberty, which was delivered at the request of 
 Rev. W. W. Everts, D.D., near the close of the year 
 1876, in Chicago. As a treatise it does not claim to be 
 exhaustive, but it is hoped that it may prove suggestive. 
 The veil of history which it only partially lifts, some 
 stronger hand may be inspired to withdraw entirely, that 
 the divine beauty of liberty may shine upon the world 
 more clearly. 
 
 The following pages will be found to illustrate the 
 truth, that the sublimest movements of history have not 
 originated with the most highly educated or the most 
 splendidly endowed. Leaders in great enterprises, are 
 not always those whose gifts and standing appear to 
 entitle them to the post of honor. Poor and compara- 
 tively illiterate men, who realize the need of radical 
 reforms to save them and their families from utter 
 degradation, are the more common instruments of their 
 inauguration and accomplishment. 
 
 This is especially true of liberty. It is not onty for 
 the people, it has been of the people as well. The 
 noble-born, the aristocratic, the men exalted by their 
 position above the grosser evils of tyranny, have rarely 
 
 been the most active leaders in warring against its cruel 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 assumptions. . They have not felt the weight of the 
 shackles, and therefore have not, save in some extraor- 
 clinaiy cases, been among the first to strike away its 
 rivets from the souls or bodies of the race. 
 
 It should not therefore be a matter of surprise to my 
 readers, that the earliest advocates of soul-freedom were 
 men and women of humble origin, and of humble 
 attainments. Of vigorous virtue, of strong intellect, 
 enlightened, it is true, by the teachings of the Bible and 
 the Spirit, but unadorned by the polished graces of 
 society, its earliest and most persistent friends went 
 forth to the struggle. They realized, as others could 
 not, the world's need of religious freedom ; and, without 
 counting the cost too nicely, they arrayed weakness 
 against strength, poverty against wealth, lowliness 
 against distinction ; and they won — or are winning — 
 because they arrayed right against . wrong, God against 
 man. 
 
 If this impression shall encourage the disciples of 
 Christ, whatever their order or degree in the social scale, 
 to realize that they should stand for something, should 
 think great things, and attempt them too ; if it shall 
 impel them to seek the invincible exaltation of a mighty 
 cause, an uncontrollable passion, which, like a tornado 
 shall sweep away the brooding pestilence of stagnant 
 conventionalism, or which, like the Heavenly inspiration 
 of ancient prophets, shall thrill them with a strange fire, 
 burning their lips to utter words that shall reach through 
 remotest years, — their friend and brother, the author 
 of this book, will not have written in vain. 
 
THE GEEAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Liberty is one of those words which challenge 
 love and devotion. It needs no recommendation; 
 for it belongs to the same category as order, as 
 progress, as truth, as law. It is one of the ideas 
 which appeal to human interests in all ages and 
 everywhere, and which, in some sense or other, is 
 accepted as a principle of vigorous, healthful life. 
 Indeed, of all the words whereby in time past the 
 genius, enterprise, and heroism of men have been 
 inspired ; of all words that have served as watch- 
 cries and battle-signals along the lines of history, 
 this has ever stood foremost, most regnant and 
 potential. Even when its meaning has been less 
 transparent than at present, — and, if Lieber is to 
 be credited, it has yet a force and import not fully 
 apprehended, — it has still possessed the magic quali- 
 ties of a spell to start a spirit, and sway a people. 
 
 Whether inscribed on the banners of revolution 
 or on the altars of martyrdom, whether written in 
 
 9 
 
10 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the constitutions of governments or in the covenants 
 of churches, in both departments of society, the civil 
 and religious, this word " liberty " has awakened a 
 new consciousness of manhood ; and like the fiat of a 
 god, penetrating the inert elements of nature, it has 
 wrought convulsions and upheavals among the torpid 
 masses of the nations, as marvellous as those which 
 geology records. In the name of liberty, eloquence 
 has pronounced its grandest orations ; in the name 
 of liberty, statesmanship has enacted its wisest and 
 most enduring statutes ; in the name of liberty, 
 poetry has sung its sweetest and most plaintive 
 measures ; in the name of liberty, piety has borne its 
 heaviest burdens, and breathed its divinest prayers. 
 In this sacred name, Milton, Hampden, Locke, Tay- 
 lor, Williams, Otis, Henry, and others too numerous 
 to mention but too glorious to be forgotten, thought, 
 wrought, and suffered in their day ; and in this name 
 millions of the unknown, such as the yeomen of 
 England and America, the peasants of Switzerland, 
 and the bourgeoisie of France, forsaking their busi- 
 ness, their property, their friends, went forth with 
 armor buckled on by sister, or falchion girded to the 
 side by wife, from the home to the bivouac, from 
 the sweet amenities of life to the rude shock of arms, 
 and oftentimes to the damp of the dungeon, the 
 terror of the scaffold, or the horror of the stake. 
 
DEFINITIONS OF LIBERTY. 11 
 
 To the rise and progress, the struggles and tri- 
 umphs of liberty, in the sublimest sphere of human 
 thought and action, and to the memory of the lowly 
 men who shed their blood 
 
 " In confirmation of the noblest claim, - — 
 Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, 
 To walk with God, to be divinely free, 
 To soar, and to anticipate the skies," — 
 
 these humble pages are devoted. 
 
 Religious liberty has been frequently defined. 
 Harrington, in his Political Aphorisms (pp* 23, 
 24), declares that it is realized " where a man, ac- 
 cording to the dictates of his own conscience, may 
 have the free exercise of his religion, without impedi- 
 ment to his preferment or employment in the state." 
 Archbishop Whately, in referring to the subject, says, 
 " We merely maintain that a man has a right, a civil 
 right, to worship God according to his own con- 
 science, without suffering any hardships at the hands 
 of his neighbors for so doing." An American writer 
 has put it, and that too quite comprehensively, in 
 these words : " Soul-freedom is the freedom to think 
 and act in religious matters without human dictation 
 or control." And Lieber, in his excellent treatise 
 on Self-Government (p. 97), expresses the conviction 
 that this blessing " ought to be called more properly 
 the liberty of worship; for," as he adds in a foot- 
 
12 THE GREAT CONFLICT 
 
 note, " conscience lies beyond the reach of govern- 
 ment. ' Thoughts are free,' is an old German saying. 
 The same must be said of feelings and conscience. 
 That which government, even the most despotic, can 
 alone interfere with, is the profession of religion, 
 worship, and church government." 
 
 While all such definitions — and they could be 
 multiplied — have a certain value, yet that which 
 they seek to analyze and describe is too varied in 
 its phases, too diverse in its operations, and too 
 wide-reaching in its consequences, for it to be ade- 
 quately compassed by them. The practical use they 
 are fitted to serve, and for which I have introduced 
 them here, is rudely and crudely to give rough 
 shape and shadowy outline to the nature and mag- 
 nitude of the grand idea to be studied, whose fair 
 proportions and moral splendor can only be dis- 
 covered by tracing its rise and development in 
 history. 
 
 The progress of religious liberty, both as a con- 
 ception and a realization, is doubtless due to mani- 
 fold agencies ; but I am persuaded that to none other 
 is it more indebted than to the Baptists of Europe 
 and America. Indeed, I am satisfied that they may 
 honestly claim to have occupied the front rank, and 
 possibly the very foremost position in the rank, of 
 those martyr-souls who toiled and suffered for the 
 triumph of this principle. Nor has this claim been 
 
TRIBUTES TO THE BAPTISTS. 13 
 
 regarded as altogether worthless by many outside of 
 their communion. It has been recognized by candid 
 scholars, whose opinions upon such subjects are of 
 the greatest weight and value. 
 
 Bossuet, at the cl&se of the seventeenth century, 
 declared that he knew only two bodies who denied 
 the right of the civil magistrate to punish religious 
 error, and they were the Socinians and the Ana- 
 Baptists. With evident reluctance, Lecky, the 
 rationalist, reproduces this testimony, seeking to 
 break its force in a foot-note, where he identifies the 
 Anabaptists with the fanatical portion of the men 
 of Minister. The celebrated John Locke was more 
 ingenuous ; for, when Lord Chancellor King sought 
 to crown him as the author of religious freedom, he 
 proclaimed in the face of all England that " the 
 Baptists were the first and only propounders of 
 absolute liberty, — just and true liberty, equal and 
 impartial liberty." The German philosopher Gervi- 
 nus, in his Introduction to the History of the Nine- 
 teenth Century, does not hesitate, when discussing 
 the peculiar doctrines set forth by Roger Williams, 
 to say, " Here in a little state the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of political and ecclesiastical libertj 7 " practically 
 prevailed before they were even taught in any of 
 the schools of philosophy in Europe." And Judge 
 Story thus refers to this early Baptist settlement : 
 " In the code of laws established by them in Rhode 
 
14 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Island, we read, for the first time since Christianity 
 ascended the throne of the CsBsars, the declaration 
 that conscience should be free, and men should not 
 be punished for worshipping God in the way they 
 were persuaded he requires." 
 
 The devotion of this denomination of Christians 
 to this glorious doctrine has been set forth recently, 
 in no measured terms, by Herbert S. Skeats, who 
 in his History of the Free Churches of England Qp. 
 24), testifies: "It is the singular and distinguished 
 honor of the Baptists, to have repudiated from their 
 earliest history all coercive power over the con- 
 sciences and the actions of men with reference to 
 religion. No sentence is to be found in all their 
 writings inconsistent with these principles of Chris- 
 tian liberty and willinghood which are now equally 
 dear to all the free Congregational Churches of Eng- 
 land. They were the proto-evangelists of the volun- 
 tary principle." And in a foot-note he adds, " The 
 author of this is not connected with the Baptist 
 denomination, and has therefore, perhaps, greater 
 pleasure in bearing this testimony to undoubted 
 historical fact." To all of which our national 
 annalist, Bancroft, sets his seal in the now familiar 
 words, " Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom 
 of mind, was, from the first, the trophy of the 
 Baptists." 
 
 To not a few, doubtless, these concessions in the 
 
BAPTIST BIGOTRY. 15 
 
 form of tributes will prove a genuine surprise, and 
 may appear altogether inexplicable, as they have 
 never dreamed of this sect sustaining a distinctive 
 and conspicuous relation to any world-wide move- 
 ment involving, as this does, the greatest breadth 
 and liberality of judgment. No wonder they should 
 be perplexed by these testimonies ; for have they 
 not been taught on every side that Baptists are 
 the most intolerant and bigoted of all the Lord's 
 followers? have they not heard repeatedly that 
 they are close-communists, exclusionists, fertile only 
 in the fruits of uncharitableness, disfellowshipping 
 from Christianity every disciple who differs from 
 them even on minutest points of ceremony ? Nay, 
 have they not read in newspapers, over and over 
 again, mysterious hints and dark insinuations con- 
 cerning " Star Chambers," " Courts of High Com- 
 mission," and of " Unholy Inquisitions," which 
 these Baptists have established in unknown regions, 
 where proscription runs riot, to the ecclesiastical 
 detriment and social annoyance of the more liberal- 
 minded of their own order? 
 
 Beyond question, such are the representations 
 very frequently made by pulpit and press, regarding 
 the spirit governing this influential body of disciples. 
 It is, therefore, no more than natural, that some 
 of my readers should be perplexed by the admissions 
 quoted from the writings of distinguished parties on 
 
16 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the other side. Not looking for such counter state- 
 ments, they must find it difficult to reconcile them 
 with the received impressions, and the more widely 
 circulated charges. 
 
 Prejudice is not easily overcome. It is a poison- 
 root of sturdy growth, and few men possess the 
 moral nerve to undertake its destruction. They 
 greedily drink in rumors injurious to those from 
 whom they differ, but will hardly take any pains to 
 ascertain their justness, especially if, as in this case, 
 investigation leads them from the beaten paths of 
 information. The ordinary histories within the 
 reach of every man, are measurably silent on such 
 themes. Their pages make but slight allusion to 
 the Baptists, and far less to their alleged devotion 
 to the sacred cause of liberty. The stately Gibbon 
 never condescends to speak of them; the majestic 
 volumes of Hume and Macaulay are equally indiffer- 
 ent to their claims; and even the most popular 
 ecclesiastical writers, as D'Aubigne, refer to them in 
 the meagrest terms conceivable. This is to be 
 regretted, but it is not very extraordinary. Church 
 and national historians, after all, are but men ; and, 
 while they may not yield to extreme partisanship, 
 they are strongly tempted to color their narrative, 
 to conveniently omit important facts, and to deal ex- 
 clusively with events most palatable to their readers. 
 They are aware that, the public taste craves the 
 
INJUSTICE TO MARTYRS. 17 
 
 record of blood-stained banners, the achievements of 
 barbaric princes, the splendors of monarchs, and the 
 ambitions of priests, in preference to the gloomy 
 annals of humble confessors, who toiled, suffered, 
 and died for an idea. They consequently cater to 
 the reigning appetite, and, in providing what will 
 prove attractive to their readers, magnify the glar- 
 ing and meretricious at the expense of the unobtru- 
 sive and the genuine. The poet has recognized thi^ 
 tendency : writing of the martyrs he says, — 
 
 ' ' With their names 
 No bard embalms and sanctifies his song; 
 And history, so warm on meaner themes, 
 Is cold on this. She execrates indeed 
 The tyranny that doomed them to the fire, 
 But gives the glorious sufferers little praise.' 9 
 
 They who would rise superior to prejudice, who 
 would not willingly calumniate their fellow-Chris- 
 tians, nor accept without sufficient evidence the 
 eulogies which mere generousness may have pro- 
 nounced, must be prepared to interrogate authorities 
 other than the authors of popular histories, must 
 make proper allowances for the bitterness of ene- 
 mies, and must diligently acquaint themselves with 
 the prevailing sentiments of those regarding whose 
 position they would form a candid and honest judg- 
 ment. 
 
18 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 For such inquirers, especially, have these pages 
 been prepared. That the failure to honor the ances- 
 tors of a worthy brotherhood may in some degree be 
 remedied, that the misapprehensions of contempo- 
 raries concerning their descendants may be rectified, 
 and that the enthusiasm of all in behalf of soul- 
 emancipation may be informed and intensified, — the 
 author of this work invites his readers to consider 
 
 THE RELATION OF BAPTISTS TO THE RISE AND 
 PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 
 
 The principle of coercion in the affairs of the 
 soul, was very generally recognized with approval 
 from the time that the professed Christian Church 
 obtained civil power under Constantine. Before 
 this period, the ministers of Christ, as a rule, were 
 in favor of absolute and complete toleration. This 
 was the case with Tertullian during the Pagan per- 
 secution, and with Hilary of Poitiers during the 
 Arian. Whitby, has given a full statement of 
 passages from the fathers in support of the liberal 
 view, mentioning one conspicuous instance of faith- 
 fulness to its teachings, which deserves to be noted 
 here. 
 
 Lactantius, in the reign of Constantine, asserted 
 the iniquity of persecution quite as strongly as any 
 previous writer ; this was very creditable to him, 
 as he was tutor to the son of the emperor, and, con- 
 
BEGINNINGS OF PERSECUTION. 19 
 
 sequently, peculiarly tempted to overlook the abuse 
 of regal power. In vain, however, did the mildness 
 of his spirit plead for freedom of conscience ; his 
 imperial master, ever more Pagan than Christian, 
 sought to crush out all opinions contrary to those 
 .held by the dominant religious party. He con- 
 demned to the flames any Jew who threw stones at 
 a Christian convert, and rendered it a penal offence 
 for one of the latter class to become a Jew. Against 
 the Arian and Donatist heretics his measures were 
 equally unscrupulous and energetic. Their assem- 
 blies were forbidden, their churches were destroyed, 
 their bishops banished, and their writings condemned 
 to the flames. From this beginning, the coercive 
 policy attained complete ascendency in the councils 
 of that ecclesiastical order which gradually developed 
 into the Papacy, and, in the coming centuries, shed 
 more innocent blood than flowed during the Ten 
 Persecutions waged by the Paganism it supplanted. 
 
 It is impossible now to form a complete conception 
 of the multitude of its victims, and no powers of 
 imagination can ever fully realize their sufferings. 
 Llorente, at one time secretary to the Inquisition, 
 and, because of his access to all the secret papers of 
 that tribunal, the highest authority on the subject, 
 assures us, that by the Spanish branch alone more 
 than 31,000 persons were burnt, and more than 
 290,000 condemned to punishments less severe than 
 
20 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 « 
 
 death. The number of those who were slain in the 
 Netherlands for their religion, in the reign of Charles 
 V., has been estimated by a very high authority 
 at 50,000; Grotius says 100,000. Motley, in his 
 Rise of the Dutch Republic, writes, " Upon the 
 15th of February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy 
 Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Nether- 
 lands to death as heretics. From this universal 
 doom, only a few persons especially named were 
 excepted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten 
 clays later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, 
 and ordered it to be carried into immediate execu- 
 tion. . . . Three millions of people — men, women, 
 and children — were sentenced to the scaffold in 
 three lines." And these are but memorable instances, 
 and of these only a few, which do not include the 
 innumerable and less conspicuous executions that 
 have taken place wherever this sum of all abomina- 
 tions, Ultramontanism, has reigned supreme in the 
 councils of the State. 
 
 Yet in our times, the author of these atrocities — 
 atrocities perpetrated with most solemn deliberation 
 — has been claimed as the champion of spiritual 
 freedom, to whom the world is indebted for its 
 conservation and triumph. 
 
 I confess, that I have no words whereby fitly to 
 characterize this unparalleled, and unwarranted as- 
 sumption. Not only is it opposed to the history of 
 
PAPAL INTOLERANCE. 21 
 
 this body, but it is utterly at variance with the 
 enunciations of more than one of its infallible heads. 
 Pope Gregory XVI., in his Encyclical letter of 1832, 
 denounces as " a most pestilent error, as the ravings 
 of delirium, the opinion that for every one what- 
 ever is to be claimed and defended the liberty of 
 conscience." In 1864 Pius IX. issued his Encyclical 
 letter and famous Syllabus, in the former of which 
 he says : " That liberty of conscience and of worship 
 is the right of every man," is an erroneous opinion, 
 " most pernicious to the Catholic Church and to 
 the salvation of souls ; " and in Article XXIV. of 
 the latter document, the denial to the Church of 
 authority to avail herself of any force, or of any 
 direct or indirect temporal power to extend her faith 
 is similarly denounced. 
 
 That these declarations are not exceptional exhi- 
 bitions of narrowness and intolerance, The New 
 York Tablet, a prominent Catholic organ, gives 
 frequent and striking proof. From many statements 
 which have appeared in its columns, I select the 
 following from one of its November issues (1876), 
 clearly indicating that the spirit of the popes is very 
 generally the spirit of their people : — 
 
 " The Church [of Rome] proclaims trumpet- 
 tongued through the lands that belief in what she 
 teaches is a duty obligatory on every human being 
 who hears it, and that not to believe it is a capital 
 
22 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 crime, bringing down on the unbeliever the eternal 
 wrath of God. . . . 
 
 " The Church is charged with intolerance because 
 she asserts that what she teaches is not at all a 
 matter of opinion ; that no one is permitted to have 
 any opinion about it ; that what she teaches is the 
 truth once delivered to the saints, of which she has 
 been the divinely informed depositary ever since 
 Christ went up to heaven ; that what it was then it 
 is now; that no one, from the pope to the humblest 
 peasant, is permitted to question it or to cavil ; that 
 all are bound, under pain of terrific penalties, to 
 receive exactly what she teaches as to obligatory 
 dogma, and nothing else ; and that whoever, of set 
 purpose and wilfully, refuses to believe it, incurs 
 the punishment of hell." 
 
 Yet, in the face of such utterances as these, Arch- 
 bishop Hughes had the audacity to represent the 
 Papacy as enamoured of religious liberty, and, in 
 the person of Lord Baltimore, to have been the first 
 to establish it upon this continent. Many zealous 
 Catholics have been carried away by this assumption, 
 and not a few thoughtless Protestants have been 
 misled by it. Now, I am far from desiring to rob 
 the Romish Church of any honors she may have won 
 in this glorious enterprise, neither would I deal 
 unjustly with the memory of Lord Baltimore ; but I 
 am satisfied that neither one nor the other of these 
 
THE MARYLAND CHARTER. 23 
 
 parties ever did what the learned archbishop claimed. 
 Doubtless the founder of Maryland was a nobleman 
 of liberal tendencies, as others of his communion 
 have been ; but he neither enunciated nor established 
 the true doctrine of soul-liberty. 
 
 This can very readily be made out by examining 
 the facts in the case. Lord Baltimore wished to 
 provide a refuge in America for persecuted Roman- 
 ists ; but as no charter could be obtained from an 
 Episcopal home government, which contemplated the 
 exclusion of Protestants, the only available method 
 by which his desire could be realized was by the 
 adoption of a clause assuring toleration to all Chris- 
 tians. This clause was incorporated in the charter ; 
 but it meant only toleration, and nothing broader. 
 It provided that " blasphemy against God, denying 
 our Saviour Jesus Christ to be the Son of God, or 
 denying the holy Trinity, or the Godhead of the 
 three persons," should be punished " with death, and 
 confiscation of lands and goods to the Lord Proprie- 
 tary." Under this law persons using any reproach- 
 ful word or speech concerning "the blessed Virgin, 
 or the holy apostles or evangelists, were to be fined, 
 whipped, or imprisoned, according to the frequency 
 and malignancy of the offence." 
 
 Of course, these provisions afforded no protection 
 to Unitarians or infidels. These classes of thinkers 
 on religious subjects were forbidden to harbor their 
 
24 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 theories, and the expression of them was at their 
 peril. The so-called orthodox were fostered: they 
 could in safety proclaim their convictions ; but the 
 civil authorities muzzled like mad dogs those who 
 differed from them, and made honest doubt a crime 
 before the law. This is not liberty ; this is not 
 that sacred right which every manly nature feels is 
 his inalienably. This is but meagre, narrow tolera- 
 tion ; and its seeming graciousness is disfigured by 
 the evident selfishness from which it sprang. Sifted 
 down to its underlying motive, it was merely a 
 Catholic expedient to secure for itself a place of 
 safety within the pale of a Protestant government; 
 it contemplated only the absolute freedom of Catho- 
 lic worshippers, not that of the race at large. 
 
 In contrast with this, how singularly liberal does 
 the organic law of Rhode Island appear upon this 
 subject ! Thirteen years before the Maryland tolera- 
 tion clause became a law, the charter of this New 
 England colony provided " that no person within 
 the said colony at any time hereafter shall be in 
 any wise molested, punished, disquieted, or called 
 in question, for any difference of opinion in matters 
 of religion ; but that all and every person and 
 persons, from time to time, and at all times here- 
 after, freely and fully have and enjoy his and their 
 judgment and consciences in matters of religious 
 
COUNTER CHARGES. 25 
 
 If this is the true conception of soul-liberty, — 
 and in our day every American citizen will admit 
 that it is, — then that which Lord Baltimore pro- 
 claimed was something lower, if not something 
 entirely different. Still we are prepared to recog- 
 nize and commend the measure of liberality which 
 the Maryland statesman displayed ; and this is what 
 his own church has never done, save in countries 
 like ours, where her persecuting proclivities are at 
 the same time restrained by the law, and condemned 
 by an overwhelming majority of citizens. 
 
 It is not uncommon, when Papal intolerance is 
 exposed, for recrimination to advance to the rescue. 
 " If we have believed in and practiced coercion 
 in matters of conscience," its upholders exclaim, 
 " we have not been alone ; for the Protestant party 
 has held most strenuously the same principle, and 
 has acted upon it in many cruel ways." The 
 accusation is not without foundation ; for, as a 
 learned antiquarian writer has said, " There is not a 
 confession of faith, nor a creed framed by eaij of 
 the Reformers, which does not give to the magistrate 
 coercive power in religion." — Unclerhill, "Strug- 
 gles and Triumphs" p. 87. Referring to these 
 mighty men, The Edinburgh Review for Septem- 
 ber, 1816, vol. xxvii., declares that they did not 
 maintain the right of private judgment. The editor 
 cites the cases of Servetus in Geneva, and Joan 
 
26 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Bocher in England, as illustrations of his allegation. 
 He also reminds us that by act of parliament, 1560, 
 in Scotland, those who attended mass were con- 
 demned to banishment or death ; and that when 
 Maitland of Lethington, in 1564, who was then sec- 
 retary of state, with several noblemen invited the 
 most distinguished foreign divines to a conference 
 on Queen Mary's popish practices, John Knox ex- 
 pressed the opinion that the Lord's people should 
 put to death all such idolaters. 
 
 I have no pleasure in recalling these facts ; but it 
 is not only due the Catholics that the historic accu- 
 racy of their charge be admitted: it is also due the 
 Baptists, that it be distinctly shown that with the 
 Protestant leaders the doctrine of soul-liberty did 
 not originate. The Reformation was but the dawn- 
 ing of a better day. Through its clouds only the 
 morning of freedom faintly broke, and many weary 
 years elapsed before it dispersed the mists of tyranny 
 which veiled the race in sombre gloom. It professed 
 principles — such as the supremacy of Scripture and 
 the right of judgment — which in the course of 
 time, when their logical bearing was apprehended, 
 enlisted its followers in support of religious liberty, 
 and constrained them to sacrifice ease, property, and 
 life for its establishment. Ultimately they made 
 common cause with the Baptists in waging deter- 
 mined warfare against every phase of spiritual 
 
GUIZOT AND THE REFORMERS. 27 
 
 tyranny; and, having shared with them in the bloody 
 cost, they now rejoice with them in the victory as 
 far as it has been won. It is not for me to ignore 
 their services, or detract from their value, and I have 
 no idea of doing either ; but at a time when the 
 descendants of the Reformers, Puritans, and Pilgrims 
 are serenely claiming for their ancestors nearly all 
 the credit which attaches to the origin and success 
 of this movement, I may be excused for showing 
 that they claim far more than can be proved. 
 
 By consulting Guizot's History of Civilization 
 (vol. i. pp. 262, 263), it will be seen that there is 
 reliable and impartial authority for this statement 
 of the case. From his pages, for the benefit of 
 reader, the following extracts are made: — 
 
 " The emancipation of the human mind, in the 
 course of the Reformation, was a fact rather than a 
 principle, a result rather than an intention. The 
 Reformation, I believe, has in this respect performed 
 more than it undertook, — more, probably, than it 
 desired. Contrary to what has happened in many 
 other revolutions, the effects of which have not 
 come up to their design, the consequences of the 
 Reformation have gone beyond the object it had in 
 view. It is greater, considered as an event, than as 
 a system. It has never completely known all that it 
 has done ; nor, if it had, would it have completely 
 avowed it. 
 
28 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 "What are the reproaches constantly applied to 
 the Reformation by its enemies ? which of its results 
 are thrown in its face, as it were, as unanswerable ? 
 
 " The two principal reproaches are, first, the mul- 
 tiplicity of sects, the excessive license of thought, 
 the destruction of all spiritual authority, and the 
 entire dissolution of religious societ}~; secondly, 
 tyranny and persecution. 4 You provoke licentious- 
 ness,' it has been said to the reformers : ' you pro- 
 duced it ; and, after having been the cause of it, you 
 wish to restrain and repress it. And how do you 
 repress it ? By the most harsh and violent means. 
 You take upon yourselves, too, to punish heresy, 
 and that by virtue of an illegitimate authority.' 
 
 "If we take a review of all the principal charges 
 which have been made against the Reformation, we 
 shall find, if we set aside all questions purely doc- 
 trinal, that the above are the two fundamental re- 
 proaches to which they may all be reduced. 
 
 " These charges gave great embarrassment to the 
 reform party. When they were taxed with the 
 multiplicity of their sects, instead of advocating 
 the freedom of religious opinion, and maintaining 
 the right of every sect to entire toleration, they 
 denounced sectarianism, lamented it, and endeavored 
 to find excuses for its existence. Were they accused 
 of persecution? They were troubled to defend 
 themselves : they used the plea of necessity ; they 
 
THE REFORMATION AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 29 
 
 had, they said, the right to repress and punish error, 
 because they were in possession of the truth. Their 
 articles of belief, they contended, and their institu- 
 tions, were the only legitimate ones ; and, if the 
 Church of Rome had not the right to punish the 
 reformed party, it was because she was in the wrong 
 and they in the right. 
 
 " And when the charge of persecution was applied 
 to the ruling party in the Reformation, not by its 
 enemies, but by its own offspring ; when the sects 
 denounced by that party said, ' W'e are doing just 
 what you did : we separate ourselves from you just 
 as you separated yourselves from the Church of 
 Rome,' — this ruling party were still more at a loss 
 to find an answer ; and frequently the only answer 
 they had to give was an increase of severity. 
 
 " The truth is, that, while laboring for the destruc- 
 tion of absolute power in the spiritual order, the 
 religious revolution of the sixteenth century was not 
 aware of the true principles of intellectual liberty. 
 It emancipated the human mind, and yet pretended 
 still to govern it by laws. In point of fact it pro- 
 duced the prevalence of free inquiry : in point of 
 principle it believed that it was substituting a legiti- 
 mate for an illegitimate power. It had not looked 
 up to the primary motive, nor down to the ultimate 
 consequences, of its own work. It thus fell into a 
 double error. On the one side it did not know or 
 
30 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 respect all the rights of human thought : at the very 
 moment that it was demanding these rights for itself, 
 it was violating them towards others. On the other 
 side it was unable to estimate the rights of authority 
 in matters of reason." 
 
 Prof. Goldwin Smith has penned some admirable 
 passages on this subject (Modem History, vol. i. 
 p. 266), which confirm the representations of M. 
 Guizot ; and a few specific illustrations will remove 
 all doubt from the candid mind as to the historic 
 accuracy of both writers. 
 
 Martin Luther seems to have had no just notions 
 of the relations of civil government to religion. He 
 held that magistrates should maintain order by the 
 regulation even of the externals of worship ; and 
 to this day his followers maintain the same perni- 
 cious doctrine. In Germany there is still a grand 
 court charged with the judicial management of all 
 the ecclesiastical affairs of the empire. A letter 
 from Luther to Menius and Myconius, 1530, con- 
 tains these words: "I am pleased that you intend 
 to publish a book against the Anabaptists as soon as 
 possible. Since they are not only blasphemous but 
 also seditious men, let the sword exercise its rights 
 over them ; for this is the will of God, that he shall 
 have judgment who resisteth the power." — Dr. 
 Sears's Life of Luther. 
 
JOHN CALVIN AND CALVINISM. 31 
 
 The reformation in Switzerland was contempora- 
 neous with, but independent of, the movement in 
 Germany. Its great leader, Zwingle, invoked the 
 authority of the State in behalf of the Church. The 
 law of Zurich (1530) decrees death to Baptists ; and 
 the gentle Melanchthon, in a letter to the Diet of Ham- 
 burg (1537), advocated the same proscriptive policy. 
 
 Among those who have acquired unenviable dis- 
 tinction for spiritual despotism, none is more con- 
 spicuous in history than Calvin. " Godly princes," 
 he wrote, " may lawfully issue edicts for compelling 
 obstinate and rebellious persons to worship the true 
 God, and to maintain the unity of the faith." 
 With his consent, Michael Servetus was executed ; 
 for Calvin had declared regarding him, " If he 
 comes to Geneva, and my authority avails any 
 thing, I will never suffer him to go away alive." — 
 Letters, vol. ii. 19. Verily, as Dr. Tulloch has 
 said, " It was a hard and bad world that needed 
 Calvin for a reformer." 
 
 Presbyterianism was not at first less intolerant 
 than its founder. The Edinburgh Convention, 
 which framed the articles of Church Polity, declared 
 certain ecclesiastical offenders worthy of death. 
 They proclaimed that the observance of certain 
 feasts and fasts, Christmas, Epiphany, &c, " ought 
 not to escape the punishment of the civil magis- 
 trate." Well might Milton utter his famous sar- 
 
32 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 casm in the face of such tyranny, " New presbyter 
 is but old priest writ large ; " well might it be 
 repeated again and again when such a man as 
 Baxter could exclaim, " I abhor unlimited liberty 
 and toleration of all," and when so godly a divine 
 as Owen, in his essay appended to a sermon preached 
 before Parliament, 1646, could express the opinion 
 that " toleration would prove exceedingly pernicious 
 to all sorts of men." 
 
 These sentiments prevailed in the Westminster 
 Assembly ; and, accordingly, the Confession of Faith 
 contained an explicit avowal of the duty of the civil 
 magistrate to suppress heresy. Moreover, the Pres- 
 byterians constantly labored to thwart the measures 
 of Cromwell in the direction of greater liberty of 
 conscience. They desired that those only should 
 be tolerated who accepted the fundamentals of 
 Christianity ; and they drew up such a list of these 
 fundamentals, that nearly every sect but themselves 
 was amenable to the searching discipline they 
 proposed. A fall description of them is given in 
 Neal's History of the Puritans, where it will be 
 seen that they condemned Popish, Arminian, Anti- 
 nomian, Baptist, and Quaker doctrines. 
 
 Of the Church of England, with "her Popish 
 liturgy and Genevan creed," little need be said. 
 She originated by law in 1527 ; and the Judicial 
 Committee of the Privy Council was appointed her 
 
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 33 
 
 supreme tribunal, by whom all questions relating 
 to the true and legal construction of doctrines and 
 formularies must finally be judged. Such an estab- 
 lishment could not but abound in injustice and per- 
 secution. The statute-books of England have been 
 sadly burdened with tyrannical decrees, penal codes, 
 conventicle acts, corporation acts, test acts, five-mile 
 acts ; and the people have suffered from their 
 enforcement at the hands of Star Chambers, and 
 Courts of High Commission. The bosom of this 
 English politico-ecclesiastical institution has nour- 
 ished such monsters as Laud, who was promoted 
 step by step in episcopal office, till in 1633 he was 
 consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury, — made the 
 primate and the representative man of the hierarchy. 
 To such men, liberty could only be an unknown 
 quality; and from them, every concession towards its 
 establishment could only be won by blood and tears. 
 Hallam says, the Toleration Act of William and 
 Mary, which was simply the just recognition of the 
 right of public worship beyond the pale of the State 
 Church, was passed, " not without murmurs of big- 
 oted churchmen." And, every victory since then 
 achieved in England, has been Avon in the face of 
 clerical opposition. The emancipation of the Cath- 
 olics from political disabilities on account of their 
 religious views, the enfranchisement of the Jews, as 
 well as the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church 
 
34 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 in Ireland, have only been effected by the persistent 
 efforts of jbhose who had neither part nor lot in the 
 hierarchy. Even, the recent ridiculous controversies 
 on what is known as the Burial Bill, and on the right 
 of Dissenting ministers to be called by the honorary 
 title of " Reverend," and to have it inscribed upon 
 their humble tombstones, show how difficult it is to 
 charm to sleep the spirit of intolerance in the bosoms 
 of the British clergy. Deprived of power to inflict 
 the halter or the fagot, persecution still breathes 
 venom from their lips, and indirectly tries to blast 
 what it cannot openly destroy. 
 
 The Independents and the Congregationalists have 
 certainly, in many respects, a fairer record than the 
 English Church ; but they are not entitled to the 
 encomium of Lord King, that with them originated 
 the true notion of religious liberty. We who 
 inhabit these shores, and who are indebted to them 
 for very many of the blessings we enjoy to-day, 
 have fallen into the amiable habit of regarding Pil- 
 grims and Puritans as fleeing from Europe to this 
 wilderness, for the purpose of securing to all men 
 absolute freedom of conscience. Statements of this 
 kind have found their way into speeches delivered 
 on Forefathers' Day, into sermons and poetry, where 
 sentiment is often more popular than fact, until the 
 people very generally believe them. There never 
 was, however, an impression more erroneous. These 
 
PILGRIM FATHERS, 35 
 
 men, whom we justly venerate for their many noble 
 virtues, were far from sympathizing with a doctrine, 
 which, recognizing the accountability of the soul to 
 God, would have every man left free of earthly 
 magistrates in shaping his religious course. 
 
 In proof of this statement, permit me to quote a 
 passage from the writings of Mr. John Robinson, the 
 father of the band of exiles, "who for their religion 
 first sought refuge in Holland, and afterwards in 
 America. He declared that the civil magistrate 
 "niay alter, devise, or establish nothing in religion 
 otherwise than Christ hath appointed ; " but he may 
 use u his lawful power lawfully for the furtherance 
 of Christ's kingdom and laws. The prophet Isaiah, 
 speaking of the Church of Christ, foretells that 
 kings shall be her nursing fathers, and queens her 
 nursing mothers; which, if they meddle not with 
 her, how can they be?" Lecky, while making a 
 special plea for the English Independents, admits 
 that their theory of toleration, by which they 
 expressed their sympathy with Cromwell's views, 
 stopped short of Popery and Prelacy ; that is, it 
 excluded Romanism and Episcopacy. — Rationalism 
 in Europe, p. 78, vol. ii. Indeed, there is every 
 reason to believe that it originated mainly in their 
 anxiety to secure for themselves a standing of safety 
 before the law. That they were actuated by no intel- 
 ligent and broad desire to establish the right of every 
 
36 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 man, whether Christian or Infidel, Protestant or 
 Papist, Jew or Turk, to enjoy, unmolested by the 
 civil authorities, his convictions on the subject of 
 religion, is abundantly proved by the whole tenor 
 of their history in America. 
 
 The fathers of New England did not cross the 
 stormy Atlantic to found a state on fundamental 
 principles, but to obtain for themselves and children 
 a free field for their own ideas of church reform. 
 They were good men ; better men never lived : the 
 sifted seed were they, taken from the Old World 
 wherewith to plant the New. But they were the 
 product of the sixteenth century, not the nineteenth. 
 They were intense believers ; and they believed in 
 nothing more intensely than the union of the Church 
 with the State. 
 
 The Rev. John Norton, in the Election Sermon 
 of 1661, said that they came to live in this wilderness 
 " under the order of the gospel ; that our polity may 
 be a gospel polity, and may be complete according to 
 the Scriptures, answering fully the word of God." 
 Higginson of Salem in his Election Discourse, 1663, 
 stated the point thus fully : " It concerneth New 
 England always to remember that they are originally 
 a plantation religious, not a plantation of trade. The 
 profession of the purity of doctrine, worship, and 
 discipline is written upon her forehead." In 1677 
 Rev. Increase M.athpr, ancl in 1783 Pres. Stiles of 
 
CHURCH AND STATE IN NEW ENGLAND. 37 
 
 Yale College, proclaimed substantially the same senti- 
 ments as distinguishing the primitive settlers of New 
 England. In the spring of 1631, the first year after 
 the founding of Boston, the General Court " ordered 
 and agreed, that, for the time to come, no man shall 
 be admitted to the freedom of this body politic but 
 such as are members of some of the churches within 
 the limits of the same." It was Dudley, the second 
 governor of Massachusetts, successor of the noble 
 Winthrop, who wrote the well-known lines, as 
 execrable in poetry as in sentiment : — 
 
 " Let men of God in courts and churches watch 
 O'er such as do a toleration hatch.' ' 
 
 In 1644 the General Court enacted: "If any 
 Christian shall openly condemn the baptism of 
 infants, or shall purposely depart the congregation 
 at the administration of the ordinance, . . . con- 
 tinuing obstinate therein, he shall be sentenced to 
 banishment." Says the Cambridge Platform of 
 1649, " If any church, one or more, shall grow 
 schismatical, rending itself from the communion of 
 other churches, ... in such case a magistrate is 
 to put forth his coercive power as the matter shall 
 require." And Cotton Mather, who did more than 
 any other man to shape the ecclesiastical polity of 
 Massachusetts, deliberately expressed the view, that 
 " it cannot be truly said that the Lord Jesus never 
 
38 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 appointed the civil sword for a remedy in such 
 cases, for he did expressly appoint it in the Old 
 Testament ; nor did he abrogate it in the New 
 Testament." Having quoted Deut. xiii. 19, he pro- 
 ceeds, " The reason is moral, therefore of perpetual 
 equity, to put to death the apostate, seducing idola- 
 ter, or heretic, who seeketh to thrust away the 
 people from the Lord their God." — Answer to 
 Williams : see his Bloody Tenet. Said Rev. James 
 Noyes of Newbury (1661), " Magistrates have a just 
 power to use the sword in their hands against any 
 persons, for the good of the Church and the glory 
 of Christ's kingdom." Yea, the great John Cotton 
 declared, that " it was toleration that made the world 
 anti - Christian, and that the Church never took 
 hurt by the punishment of heretics." 
 
 Dr. George E. Ellis has stated {Lowell Lectures 
 by Members of Massachusetts Historical Society, p. 
 84), with admirable precision, the real position of 
 the fathers of New England upon this subject. 
 Referring to liberty of conscience, he says, " Our 
 fathers were fully informed as to what it was, what 
 it meant ; and they were familiar with such results 
 as it wrought in their day. They knew it well, and 
 what must come of it ; and they did not like it : 
 rather they feared and hated it. They did not mean 
 to live where it was indulged ; and, in the full 
 exercise of their intelligence and prudence, they 
 
NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 39 
 
 resolved not to tolerate it among them." The 
 North American Revieiv, in a recent favorable 
 notice of " Dexter's Roger Williams," not only 
 agrees with Dr. Ellis, and with all the testimony 
 previously adduced, but attempts a justification of 
 Puritan proscriptiveness, which, though I regard it 
 as bad mending of a bad cause, I give to my readers, 
 that they may judge for themselves the soundness of 
 the plea put forth in its defence : — 
 
 " The Puritans have been blamed because people 
 have not stopped to consider their real aims and the 
 conditions of their existence, because they have not 
 tried to put themselves in their place. The Puritans 
 acquired their land not merely by royal patent, but 
 by the abandonment of home, of civilization, and of 
 eyery comfort. In a place so dearly bought, they 
 had an inalienable right to do as they pleased ; and 
 it pleased them to try a great political experiment. 
 They had entered into the land, and possessed it ; 
 and there in the wilderness they founded a Puritan 
 state, the asylum for men of their race and religion. 
 In their new country it further pleased them to 
 make Church and State one ; and they believed that 
 whoever touched one touched the other, and there- 
 fore they defended both with all their strength. 
 They did not come to the barren shores of Massa- 
 chusetts Bay to obtain for every papist, fanatic, and 
 
40 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 heretic, freedom to worship God after his fashion : 
 they sought freedom to worship God after their own 
 fashion. Whoever interfered with them, or threat- 
 ened the existence of their government by attacks 
 on Church or State, whether it was Charles the First 
 or Roger Williams, they resisted to the uttermost ; 
 and, if they had the power, punished the assailant 
 by exile and sometimes by death. By every law of 
 self-preservation, by every law of common sense 
 and common prudence, and with all justice in so 
 doing, they acted strongly and well. No doubt their 
 judgment often erred, for they were human and 
 fallible. No doubt they were often harsh and nar- 
 row-minded if tried by our standards, or by the 
 standards of such contemporaries as Francis Bacon 
 or John Selden. Yet it is folly and weakness to 
 make apologies for them, for they need none. The 
 Puritans of Massachusetts acted according to their 
 best lights ; and they acted like wise, brave men. 
 They built up a strong, enduring state, the corner- 
 stone of a great nation. All these men need is the 
 exact and severe justice of history ; and sooner or 
 later the judgment of history must become the 
 verdict of mankind." 
 
 The practice of these men was thoroughly con- 
 sistent with their principles. Their characters were 
 too ruggedly sincere, their conscience too morbidly 
 
PERSECUTED BAPTISTS. 41 
 
 sensitive, for them to hesitate one moment in main- 
 taining at every cost their honest convictions. 
 Hence it was, that the Baptists, who had been 
 ground beneath the heel of spiritual tyranny in the 
 Old World, found waiting them in the New, whither 
 they had fled for refuge, nothing but fines, im- 
 prisonments, scourgings, confiscations, and banish- 
 ments. Many scenes occurred in the early history 
 of the colonies, which were stained with injustice, 
 cruelty, and blood. Roger Williams was driven from 
 his home into the wilderness, from the savageness 
 of Christians to the Christianity of savages ; Oba- 
 diah Holmes was stripped of his clothes, and in 
 Boston was publicly whipped, a three-corded scourge 
 dashing the gore from his quivering flesh ; while 
 John Hazel and John Spur, for words of sympathy 
 spoken to the sufferer, were arrested, fined forty 
 shillings, and imprisoned, — and all because they 
 would not conform to the Standing Order. 
 
 From 1723 to 1733, twenty-eight Baptists were 
 imprisoned at Bristol ; and in the same century, 
 according to Winthrop's journal, a poor man by the 
 name of Painter was barbarously flogged like a 
 common felon, because he refused to bring his child 
 to be sprinkled. William Clark, for the same 
 offence in 1651, was sentenced to pay twenty 
 pounds, or be whipped; while Pres. Dunster, the 
 learned chief of Harvard College, was fined and 
 
42 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 driven from his office because he held to and 
 expressed Baptist sentiments. In 1665 the leading 
 members of this denomination in Charlestown, 
 Mass., were brought before the Court, and were 
 disfranchised ; and in 1680 the doors of the First 
 Baptist Church at Boston were nailed up by the 
 marshal, and services prohibited. 
 
 But these are only a few instances of the wide- 
 spread calamities, which were inflicted upon our sires 
 for conscience' sake. No language can reproduce 
 the gloom which enshrouded them, nor the malignant 
 intolerance which sought to exterminate them. They 
 ate their bread in fear ; in the morning they wished 
 it were evening, and in the evening they wished it 
 were morning. Robbed, beaten, cursed, despised, 
 driven from their homes, separated from their 
 families, treated as the offscouring of the earth, — 
 what was left them, but to appeal to that God, of 
 whom it is written, " Vengeance is mine, I will 
 repay, saith the Lord"? — assured that Heat least 
 would " avenge His own elect, though he bear long 
 with them." 
 
 They needed indeed to look to Him, and to Him 
 alone ; for nowhere on this broad continent, where 
 the descendants of the Reformation held sway, could 
 they find arm to help or heart to sympathize. If 
 we turn our sickened eyes from New England, 
 it is only to sicken them more terribly by similar 
 
SUFFERERS IN VIRGINIA. 43 
 
 events in Virginia. When it is remembered that 
 the English Church was established by law in that 
 colony, the sad condition of dissenters can easily be 
 imagined. The intolerant spirit which had made 
 her infamous in the Old World, by an unhappy 
 species of transmigration appeared in the New. 
 Each person staying away from her services was 
 fined fifty pounds of tobacco, and two thousand 
 pounds of the same article for refusing to have an 
 infant christened. Citizens were disfranchised and 
 banished, even members of the House of Burgesses 
 were expelled from their seats, on account of their 
 religious opinions. It is impossible, as it is unneces^ 
 sary, to detail the wrongs endured by those who 
 could not subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles. 
 
 Time itself would fail me to tell of the Wallers, the 
 Craigs, Childs, Webbers, Weatherfords, Herndons, 
 Wares, Pitmans, who " had trial of cruel mockings 
 and scourgings, of bonds and imprisonment; " who 
 " being destitute, afflicted, tormented, wandered in 
 deserts and in mountains, and in dens and in caves 
 of the earth, not accepting deliverance." 
 
 Do you ask for what offence, for what crime 
 against the majesty of law and the well-being of 
 humanity, these humble men were shamed and 
 punished ; held forth, as it were, a spectacle of 
 ignominy to the universe ? Do jon ask ? Then 
 follow me through a century of years, and in that 
 
44 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Virginia Court-House, receive an answer from no 
 less a witness than Patrick Henry. 
 
 Three ministers are standing there before the bar 
 of justice, indicted as disturbers of the peace. A 
 crowd of people throng the room, not to hear alone 
 the words of the prosecuting attorney, but to wit- 
 ness the action of the great patriot under circum- 
 stances so solemn and impressive. Henry takes the 
 indictment from the officer of the law, and begins a 
 plea which for effective oratory has never been 
 surpassed. I will not trust my poor unpracticed 
 pen to reproduce his words ; certainly, I could not 
 rekindle the fire with which they were charged ; but 
 the thrice-reiterated climax of his sublime appeal 
 reveals the terrible offence of these poor Baptist 
 preachers, and of the entire fraternity North and 
 South, who agreed with them in doctrine, and 
 shared with them in tribulation : they were guilty 
 of no less a crime than that " of preaching the 
 gospel of the Son of God." No wonder, after such 
 a declaration, that Henry, pausing amidst the most 
 profound silence, should wave the indictment thrice 
 round his head, and exclaim, " Great God ! " 
 
 Moved by a similar impulse, as I contemplate 
 this injustice and bigotry, I cannot refrain from 
 expressing my indignation in the solemn cry of 
 the enlightened advocate, " Great God ! " For 
 preaching the word of life, for conscientiously 
 
SPECIAL PLEADINGS, 45 
 
 proclaiming what Heaven had commanded them to 
 speak, these rugged, faithful men were hounded, 
 harried, and crushed by those who had fled with 
 them from despotic Europe to the wilds of America 
 that they might worship their Creator according to 
 their conceptions of his mighty will : Great God ! 
 
 Stranger than these facts by far are the specious 
 pleas, which have been put forth by some of the 
 descendants of these intolerant churchmen and 
 puritans to clear their memory, in this age of 
 liberty, of the foul blot that rests upon it. I doubt 
 not that these undertakings have been inspired by 
 veneration for the virtues, which, unquestionably, 
 their ancestors possessed, as well as by an apprehen- 
 sion that the denominations of which they were 
 members may incur present reproach, unless it can 
 be shown that their principles and deeds were 
 justifiable. Such motives are honorable enough, if 
 honorably pursued ; but they cannot excuse the 
 publication of arguments in defence of Congrega- 
 tionalist or Churchman, whose historical inaccuracies 
 can only be equalled by their historical perversions. 
 
 No body of men can fairly be held responsible for 
 the sentiments of their forefathers. Time works 
 many changes ; and it may come to pass, that the 
 most proscriptive party in the course of years may 
 mellow into the most tolerant. On the other hand, 
 the offspring of the most devoted champions of 
 
46 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 religious freedom may shrink and narrow into the 
 most bigoted of bigots. The son of the old Puritan 
 may be more charitable than the son of the old 
 Baptist. The justice of this thought being very 
 generally recognized, there exists no real necessity 
 for other than the most candid treatment of the 
 errors and failures of those from whom we sprang. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten, that most likely, in 
 the worst ages of oppression, very many persons 
 associated with the persecuting church may have 
 condemned her course, and have sympathized with 
 those who suffered for the sake of conscience. The 
 rank and file of any religious party very rarely rise 
 or sink to the level of its leaders. Doubtless among 
 the early settlers in New England, there were not a 
 few loving natures who could weep for the afflic- 
 tions of their Baptist brethren ; who, could they 
 only have seen their way through the logical 
 defences of spiritual despotism, and have felt them- 
 selves safe from all its cruelties, would gladly 
 have succored the distressed ones, whose crime lay 
 in presuming to differ from their rulers. These 
 tender but timid and perplexed souls may have had 
 fair visions of a happier era, may have prayed for 
 its dawning, and secretly m^j have comforted the 
 stricken and homeless victims of the " zealot's 
 rage." All this is more than probable; and I 
 believe it very thoroughly, because the Revolu- 
 
TEE MONOGRAPH. 47 
 
 tionary period of our history brought to light an 
 overwhelming sentiment in favor of absolute reli- 
 gious liberty, which must have been maturing and 
 spreading in darker times. That it should not have 
 been made effective by those who cherished it at an 
 earlier period, may fairly be a cause of regret to 
 their descendants ; but they should not assume that 
 its existence is now unrecognized, or that there is in 
 any quarter a purpose to charge the tyranny of the 
 comparatively few indiscriminately upon all, and 
 that, in consequence, an imperative obligation rests 
 upon them to vindicate their ancestors by attempt- 
 ing to prove that the persecutors among them were 
 not persecutors, that their cruelties were not cruel- 
 ties, that their decrees of banishment did not mean 
 banishment, and that other feelings than intolerance 
 dictated their narrow policy. 
 
 These reflections have been suggested by the care- 
 ful study of various works, the principal aim of 
 which appears to be the reversal of that judgment 
 which posterity has pronounced on those who in 
 New England and Virginia exalted the sword of the 
 civil magistrate above the authority of conscience. 
 Among these, the most important, as being the most 
 recent and comprehensive, is the " Monograph " by 
 Rev. Henry Martyn Dexter, D.D., which deals with 
 " Roger Williams and his Banishment." As the 
 Episcopal historian, Dr. Hawks, defends the Vir- 
 
48 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 ginia authorities, Dr. Dexter, following in the foot- 
 steps of Dr. Palfrey, attempts in his book to palliate 
 the conduct of the Massachusetts Court in regard to 
 Roger Williams. This somewhat remarkable effort 
 has interested not a few persons in our country, and 
 has been both favorably and unfavorably reviewed. 
 For my own part, I admire the " Monograph " in 
 many respects ; but I cannot admit that as a whole 
 the performance is equal to the expectation it 
 excites. As it illustrates the insufficiency of all 
 pleas in extenuation of Puritan proscriptiveness, I 
 may be permitted to express very briefly my objec- 
 tions to its argument. 
 
 Dr. Dexter undertakes to maintain the thesis, that 
 the doctrine of Roger Williams concerning religious 
 liberty was not involved in his trial and banish- 
 ment by the Massachusetts magistrates. 
 
 The historical soundness of this position I am 
 obliged to question ; for while it is doubtless true 
 that this was not the sole cause of their proceed- 
 ing against him, and may not have been made promi- 
 nent before the court, it was clearly implied in 
 the charges which resulted in his expulsion from 
 the Plantation. 
 
 Dr. Dexter concedes (p. 65) " that it appears from 
 Winthrop that in the previous July [previous to 
 his trial] Mr. Williams had denied to the court 
 the magistrate's power in matters of religion,'' 
 
TRIAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS. 49 
 
 though " it is not in evidence that that point was 
 specifically made in the final trial." Let even this 
 be admitted, yet it does not follow that this was not 
 one of the motives which inspired the antagonism of 
 his enemies. For reasons of their own, they may 
 have omitted to make it particularly conspicuous ; 
 but that it was not entirely ignored, is proven by the 
 sentence pronounced. This runs in the following 
 terms : — 
 
 " Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders 
 of the church of Salem, hath broached & dyvulged 
 dyvers newe & dangerous opinions, against the auc- 
 thoritie of magistrates, as also writt Ires of defama- 
 con, both of the magistrates & churches here, & that 
 before any conviccon, & yet mainetaineth the same 
 without retraccon, it is therefore ordered, that the 
 said Mr. Williams shall depte out of this jurisdiccon 
 within sixe weekes nowe nexte ensuing, w ch if hee 
 neglect to pforme, it shalbe lawfull for the Gou r & 
 two of the magistrates to send him to some places 
 out of this jurisdiccon, not to returne any more 
 without licence from the Court." 
 
 Then we have Mr. Williams's own statement of 
 what the governor said when summing up the 
 case : — 
 
 " He stood up and spake : 
 
 " Mr. Williams (said he) holds forth these 4 par- 
 ticulars : 
 
50 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 " First, That we have not our Land by Pattent 
 from the King, but that the Natives are the true 
 owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a 
 receiving it by Pattent. 
 
 " Secondly, That it is not lawfull to call a wicked 
 person to Sweare, to Pray, as being actions of God's 
 worship. 
 
 " Thirdly, That it is not lawfull to heare any of 
 the Ministers of the Parish Assemblies in England. 
 
 " Fourthly, That the Civill Magistrates power ex- 
 tends only to the Bodies and Goods, and outward 
 State of men, etc." 
 
 If this fourth specification means any thing, it 
 declares that conscience and the laws of worship are 
 beyond the jurisdiction of civil courts. That it was 
 understood to have this force, Dr. Dexter himself 
 witnesses ; for he states that the opinions of Wil- 
 liams awakened the opposition which assailed them, 
 because of the foothold they would inevitably give 
 the Catholics in New England. But only the recog- 
 nition of the principles of religious liberty by the 
 government could entail upon the Plantation this 
 peril ; and we must, therefore, conclude that it was 
 this doctrine which young Williams was propa- 
 gating. 
 
 Dr. Dexter reminds us that this troublesome 
 agitator, "in one of his communications to Mr. 
 Cotton, narrowed down the causes of his ' banish- 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF WILLIAMS. 51 
 
 ment ' to a single one, and that he declared to be 
 1 my humble and faithfull, and constant admonishing 
 of them of such unclean walking between a particu- 
 lar Church (which they only professe to be Christs) 
 and a Nationally " 
 
 But why was it that he carried this principle of 
 separatism so far ? Why was he so radical in his 
 protest on this point ? Was it not, because a national 
 church is necessarily subversive of personal inde- 
 pendence in religious concerns ? Its existence is 
 synonymous with spiritual usurpation ; and to oppose 
 its authority is to proclaim liberty of conscience. 
 This testimony is therefore sufficient to prove the 
 untenableness of the doctor's position ; in confir- 
 mation of which, it may be well to add an extract 
 from a letter written by Mr. Williams to Gov. Endi- 
 cott, in which he says, — 
 
 "At present, let it not be offensive in your eyes, 
 that I single out another, a fourth point, a cause of 
 my Banishment also ; wherein I greatly feare one or 
 two sad evills, which have befallen your Soule and 
 Conscience. 
 
 " The point is that of the Civill Magistrates deal- 
 ing in matters of Conscience and Religion ; as also 
 of persecuting and hunting any for any matter 
 meerly Spirituall and Religious." 
 
 The impression is conveyed by the " Monograph," 
 that the teaching and influence of Roger Williams 
 
52 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 were altogether revolutionary, and tended towards 
 social, civil, and religious disorganization. Its 
 learned author brings forward various witnesses to 
 convict the man, who was to found Rhode Island, 
 of rashness and impetuousness, of a lack of good 
 judgment, deliberation, and discretion. Doubtless, 
 he was at fault in these particulars. But reformers 
 are generally far from being prudent and conserva- 
 tive. Indeed, it is questionable whether these quali- 
 ties would qualify them for such work as they 
 usually undertake. Men do not rise against grievous 
 wrongs in cold blood, and, with equanimity per- 
 fectly preserved, pursue an exterminating warfare. 
 Luther, Calvin, Knox, and the leaders among the 
 Puritans in England, were no less radical than 
 the Massachusetts reformer. If on this account the 
 course of the Plantation authorities is to be leniently 
 judged, how shall we condemn the bloody resistance 
 of Catholicism to the inroads of Protestantism ? 
 
 That the views of Mr. Williams necessarily tended 
 in the direction indicated by Dr. Dexter, is dis- 
 proven by the good government which subsequently 
 obtained in Rhode Island ; and, that their author 
 never intended that they should subvert the legiti- 
 mate authority of civil magistrates, may be gathered 
 from his own statement of the doctrine he advo- 
 cated. This doctrine he explained in January, 
 1654-5 (some twenty years after he left Salem), to 
 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND CIVIL LAW. 53 
 
 his fellow-citizens of Providence, in the following 
 words : — 
 
 " That ever I should speak or write a tittle that 
 tends to such an infinite liberty of conscience [as 
 that it is blood-guiltiness, and contrary to the rule 
 of the gospel, to execute judgment upon transgress- 
 ors against the public or private weal], is a mistake, 
 and which I have ever disclaimed and abhorred. To 
 prevent such mistakes, I at present shall only pro- 
 pose this' case : — 
 
 " There goes many a ship to sea, with many 
 hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is 
 common ; and is a true picture of a commonwealth, 
 or an human combination, or society. It hath fallen 
 out sometimes that both Papists and Protestants, 
 Jews and Turks, may be embarked into one ship. 
 Upon which supposal, I affirm that all the liberty of 
 conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these 
 two hinges: that none of the Papists, Protestants, 
 Jews or Turks, be forced to come to the ship's 
 prayers or worship ; nor compelled from their own 
 particular prayers or worship if they practice any. 
 I further add, that I never denied, that, notwith- 
 standing this liberty, the commander of this ship 
 ought to command the ship's course ; yea, and also 
 command that justice, peace, and sobriety to be kept 
 and practiced, both among the seamen and all the 
 passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform 
 
54 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 their service, or passenger to pay their freight; if 
 any refuse to help in person or purse, towards the 
 common charges or defence ; if any refuse to obey the 
 common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their 
 common peace or preservation ; if any shall mutiny 
 and rise up against their commanders and officers ; if 
 any should preach or ivrite that there ought to be no 
 commanders nor officers, because all are equal in 
 Christ, therefore no masters nor officers, no laws nor 
 orders, no corrections nor punishments, — I say, I 
 never denied but in such cases, whatever is pre- 
 tended, the commander or commanders may judge, 
 resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, accord- 
 ing to their deserts and merits." 
 
 At a later period, in more literal phrase, he dis- 
 tinctly wrote in a paper addressed to the town 
 clerk of Providence, of date Jan. 12-25, 1680-1: — 
 
 " Government and order in families, towns, &c, 
 is the ordinance of the Most High (Rom. xiii.) for 
 the peace and good of mankind. 
 
 " It is written in the hearts of all mankind, even 
 in pagans, that mankind cannot keep together 
 without some government. 
 
 " No government is maintained without tribute, 
 custom, rates, taxes, &c. 
 
 " It is but folly to resist (one or more, and, if one, 
 why not more?). God hath stirred up the spirit 
 of the governor, magistrates, and officers, driven to 
 
PAINTER AND HOLMES. 55 
 
 it by necessity, to be unanimously resolved to see 
 the matter finished ; and it is the duty of every man 
 to maintain, encourage, and strengthen the hand of 
 authority*" 
 
 If these extracts reflect the real sentiments of 
 Roger Williams, — as, unquestionably, they do, — 
 then there is no warrant in fact for the accusations 
 so freely indulged in by the author of the "Mono- 
 graph." Their reiteration under the circumstances 
 indicates the weakness of the cause defended, and 
 appears like a resort to an ancient argument — the 
 safety of the state — in extenuation of tyranny, for 
 which the people of this age entertain no great 
 respect. But, if the Puritans were really appre- 
 hensive of civil disorganization and social disloca- 
 tion from his teachings, then it only proves that 
 in statesmanship and penetration he was vastly su- 
 perior to them ; for he foresaw, what his contem- 
 poraries only vaguely discerned, that liberty of 
 conscience is compatible with the highest prosperity 
 and security of a commonwealth. 
 
 I am sorry to observe, in making out his case, how 
 lightly and disingenuously Dr. Dexter writes of the 
 sufferings endured by the Baptists of New England. 
 To judge from his statements, one would infer that 
 the punishments inflicted were very trivial, hardly 
 worth mentioning, and certainly not as severe as 
 were deserved. He thus records one notable 
 case : — 
 
56 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 " In July, 1644, one Thomas Painter, then of 
 Hingham, who seems to have been an idle, obsti- 
 nate, and rather worthless person, suddenly turned 
 Anabaptist ; and, ' having a child born, he would 
 not suffer his wife to bring it to the ordinance 
 of baptism.' The matter was aggravated by the 
 fact that he was not himself a member of any 
 church, although his wife was ; and by his ' obsti- 
 nacy ' and ' very loose behavior. ' They thought 
 they exercised much patience with him ; but finally, 
 because he was very poor, so as no other but cor- 
 poral punishment could be fastened upon him, he 
 was ordered to be whipped ; not for his opinion, hut 
 for reproaching the Lord's ordinance, and for his bold 
 and evil behavior both at home and in the court." 
 
 We have here a most remarkable distinction. 
 The whipping was " not for his opinion, but for 
 reproaching the Lord's ordinance." But it was his 
 opinion that infant-baptism was not an ordinance of 
 the Lord's : he regarded it as of human origin, and, 
 consequently, not to be observed by those who aimed 
 only to acknowledge His authority. 
 
 Similar disingenuousness characterizes the account 
 given of the treatment to which Obadiah Holmes 
 was subjected, who in 1651 was publicly flogged for 
 holding a meeting in Lynn, and for re-baptizing. 
 The fact is simply recorded, that he received thirty 
 stripes, though in a foot-note we have these words, 
 
THE WHIPPING OF HOLMES. 57 
 
 " Arnold thinks he was ' cruelly whipped.' " — 
 History of Rhode Island, i. 235. On this Dr. Dexter 
 comments, " But Clarke (he means Holmes) says, 
 c It was so easie to me that I could well bear it ; yea, 
 and in a manner felt it not ; '" and that he told the 
 magistrates after it was over, " 'You have struck me 
 as with roses.' " 
 
 These words are designed to convey the impres- 
 sion that the punishment inflicted was very slight, 
 and that the whole transaction was a species of 
 child's play. But the statement of Holmes, the 
 very statement in fact from which Dr. Dexter takes 
 his quotations, puts the matter in a very different 
 light. I append it, that the readers of these pages 
 may judge for themselves : — 
 
 " As the man began to lay the strokes upon my 
 back, I said to the people, 6 Though my flesh should 
 fail, and my spirit should fail, yet my God would 
 not fail.' So it pleased the Lord to come in, and so 
 to fill my heart and tongue as a vessel full ; and 
 with an audible voice I broke forth praying unto the 
 Lord not to lay this sin to their charge, and telling 
 the people that now I found he did not fail me, 
 and therefore now I should trust him forever who 
 failed me not ; for in truth, as the strokes fell upon 
 me, I had such a spiritual manifestation of God's 
 presence as the like thereof I never had nor felt, 
 nor can with fleshly tongue express ; and the out- 
 
58 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 ward pain was so removed from me, that indeed I 
 am not able to declare it to you : it was so easy to 
 me that I could well bear it, yea, and in a manner 
 felt it not, although it was grievous, as the spectators 
 said, the man striking with all his strength (yea, 
 spitting in his hand three times, as many affirmed) 
 with a three-corded whip, giving me therewith 
 thirty strokes. When he had loosed me from the 
 post, having joyfulness in my heart, and cheerful- 
 ness in my countenance, as the spectators observed, 
 I told the magistrates, 4 You have struck me as 
 with roses,' and said moreover, 4 Although the Lord 
 hath made it easy for me, yet I pray God it may not 
 be laid to your charge.' " 
 
 This comparative unconsciousness of suffering was 
 not due, then, to any lack of severity on the part 
 of the persecutors, as our good doctor insinuates, 
 but to the sustaining grace of God. The failure to 
 make this clear in the " Monograph," naturally 
 creates unpleasant doubts as to the candor of its 
 author, and does not increase our confidence in the 
 accuracy of its other historical representations. 
 
 Before closing this review, I may be permitted a 
 few words in answer to what he saj^s concerning the 
 Anabaptists. He argues that the Puritans should 
 be excused for their treatment of New England 
 Baptists, on the ground that they were " far from 
 being prepossessed in their favor." He adds that 
 
THE ANABAPTISTS. 59 
 
 they " supposed they had abundant warrant for the 
 truth of statements involving the name of Anabap- 
 tist with the most indecent as well as painful fren- 
 zies ; and they found the prominent good men, 
 whose opinions they had been accustomed to receive 
 on other subjects with the greatest deference, 
 referring to such Anabaptists with a degree of 
 reprobation which was surely calculated to impair 
 the welcome with which they might receive any 
 new-comers avowing that peculiar faith." 
 
 The list of authorities on which they relied, he 
 appends, and supplements it with a formidable 
 array of works, which the modern student who 
 wishes to increase his knowledge of this sect may 
 consult. All of these, however, indicate that he is 
 more anxious to vindicate the Puritans, than to 
 arrive at the truthfulness or falsity of the suspicions 
 on which they acted. Indeed, he appears from the 
 beginning to have pre-judged this much-abused 
 body of Christians, and to have sought exclusively 
 the testimony of those who were inclined to make 
 out a case against them. A spirit of candor 
 would have constrained him, while referring to the 
 prejudices of the Puritans in exoneration of their 
 apparent intolerance, to have shown that there are 
 good reasons for believing that they labored under 
 unhappy misapprehensions. 
 
 What he failed to give, I shall take the liberty of 
 supplying. 
 
60 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Max Goebel (Gresch. des Christlichen Lebens in 
 Westphaleri) doubts " whether any such thorough- 
 going moral reform had been attempted since the 
 days of Christ, as that of the Anabaptists of the 
 Reformation." 
 
 Hess (Life of Zwingle) says of them, " that, 
 unable to rise to a higher standpoint, they sought to 
 restore the manner of life of the early Christians." 
 
 Jorg (History of Protestantism) testifies that " all 
 the Anabaptists wanted was an entirely new church, 
 a church of believers." 
 
 Hast (Gf-eschichte der Taufgesinnteri) observes, 
 that " the doctrine of spiritual regeneration, the 
 soul of Christianity, has perhaps never been taught 
 with deeper feeling, and adhered to with greater zeal, 
 than by the despised Anabaptists. Their aim was 
 the highest possible, — a church of saints. Nowhere 
 in church history is found such a subjugation of all 
 other motives to the religious, such an approach to 
 the order and life of the Church of the Apostles." 
 Hase further adds (Neue Proplieteri), " The great 
 danger of the Anabaptist heresy lay in the holiness 
 of life to which its adherents could refer. In gen- 
 eral they maintained the stern heroic morals of 
 ancient Christianity. In baptism they foreswore the 
 world, the flesh, and the Devil. After the fall 
 of Munster, they established everywhere a sincerely 
 literal Bible Cliii^tianity.." 
 
DEFENCE OF TEE ANABAPTISTS. 61 
 
 And Hast expresses the opinion that Melanch- 
 thon's writings against the Anabaptists are not to 
 be acquitted "of the suspicion of bitter prejudice." 
 
 Cornelius, in his G-esehichte des Munsterischen 
 Avfruhrs, also bears most favorable testimony, and 
 by his account of this sect reveals the secret of 
 the remarkable complaint made by Dr. Erhard, as 
 quoted by Hast, that " the Anabaptists have been 
 made honorable, and are now (1835) described as 
 persecuted innocents." 
 
 Alexandre Weill (Histoire de la Guerre des 
 Anabaptistes) writing from an entirely unbiased 
 standpoint, declares that they were republicans, from 
 whom came Presbyterians, afterwards Cromwell, and 
 later Washington and Jefferson ; and that " neither 
 Luther nor Zwingle, nor any of their honest adversa- 
 ries, ever accused them of immorality." He further 
 testifies that they " created the religion of the poor, 
 and abolished odious distinctions between master 
 and slave." Some of these principles, he says, are 
 only ideals as yet, awaiting the future. 
 
 Authorities need not be multiplied excessively; 
 especially, as the few we have quoted, are sufficient 
 to prove that there are reasons for believing that 
 these down-trodden servants of Jesus have been 
 sadly misrepresented by their enemies. And if this 
 is the case, and the early Baptists of America corre- 
 sponded in life and sentiment in any marked degree 
 
62 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 to these poor persecuted ones, then the Puritans in 
 their treatment of them were guilty of intolerance, 
 and not even the gifted pen of Dr. Dexter can 
 successfully extenuate their conduct. To defend it 
 logically, would be to defend more than even the 
 brilliant author of the " Monograph," I suspect, 
 would be willing to stand for, — the suppression of 
 opinion by force, and the practice of tyranny, civil 
 and religious everywhere. 
 
 The Baptist denomination is so fashioned, that it 
 is next to impossible for her to form an alliance with 
 the State. To effect any such union, she would be 
 compelled, first of all, to abandon her distinctive 
 character ; that is, cease to be Baptist. 
 
 Throughout all periods of her existence, she has 
 affirmed the essential spirituality of Christ's king- 
 dom, and the obligation of its members to be respon- 
 sible only to its Head. In this regard, her ancient 
 teachings anticipated the widely received opinions of 
 modern society. 
 
 A great deal is now being said of the advance of 
 thought in evangelical theology. In some cases it 
 is more than likely that this boasting really means 
 that a few erratic, brilliant preachers are rapidly 
 eliminating the evangelical from their theology, and 
 are advancing towards the glittering hopelessness 
 and shining barrenness of Unitarianism. But, when 
 
SPREAD OF BAPTIST SENTIMENTS. 63 
 
 the progress is not retrogression, I think that it will 
 be found steadily setting in the direction of those 
 views which have distinguished the Baptists for 
 centuries. Clergymen are breaking away from 
 former ecclesiastical associations, to proclaim what 
 they conceive to be novelties, when in fact, their 
 new doctrines are only modern presentations of some 
 old Baptist teachings. With the air of a theological 
 Columbus, some of these gentlemen are announcing 
 their wonderful discoveries ; and thousands of good- 
 meaning people are giving them credit for an amount 
 of hardihood and penetration which they do not 
 possess. They declare, as the very latest develop- 
 ment in the progress of religious thought, that, after 
 all, Christ is the substance of Christianity, that out- 
 ward ordinances cannot impart inward grace, that 
 church establishments cannot save, and that every 
 soul is answerable to God, and to God alone, for its 
 faith. But these sentiments, now so popular when 
 they are proclaimed from platforms, and are well 
 garnished with rhetoric, do not differ materially from 
 the fundamental principles of the Baptists. 
 
 They have taught from the beginning of their 
 history, that, without exception, a gospel church 
 consists of those who have been renewed by Christ's 
 Spirit, who are bound together more by moral 
 affinity than by ecclesiastical ties, and who express 
 their faith more distinctly through righteousness, 
 
64 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 peace, and joy, than in solemn rites or stately cere- 
 monies.. In their judgment, no man's religious 
 standing can be settled by ordinances, no man's 
 hope can be founded on the mediation of earthly 
 priests, and no man's creed can be decided by the 
 decree of temporal sovereigns. It is their belief 
 that only the commerce of the Almighty with the soul 
 can quicken its spiritual life ; that only the atone- 
 ment of the Messiah can furnish it with ground of 
 acceptance ; and that only the revelation of truth in 
 the Scriptures can supply it with a " credo" 
 
 The Baptists teach that faith is not hereditary, 
 and cannot in any sense be transmitted. They 
 declare that even the articles of a creed cannot be 
 accepted on parental or priestly authority, but must 
 always be the result of personal investigation, re- 
 flection, and prayer. Each man in reality only 
 believes what he has painfully wrought out for him- 
 self, either by an examination of evidence, or by 
 the careful observation of his own spiritual experi- 
 ence ; and this position the Baptists, with marked 
 consistency, stoutly and steadfastly maintain. 
 
 They further contend for the duty of absolute 
 and unquestioning obedience to the least word of 
 Heaven. What God commands, they affirm man is 
 bound to obey. If He has taken the trouble to 
 reveal His will, His creatures should certainly take 
 pains to submit to its requirements. To question, to 
 
STATE PATRONAGE DECLINED. 65 
 
 frame excuses for non-compliance, and especially to 
 substitute strange practices in the place of His 
 appointments, in Baptist theology, as in Scripture 
 teaching, is to rebel against the Almighty. 
 
 For such a body as this to form an alliance with 
 the State, ,is so utterly at variance with its constitu- 
 tion as to be impracticable; and, I am happy it 
 is in my power to affirm, that its members have 
 never acted so inconsistently as to try and render 
 such a union possible. Every thing like it they 
 have rejected, treating every proposal and every 
 movement looking towards any thing of the kind 
 in the most decisive manner. What is more 
 remarkable even, they have never yet produced an 
 author who has advocated the exercise of civil 
 authority to control or determine religious belief. 
 
 Let it not be said that the Baptists have never 
 been favored with opportunities to test the integrity 
 of their convictions upon this subject. They have 
 been tempted on various occasions to adopt the 
 prevalent practice, and could have availed them- 
 selves of state patronage. In Holland, about the 
 beginning of the present century, overtures of this 
 character were made to them by the king of that 
 country, influenced, doubtless, by the history of the 
 Dutch Baptists written by Ypeig and Dermont ; but 
 they were declined on principle. The Legislature 
 of Georgia, in 1784, passed a law giving three- 
 
66 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 pence per pound of moneys in the treasury to the 
 support of any minister that might be called to his 
 parish by thirty families. The Baptist Association 
 of that State, in the following year, protested 
 against the law, and sent Silas Mercer and Peter 
 Smith to the seat of government to petition for its 
 repeal. State patronage under the Assessment Bill 
 was offered them in Virginia in 1784. According to 
 its provisions, every citizen was to be taxed to sup- 
 port religion, but was to have the liberty of saying 
 to which denomination his tax should be applied. 
 The Baptists perceived the drift of the measure, that 
 it was really a reliance on the civil arm, that it recog- 
 nized its right to meddle with ecclesiastical affairs, 
 and was unjust towards those who rejected Christi- 
 anity : consequently, they opposed it, and finally 
 succeeded in defeating it. At an earlier period 
 (1656), the contiguous Colonies urged Rhode Island 
 to join them, and crush the Quakers; but she 
 returned this answer: " We shall strictly adhere to 
 the foundation principles on which the colony was 
 first settled; i.e., liberty of conscience in religious 
 concernments." Well did Dr. Francis Wayland say 
 of the Baptists, " When they have obtained the 
 power to persecute in turn, they used that power 
 only to return good for evil, and by granting to their 
 persecutors every right which they claimed for them- 
 selves. When any sect can lay claim to higher or 
 
ANABAPTISTS AND WALDENSES. 67 
 
 more honorable distinction, we will bow before them, 
 and cheerfully yield them Christian precedence." 
 
 The members of this communion from an earlier 
 period in history than is generally recognized, appear 
 to have felt that the indications of Providence, as 
 well as the genius of their system, pointed to them 
 as the Heaven-ordained pioneers of soul-liberty. 
 Under this impression, it did not satisfy them merely 
 to keep their own churches clear from unhallowed 
 affiliations with secular governments, but they un- 
 dertook the much more difficult task of rescuing 
 all Christian denominations from such unscriptural 
 and perilous fellowships. The antiquity, variety, 
 and extent of their labors in this service, deserve 
 from every lover of human progress, and especially 
 from those who have inherited the fruit of the 
 seed which they sowed in tears, pain, and blood, 
 more than an ordinary notice. 
 
 Principal Cunningham says, " The Anabaptists of 
 the Reformation seem to have been the first, if 
 Donatists be excepted, who stumbled upon the 
 voluntary principle." Fuller, the English Church 
 historian, declares that " the Baptists of his day 
 were the Donatists new -dipped;" and Neander, 
 testifying to the origin of the latter sect in 811, 
 adds that they were distinguished for their 6 ' ideas 
 concerning liberty of conscience, concerning the 
 rights of free . religious conviction." — History of 
 
68 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Religion^ vol. ii. pp. 182-217. This author also 
 refers to a treatise on Antichrist, which was 
 published by the Waldenses earlier than 1120, the 
 date usually assigned it, in which we have the 
 following description : " He arrived at maturity 
 when men whose hearts were set upon the world 
 multiplied in the Church, and by the union of 
 Church and State got the power of both into their 
 hands ; " also it is declared, " We hold in abhorrence 
 all human inventions, as proceeding from Anti- 
 christ, which produce distrust, and are prejudicial 
 to the liberty of mind." All the confessions of this 
 ancient body of Christians, which I have been able 
 to consult, studiously avoid any terms that might 
 seem to recognize the right of the civil magistrate 
 to regulate in affairs of the conscience. Among 
 this simple people, in the sublime solitudes of their 
 valleys, the idea of soul-liberty was nourished and 
 cherished, ready, in God's good time, to assert its 
 authority before the entire world. 
 
 Of the identity of this people with the Baptists, 
 I cannot now speak at length. Limborch, whose 
 account of them Dr. Wall indorses as the most 
 reliable, declares that they bore the greatest resem- 
 blance to the Mennonites, or modern Dutch Baptists. 
 Also Starck, the court preacher of Darmstadt QIRst. 
 of Bapt., Leipsic, 1789, pp. 115, 118), when refer- 
 ring to the Anabaptists, testifies, '* that although 
 
THE WALDENSES. 69 
 
 they held a connection with Munzer, Storck, Grebel, 
 Stubner, and Keller, the Waldenses were their pre- 
 decessors." 
 
 They are likewise attended to by that rampant 
 ritualist, W. J. E. Bennett of Frome {The History 
 of the Church Broken*), where he writes, — 
 
 " The historian Lingard tells us that there was a 
 sect of fanatics who infested the North of Germany, 
 called Puritans. Usher calls them Waldenses ; 
 Spelman, Paulicians (the same as Waldenses). 
 They gained ground, and spread all over England. 
 They rejected all Romish ceremonies, denied the 
 authority of the Pope, and more particularly refused 
 to baptize infants. Thirty of them were put to death 
 for their heretical doctrines, near Oxford ; but the 
 remainder still held on to their opinions in private 
 until the time of Henry II. (1158) ; and the his- 
 torian Collier tells us that, wherever this heresy 
 prevailed, the churches were either scandalously neg- 
 lected or pulled down, and infants left unbaptized" 
 
 While other writers can be cited on the Baptist 
 side of the controversy, such as Morland, Chesannion, 
 Dr. Potter, and Charvaz, there are not a few able 
 authors who entertain the very opposite convictions. 
 Indeed, so great a diversity of opinion has obtained 
 upon the subject, that the Presbyterian tries to 
 make them out Presbyterians ; the Episcopalian, 
 Episcopalians ; and even the Catholics, by Pius 
 
70 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Melia, in a work dedicated to Prince Louis Lucien 
 Bonaparte, contend that this sect did not originate 
 until 1170, and at first differed from Rome only in 
 regard to the privileges of laymen. An historical 
 defence of the Waldenses, by Jean Rodolphe Peyran, 
 dedicated to Frederick William, King of Prussia, 
 runs entirely counter to some of these representa- 
 tions, and gives from one of their most ancient 
 creeds this view of baptism, without ever a word 
 regarding infants in it: " We believe that God 
 instituted the sacrament of baptism for a testimony 
 of our adoption, and that we might be washed from 
 our sins in the blood of Christ, and renewed unto 
 holiness of life." 
 
 We know they were not Catholics, because they 
 denounced Rome as Antichrist ; neither were they 
 Episcopalians, because George Maurel, quoted by 
 Scultetus in his Annales, distinctly stated to 
 CEcolampadius that they had but two orders in the 
 ministry ; and they do not seem to have been Paedo- 
 baptists originally, for Starck maintains, with no 
 small degree of conclusiveness, that they rejected 
 infant-baptism. 
 
 It is clear that not much confidence can be felt in 
 the representations of what the ancient Waldenses 
 believed, by what their successors since the Reforma- 
 tion have taught ; for a kind of union was effected 
 between them and the Calvinists at Angrogna in 
 
LOLLARDS AND THEIR DOCTRINES. 71 
 
 1532, which doubtless modified their views in some 
 respects. But, I do not think I overstep the bounds 
 of modesty when I express the opinion, that 
 cherishing among themselves perfect liberty of 
 conscience, and worshipping not the idol uniformity, 
 there may have been divisions, as there are now in 
 the great Protestant party, on the minor though 
 important questions of ordinances. With this quali- 
 fication, Baptists undoubtedly may be identified with 
 the Waldenses, and so be identified with the earliest 
 adherents of religious freedom. 
 
 From the valleys of these simple worshippers came 
 Walter Lollard into England about the year 1315. 
 Fuller, the church historian already quoted, gives 
 this fact, and speaks very highly of his character. 
 His disciples soon coalesced with those of Wyckliffe, 
 and were ultimately called by his name. I cannot 
 but question the sufficiency of the evidence on which 
 Wyckliffe is claimed as a Baptist, though I think it 
 very likely that very many of the Lollards were in 
 full accord with the teachings of that body. 
 
 It is far from improbable that some among the 
 Lollards, may have practiced infant-baptism ; but 
 Thomas Waldensis, the chronicler, puts on record 
 u that they acknowledged but two sacraments, and 
 administered baptism only to adults." If he is cor- 
 rect, then the rite of infant-baptism may only have 
 been tolerated, as the lines were never drawn 
 
72 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 between those who differed from Rome, as sharply 
 before the rise of Luther as they have been since. 
 But, whatever may have been the views of the 
 majority on gospel ordinances, they gave no doubt- 
 ful sound when the cause of soul-liberty needed 
 witnesses ; for as Green in his recent History of the 
 English People, p. 264, says, " It was in the preach- 
 ing of John Ball (a Lollard) that England first 
 listened to the knell of feudalism, and the declara- 
 tion of the rights of man." Thus we may trace the 
 planting of the germ of freedom in English soil, 
 where it was to take root, and grow into a stately 
 tree, whose leaves should be for the healing of the 
 nations. 
 
 Its growth was much facilitated in England by 
 the arrival of many Anabaptists from Germany. 
 Bishop Burnet testifies that they were not few in 
 number in 1549 ; and Collier (vol. ii. 577) refers 
 to their many conventicles in 1589. Latimer, who 
 could not speak too badly of the Baptists, neverthe- 
 less bears witness to their numbers and intrepidity : 
 " Here I have to tell you what I heard of late, by 
 the relation of a credible person and a worshipful 
 man, of a town in this realm of England, that hath 
 about five hundred of heretics of this erroneous 
 opinion in it. The Anabaptists that were burnt 
 here, in divers towns of England (as I have heard 
 of credible men: I saw them not myself), met their 
 
THE PEASANTS' WAR. 73 
 
 death even intrepid, as you will say, without any 
 fear in the world. Well, let them go. There was 
 in the old times another kind of poisoned heretics, 
 that were called Donatists ; and those heretics went 
 to their execution as they should have gone to some 
 jolly recreation and banquet." 
 
 Marsden tells us, that, in the days of Elizabeth, 
 " the Anabaptists were the most numerous, and for 
 some time by far the most formidable, opponents of 
 the Church. T\\qj are said to have existed in Eng- 
 land since the early days of the Lollards." 
 
 These people had fled from their native land 
 because of the bitter persecutions which beset them; 
 for ; as Vierordt, in his History of the Reformation 
 in Baden, says, " No religious party can relatively 
 show as many martyrs as these Anabaptists." They 
 fared but little better in England than in Germany. 
 More than once were they excluded from royal 
 clemency ; and frequently were they stretched on 
 the rack, torn by the lash, or given to the flames. 
 
 Doubtless much -of the bitterness felt towards 
 them arose from their connection with the move- 
 ment in Germany, known as the Peasants' War, 
 which was not free from various excesses both 
 in theory and practice. The misapprehension of 
 the part they bore in that struggle, as we have 
 already gathered from Dr. Dexter, prejudiced the 
 mind of the Puritans towards their descendants in 
 
74 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 New England, and has served to point attacks upon 
 them even in these more modern times. 
 
 Of course it is no part, of my plan to enter upon a 
 complete review of the facts in the case ; but a few 
 words may be allowed me, just to show how preju- 
 dice on the one hand, and ignorance on the other, 
 have warped the judgment of their critics. 
 
 The oft-repeated declaration that the Baptists 
 originated with this revolt is absurd, as there were 
 many of the order in England before the fatal 
 enterprise was set on foot. Bishop Burnet ac- 
 knowledges that this denomination has been unjust- 
 ly injured by being identified with the men who 
 engaged in political disturbances of Miinster. He 
 attributes the rise of the Baptists in Germany to 
 their carrying out the principles of Luther, regard- 
 ing the sufficiency of Scripture and the rights of 
 private judgment. (History of the Reformation, 
 ii. 176.) But Mosheim goes farther when he says, 
 " Before the rise of Luther and Calvin, there lay 
 concealed, in almost all the countries of Europe, 
 persons who adhered tenaciously to the principles of 
 the modern Dutch Baptists." Their origin, there- 
 fore, cannot be traced to the Peasants' War ; and, 
 though some of them did take part in that fatal 
 effort, we must agree with Bayle where he expresses 
 the conviction, that "many Anabaptists who suf- 
 fered death for their opinions had no thought of 
 
CAUSES OF THE WAR. 75 
 
 making an insurrection." — Art. " Anabaptists " m 
 Historical and Critical Dictionary. 
 
 The truth is, this wide-sweeping revolution arose 
 from two causes, — first, the galling slavery of the 
 feudal system, which pressed sorely on the humbler 
 classes ; second, the spirit of liberty, which the writ- 
 ings of Luther had done much to stimulate. The 
 example, also, of Luther must have had much to do 
 with the revolt. He had defied the pope's author- 
 ity, and had been declared an enemy of the holy 
 empire. He had bravely and practically maintained 
 his right to think for himself ; and his course was 
 not calculated to promote the spirit of absolute sub- 
 mission in the lowly. In their bosom burned the 
 imperishable love of liberty, — a love greater in the 
 oppressed masses than in the privileged few, and 
 naturally it impelled them to take advantage of the 
 unsettled times to shake off the galling yoke of. 
 rulers, temporal as well as spiritual. 
 
 The troubles were commenced in 1525. Soon the 
 peasants were in arms, and their grievances were 
 drawn up in twelve articles, written, according to 
 Stern, the latest authority, by Hubmeyer the Bap- 
 tist pastor of Walclshut, and sent to the princes 
 of Germany. This document drew from Voltaire 
 an eloquent eulogium ; and it deserves the admira- 
 tion of every freeman, as it was simply a grand 
 protest against tyranny. They plead for u reli- 
 
76 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 gious instruction;" they declare " their willingness 
 to submit to the control of magistrates, but not 
 to be slaves, unless slavery could be proved right 
 from the Holy Scripture." Had their representations 
 been attended to, the front of armed rebellion would 
 have changed to that of submission. But they 
 were not. The force of the empire was directed 
 against them ; and, feeling that they had no mercy 
 to expect from their oppressors, some of their more 
 ignorant and excitable leaders were betrayed into 
 excesses, which compromised the whole movement, 
 and which have covered their descendants with 
 unmerited opprobrium. 
 
 These excesses should be condemned ; but, at the 
 same time it should not be forgotten, that the 
 uprising was the initial effort in Europe towards 
 complete emancipation from tyranny both civil and 
 religious. They attempted, what was afterwards 
 more successfully undertaken by the Puritans for 
 themselves in the English Revolution. Both parties 
 earnestly engaged, under different circumstances, in 
 furtherance of the same glorious cause ; and both 
 were seriously injured by the extravagances of 
 fanatics. If the Anabaptists are to be stigmatized 
 as a class, because of the high-handed proceedings 
 and wild vagaries of their fanatical members, why 
 should the Puritans be honored, when not a few of 
 their number were absurd extremists and uncontroll- 
 
SPUBGEON'S TESTIMONY. 77 
 
 able zealots? Neither body, as a whole, deserves 
 such unqualified censure ; for it will be found that 
 the most sacred revolutions cannot escape the dis- 
 torting influence of half-crazy adherents. 
 
 In estimating the Anabaptist movement in Ger- 
 many, this should be remembered ; and it should not 
 be overlooked, that this was the first wave of that 
 great ocean of political freedom which broke over 
 France, which submerged royalty in America, and 
 which to-day, like the sea of glass that appeared 
 to John, calmly covers the hills and valleys of our 
 beloved country. 
 
 Rev. Charles H. Spurgeon, who has enjoyed rare 
 opportunities of forming an intelligent opinion of 
 the merits and demerits of the Peasants' War, has 
 put on record his conclusions in words which con- 
 firm what I have just written, and which I com- 
 mend to the candid consideration of those who are 
 willing to deal justly by the memory of noble men 
 who have been ungenerously treated. He says : — 
 
 " The time will probably arrive when history will 
 be re-written, and the maligned Baptists of Holland 
 and Germany will be acquitted of all complicity 
 with the ravings of the insane fanatics ; and it will 
 be proved that they were the advance-guard of the 
 army of religious liberty, men who lived ahead of 
 their times, but whose influence might have saved 
 the world centuries of floundering in the bog of semi- 
 
78 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 popery if they had but been allowed fair play. As 
 it was, their views, like those of modern Baptists, 
 so completely laid the axe at the root of all priest- 
 craft and sacramentarianism, that violent opposition 
 was aroused ; and the two-edged sword of defama- 
 tion and extirpation was set to its cruel work, and 
 kept to it with a relentless perseverance never 
 excelled, perhaps never equalled. All other sects 
 may be in some degree borne with ; but Baptists are 
 utterly intolerable to priests and popes, neither can 
 despots and tyrants endure them." 
 
 Hubmeyer, to whom I have referred, on whose 
 character and work modern scholarship is throwing 
 much light, thus sets forth their doctrine of soul- 
 liberty, in thesis and in friendly disputation with 
 the reformers : — 
 
 " Faith is in the heart, and you cannot force that 
 by threats and chains. Thought and belief may 
 not be obstructed by violence, or fettered by dis- 
 abilities, but are to toll free, in all travel and 
 commerce of mind." More fully, "On Heretics, 
 and those who burn them," he defends even Turks 
 and atheists, and all possible offenders, as well as 
 nominal Christian sects, from persecution. His 
 words are : — 
 
 " The burning of heretics cannot be justified by 
 the Bible. There are two kinds of heretics. One 
 class, at the head of which stand Satan and his 
 
HUBMEYER. 79 
 
 followers, embraces all those impiously opposing the 
 Holy Scriptures as the word of Gocl. The other 
 class includes those who falsely interpret the Holy 
 Scriptures, put ruler for pastor, Rome for church, 
 &c. Although little good can be expected from such 
 people, still they should be instructed with gentle- 
 ness; and, if that bears no fruit, then we should 
 depart from them. Christ himself demands that 
 the tares should be allowed to grow with the wheat. 
 From that and other passages it is evident that 
 those who kill heretics are themselves the greatest 
 heretics. For Christ did not come to slay, destroy, 
 or burn, but to keep and improve, all men. We 
 should therefore pray and hope for improvement as 
 long as a man lives. Besides, a Turk or a Jew 
 cannot be convinced by force of the sword, but only 
 by patience and instruction. Therefore to burn her- 
 etics is only to confess Christ in appearance, but to 
 deny him in fact. 
 
 "It is a still greater crime to burn to ashes as 
 heretics without a hearing, and without being over- 
 come by the truth, those who are the expounders 
 and exemplars of the word of God. There is no 
 greater deception of the people than that apparent 
 zeal for God, for the welfare of souls, the honor of 
 the church, old usages, &c, which is not based 
 on the authority of the Scriptures. For men 
 should not presume to do any thing better or more 
 
80 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 reliable than what God has declared. It may be 
 scripturally justifiable to burn profane books, but 
 it is a small thing to burn innocent paper. To 
 point out errors, and then overthrow them with the 
 Scripture, that is art." 
 
 As in Germany, so on English soil, these Anabap- 
 tists stood forth before all men, the uncompromising 
 advocates of freedom. Dr. Some, a clergyman dur- 
 ing the reign of Elizabeth, wrote a treatise in which 
 he charged them with holding, " that ministers ought 
 to be maintained by the voluntary principle ; that 
 the civil magistrate has no right to make and impose 
 laws on the consciences of men." — Neal, ii. 360. 
 Whitgift accuses them of teaching, that " the civil 
 magistrate hath no authority in ecclesiastical mat- 
 ters ; that he ought not to meddle in cases of religion 
 and faith ; and that Christians ought to punish 
 faults, not with imprisonment, not with the sword, 
 or corporal punishment, but only with excommuni- 
 cation." — Works, i. 78-110; Cramp., pp. 280-283. 
 "With such elements in England, with such people 
 settling there from various quarters, spreading 
 such sentiments, no wonder that the movement to 
 secure soul-liberty should assume vaster propor- 
 tions, and manifest itself in broader efforts for its 
 triumph. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century, to escape from 
 persecution, many Baptists and Independents fled 
 
BAPTIST CHURCHES IN ENGLAND. 81 
 
 into Holland. Among them were John Robinson, 
 to whom I have already referred ; and John Smyth, 
 who became the representative of Baptist principles 
 abroad. Whether from intercourse with the Dutch 
 Baptists in Holland, or from a previous investiga- 
 tion of their views, I cannot satisfactorily determine ; 
 but through some cause Smyth became the bold, 
 outspoken champion of religious liberty. He died 
 about the year 1611 ; and in company with Mr. 
 Helwisse, another of the exiles, the Church he estab- 
 lished returned to England. Robinson did not sym- 
 pathize with Smyth's doctrine ; and possibly this 
 incompatibility experienced not alone by these breth- 
 ren, but by others in their native land, measurably 
 destroyed the alliance that appears to have existed 
 between the Baptists and Independents. 
 
 We know at least, that from this period the Bap- 
 tists separate themselves from other communions, 
 and become more distinctly a denomination in Great 
 Britain. They may have had a few churches of 
 their own prior to this time, though it is very proba- 
 ble that they had mingled more or less freely in 
 ecclesiastical relations with those who were in accord 
 with them on the saving doctrines of the Bible. 
 But at last, realizing the irrepressible conflict of 
 views which existed on other topics, they may have 
 concluded that loyalty to conscience demanded of 
 them a separate organization, that their own liberty 
 
82 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 might be maintained, and that of their brethren, 
 who differed from thern, remain inviolate. Be this 
 as it may, from the beginning of the seventeenth 
 century, Baptist churches, as such, come into greater 
 prominence, and are found with greater pertinacity 
 than ever enunciating, elaborating, and publishing 
 their views of religious liberty. 
 
 In 1611 the London Baptist Confession of Faith 
 was published, in which are these golden words : 
 " We believe that the magistrate is not to meddle 
 with religion, or matters of conscience, nor compel 
 men to this or that form of religion, because Christ 
 is king and lawgiver of the Church and conscience." 
 This was followed, three years later, by the first 
 modern treatise upon this article of faith. Its title 
 is, " Religious Peace, or a Plea for Liberty of Con- 
 science ; " and it was written by Leonard Busher, a 
 Baptist. The spirit of the whole performance may 
 be gathered from this forceful and broad statement : 
 " That it may be lawful for every person or persons, 
 yea, Jews, Turks, Pagans, and Papists, to write, 
 dispute, confer, and reason, print and publish any 
 matter, touching any religion, either for or against 
 whomsoever." The work of Busher was republished 
 more than once by the denomination of which he 
 was a member, showing that his brethren heartily 
 indorsed its sentiments. 
 
 Another treatise appeared in 1615, from the pen of 
 
THE LITERATURE OF FREEDOM. 83 
 
 a Baptist, bearing the title, " Persecution for Reli- 
 gion judged and condemned by Christ's unworthy 
 witnesses, His Majesty's faithful Subjects, commonly 
 but most falsely called Anabaptists." It maintained 
 the doctrine that " earthly authority belongeth to 
 earthly kings, but spiritual authority belongeth to 
 that one spiritual King who is king of kings." 
 
 Roger Williams refers to another notable docu- 
 ment upon this subject, which was written in New- 
 gate Prison. Denied ink, its authors employed milk, 
 which afterwards, being held to a fire, became 
 legible, and was copied. Williams says, with great 
 impressiveness, " Their arguments were written in 
 milk, and answered in blood." 
 
 It is not possible to give an account here of 
 all the literary contributions of Baptist witnesses, 
 toward the complete exposition of their views 
 regarding freedom. One work by Thomas Richard- 
 son (1647), one by prisoners in Maidstone Jail 
 (1660), another yet called " Zion's Groans" (1662), 
 and a mass of creeds, confessions, and defences, swell 
 the volume of their testimony in behalf of this sacred 
 cause. 
 
 So potent was the influence of these productions, 
 that, combined with similar private and public oral 
 teachings of Baptist pastors and laymen, many who 
 were not of their way of thinking in other respects, 
 were led to sympathize with their views on the 
 
84 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 sovereignty of conscience. The revolution under 
 Cromwell, while not aiming to vindicate the central 
 doctrine of the down-trodden Baptists, could not 
 but be largely indebted for its inspiration to their 
 hatred of tyranny and love of independence, as it 
 was for its successes to their courage and fidelity. 
 Their names are prominently associated with the 
 great events of this wonderful upheaval of society. 
 
 There were Tombes, Jessey, Dyke, Gosnald, Knol- 
 lys, and Denne, who had held priestly orders in the 
 Established Church, and who became distinguished 
 upholders of the Protector's policy. There also 
 was Collins, a pupil of Busby ; De Veil, a convert 
 from Judaism ; Dell, a chaplain of Lord Fairfax, and, 
 till the Restoration, head of one of the colleges in 
 the University of Cambridge ; and Vavasor Powell, 
 Thomas Delaune, Benjamin Keach, and John Bun- 
 yan. Among these Baptists stood Overton, a friend 
 of Milton, who in 1651 was second in command 
 under Cromwell in Scotland ; Admiral Penn of the 
 English Navy, father of the American Colonist ; 
 Fleetwood, Cromwell's son-in-law ; and Major-Gen. 
 Harrison, who was brutally executed, on the return 
 of the Stuarts, as a regicide. 
 
 The enthusiasm with which Baptists espoused the 
 cause of liberty may be inferred from the hearty 
 commendation the}' received from Cromwell in his 
 letter to the House of Commons, reporting the battle 
 
CROMWELL AND THE BAPTISTS. 85 
 
 of Naseby. Thomas Carlyle quotes the letter in full 
 {Oliver Cromivell, vol. i. 169), and comments on 
 these sentences : " Honest men served you faithfully 
 in this action. Sirs, they are trusty : I beseech you, 
 in the name of God, not to discourage them. He that 
 ventures his life for the liberty of his country, I 
 wish he trust God for the liberty of his conscience, 
 and you for the liberty he fights for ; " on which 
 Carlyle says, " The c honest men ' are the considerable 
 portion of the army who have not yet succeeded in 
 bringing themselves to take the covenant ; whom 
 the Presbyterian party, vigorous for their own form- 
 ula, call ' schismatics,' ' sectaries,' ; Anabaptists,' and 
 other hard names ; whom Cromwell here and else- 
 where earnestly pleads for." 
 
 Neither should it be forgotten, that these same 
 'honest men,' who stood so loyally with Cromwell at 
 Naseby, in equal honesty stood against him when he 
 appeared to be usurping prerogatives which belonged 
 to the people ; and with still grander honestj^ en- 
 treated him, when a misguided Parliament urged 
 him to assume the kingly rank, not to wound the 
 old cause he had served so well, by accepting the 
 crown of England. {Milton s State Papers, p. 142.) 
 
 But, if the revolution may be measurably attrib- 
 uted to the influence of Baptists, so to their noble 
 confidence in the power of truth, to their ceaseless 
 struggle against the empire of prejudice, and to their 
 
86 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 comprehensive views of civil government, may be 
 traced the tone of thought essentially opposed to 
 persecution, which, during this and subsequent 
 periods, distinguished the writings of some who are 
 now regarded as among the chief ornaments of other 
 religious communities. 
 
 Thus Chillingworth, a Churchman, and a zealous 
 supporter of King Charles, in 1637, just twenty- 
 five years after the publication of Busher's " Plea 
 for Liberty of Conscience," and twenty-six years 
 after the appearance of the " London Baptist Con- 
 fession," drew with a bold and unfaltering hand the 
 outline of that immortal principle on which rests the 
 Protestant system. He may not have realized that 
 the logical outcome of his argument in defence of 
 the right of private judgment was diametrically 
 opposed to the Royalist cause and to the Establish- 
 ment, but it was so, nevertheless. And it has since 
 proved one of the mightiest engines employed in 
 fashioning the modern liberal sentiment of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor's " Liberty of Prophesying " has 
 been highly praised, and has exerted an immense 
 influence. It was a noble attempt for an Episco- 
 palian to make towards the exercise of toleration. 
 This, however, is all that can be claimed for it. 
 Toleration was its theme, while the Baptist works 
 which preceded it demanded absolute liberty. The 
 
JEREMY TAYLOR AND MILTON. 87 
 
 Churchman also advocated rather a narrow tolera- 
 tion ; for he writes, "Anabaptists are as much to be 
 rooted out as any thing that is the greatest pest 
 and nuisance ; " and, unfortunately for his consist- 
 ency, he wrote his book in exile, and, to a certain 
 extent, abandoned its principles when his Church 
 regained her ascendency. On which Coleridge re- 
 marks, " If Jeremy Taylor had not in effect retracted 
 after the restoration ; if he had not, as soon as the 
 Church had gained power, most basely disclaimed 
 and disavowed the principle of toleration, and apolo- 
 gized for the publication by declaring it to have 
 been a ruse de guerre, currying pardon for his past 
 liberalism by charging and most probably slandering 
 himself with the guilt of falsehood, treachery, and 
 hypocrisy, — his character as a man would have 
 been almost stainless."- — Notes on English Divines, i. 
 209. 
 
 But, of all the champions who have defended the 
 doctrine of religious liberty, John Milton is the 
 grandest, even as " Areopagitica," the tract in which 
 he embodied his opinions, represents the very highest 
 point that English eloquence has attained. Even 
 now it cannot be read without deep emotion ; and 
 when it appeared, in 1644, it must have exerted an 
 immense influence on all classes of societ}', especially 
 on the more cultured. His advocacy of a cause 
 which had been prejudiced by its Anabaptistical as- 
 
88 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 sociations must measurably have relieved it of odium, 
 and have inclined the more enlightened and conserv- 
 ative to consider it seriously and candidly. By his 
 eloquence, Milton revealed the beauty of Liberty, 
 and charmed even those hearts that had despised her 
 heavenly form when unveiled by the homely speech 
 of Anabaptists. He summoned literature to the 
 support of Libertjr ; he arrayed her in its silken 
 robes, and crowned her with its gold and jewels ; 
 and to-day the world, in its admiration of the 
 wondrous drapery which he hung in graceful folds 
 about her figure, quite overlooks the poor, despised 
 Anabaptists, who rescued her life from destruction, 
 and nourished her into healthful activity on their 
 own blood. 
 
 It is now stoutly maintained by some students of 
 history, that Milton himself was a member of this 
 sect. The theological writings which are credited 
 to his pen, and which bear internal marks of his 
 authorship, are put in as evidence of this claim. It 
 is likewise well known, that Dr. Featly, a Presby- 
 terian controversialist, in 1644 entreated " the most 
 noble lords " that Milton might be cut off " as a 
 pestilent Anabaptist." Moreover, it cannot be de- 
 nied that some coloring of probability is imparted 
 to this opinion by the well-known lines from " Para- 
 dise Regained : " — 
 
SOUL LIBERTY IN ENGLAND. 89 
 
 " To his disciples, men who in this life 
 
 Still followed him, — to them shall leave in charge 
 
 To teach all nations what of him they learned, 
 
 And his salvation ; them who shall believe, 
 
 Baptizing in the prqfluent stream, the sign 
 
 Of washing them from guilt of sin to life ; 
 
 Pure, and in mind prepared, if so befall, 
 
 For death like that which the Redeemer died." 
 
 Here, at least, neither infant-baptism nor asper- 
 sion is countenanced. While these arguments can 
 hardly be deemed sufficient to establish the point 
 in question, they clearly prove that the poet and 
 statesman was so intimate with this people, and so 
 fully in sympathy with them, that he exposed him- 
 self to such accusations as that brought by Dr. Feat- 
 ly. He was not ashamed of their fellowship ; and 
 who can tell how far the world is indebted to it for 
 the noble testimony he bore, a testimony which has 
 caused the enthusiasm of liberty to thrill through 
 every generation of Englishmen since his day? 
 
 These agencies, and others such as these, inspired 
 by the simple appeals and the heroic attitude of the 
 Baptist fathers, have advanced the cause of reli- 
 gious freedom to a commanding position in Great 
 Britain. In the hearts of its people, excepting only 
 those whose personal interests are identified with 
 the maintenance of Church and State, it has found 
 an abiding home and a secure retreat. The convic- 
 
90 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 tions and sentiments of its citizens are in advance 
 of its legislation. The Establishment yet remains, 
 and unequal laws still press sorely upon Dissenters. 
 The government has risen no higher than to enact- 
 ments assuring toleration ; but this, in its broadest 
 sense, reigns throughout the land. This unsatisfac- 
 1 tory arrangement, however, cannot long endure. 
 Many years cannot now elapse before the sentiment 
 of the nation must conquer its legislation, and then 
 the majesty of law shall recognize and shelter the 
 majesty of liberty, and the last trace of ecclesiasti- 
 cal tyranny vanish from the British empire. 
 
 This final reform seems destined to reach the 
 mother-country by the way of America. What 
 Berkeley in his well-known stanza wrote of empire, 
 may with equal truth be affirmed of freedom : — 
 
 " Westward the course of freedom takes its way: 
 The four first acts already past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day: 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 
 The fifth act in this drama presents the struggles 
 of the Baptists, and of those who co-operated with 
 them, for the triumph of religious liberty upon 
 this continent. It also marks a growing unity 
 of sentiment upon this subject, and makes sure the 
 dawning of the day, when spiritual despotism shall 
 no more be known among men. 
 
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN AMERICA. 91 
 
 America is the only country, where such a pro- 
 vision as this can be found ingrafted upon its Con- 
 stitution: " Congress shall make no law respecting 
 an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
 exercise thereof." This is part of the first amend- 
 ment made to the fundamental instrument of our 
 government ; for as originally framed it simply 
 declared that "no religious test shall ever be re- 
 quired as a qualification to any office or public trust 
 under the United States." It will be perceived, 
 that this article did not in express terms prohibit 
 Congress from erecting a state religion, or inter- 
 fering with the free exercise of religion otherwise 
 than as regards office. This was not satisfactory 
 to the people ; and, in consequence, the amend- 
 ment was adopted, which imparts a purely secular 
 character to the government of the United States. 
 
 According to its representation, logically inter- 
 preted, we have over us a purely secular organiza- 
 tion, contrived and devised for purely secular ends ; 
 and whatever of religion may exist within its 
 jurisdiction is entirely independent of its authority 
 and patronage. The faith of the nation is per- 
 sonal, not governmental : it is one of the reserved 
 rights of the people, and is not vested, in any sense, 
 in the earthly powers that have rule over them. 
 
 As it appears evident by the enactment of the 
 first amendment to the Constitution, that religious 
 
92 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 liberty, as we now understand it, did not spring full- 
 orbed and complete in the United States, we should 
 endeavor to trace the stages of its development, 
 especially, if we would understand and appreciate 
 the relation of the Baptists to its triumph. 
 
 It is well known, that, previous to the outbreak 
 of the American Revolution, some form of church 
 establishment, ordained by law, was familiar to the 
 people of most of the Colonies. Ramsay states 
 {History of the United States, p. 232) that the 
 exceptions were Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Dela- 
 ware, and New Jersey. But Pennsylvania does not 
 appear to have been entirely free of the taint ; for 
 with all of the Quaker devotion to freedom of 
 conscience, — derived most likely, as far as William 
 Penn was concerned, from his Baptist father, — 
 those who separated from the regular order in 1691 
 appear to have suffered unfair treatment, fines and 
 imprisonments, at the hands of their brethren. 
 George Keith, one of the dissenting Quakers, was 
 arrested and imprisoned, and obtained his freedom 
 from a Baptist magistrate, John Holmes, who ruled 
 " that it was a religious dispute, and therefore not 
 fit for a civil court." — Benedict, History, 597 '■; 
 Cotton Mather's Magnolia, vol. ii. 456. 
 
 This condition of .affairs, as we have already seen, 
 exposed the Baptists to many cruel trials and perse- 
 cutions ; but all of their sufferings could not weaken 
 
BAPTIST MOVEMENTS. 93 
 
 their devotion to the Scripture principle of freedom. 
 They continued its consistent and most persistent 
 advocates. 
 
 The first treatise published in its defence upon 
 this continent, was from the pen of one who had 
 embraced their sentiments, — Roger Williams. In 
 harmony with the doctrine laid down in " The 
 Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Cause of Con- 
 science," he began " the first civil government that 
 gave equal liberty of conscience." Through all the 
 weary years which succeeded the founding of Rhode 
 Island until the dawning of the Revolution, the 
 Baptists North and South sympathized most heartily 
 with the liberal spirit of its charter ; and, with the 
 beginning of troubles between the mother-country 
 and her colonies, set on foot a series of agitations 
 which resulted gloriously in the adoption of the first 
 constitutional amendment. 
 
 Their labors in Virginia were memorable, and 
 had a remarkable influence upon the whole land. 
 Campbell, a Presbyterian, referring to the conflict 
 in that commonwealth, testifies that " the Baptists, 
 having suffered persecution under the Establish- 
 ment, were of all others the most inimical to it, and 
 the most active in its subversion." Of them Bishop 
 Meade says, " They took the lead in dissent, and 
 were the chief object of persecution bj the magis- 
 trates, and the most violent afterward in seeking 
 
94 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the downfall of the Establishment." — History of 
 Virginia, 555 ; Mead's History, i. 52. 
 
 In August, 1775, the General Association of 
 Virginia memorialized the convention of that State, 
 declaring that military resistance ought to be made 
 to Great Britain, and requested permission to serve 
 in the army as chaplains. It was likewise added, 
 " We hold that the mere toleration of religion by 
 the civil government is not sufficient; that no 
 State establishment ought to exist; that all religious 
 denominations ought to stand upon the same foot- 
 ing; and that to all alike the protection of the 
 government should be extended, securing to them 
 the peaceable enjoyment of their own religious 
 principles and modes of worship. Whilst we assert 
 for ourselves a freedom to assert, to profess, and to 
 observe the religion we believe to be of divine 
 origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those 
 whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which 
 has convinced us." 
 
 The convention responded to this declaration of 
 principles, by conceding to the Baptists and other 
 dissenters the privilege of preaching to the troops, 
 &c. : and in 1776, through the special efforts of 
 James Madison, incorporated the substance of this 
 declaration in Art. XVI. of the Virginia Bill of 
 Rights. In the same year, " an act for exempting 
 the different denominations of dissenters from con- 
 
VIRGINIA'S WORK. 95 
 
 tributing to the support and maintenance of the 
 church as by law established, and for its ministers," 
 was carried. This was a wonderful step in advance, 
 and culminated in 1777, through petitions from 
 Baptists and Presbyterians, in a comprehensive 
 statute that suspended the collection of taxes for 
 the support of religious teachers. 
 
 The controversies and agitations incident to such 
 a revolution did not end here. Another memorial 
 was presented by the Baptists in 1785 ; and upon its 
 basis Mr. Jefferson drew the act for establishing 
 religious freedom. Although its main principles 
 had already been lawfully carried, it was needful, as 
 it had met with opposition, that it should come up 
 for final disposement. After a lengthy and earnest 
 debate, it became a statute of the Commonwealth. 
 
 Jefferson always recognized the signal service 
 which the leaders in this movement had rendered 
 the State. 
 
 Writing to the members of the Baptist Church of 
 Buck Mountain, who were his neighbors, in 1809, 
 he said, " We have acted together from the origin to 
 the end of a memorable revolution; and we have 
 contributed, each in the line allotted to us, our 
 endeavors to render its issues a permanent blessing 
 to our country." — Jefferson's Works, i. 45. 
 
 Even after this victory, the Episcopal Church 
 enjoj^ed certain endowments ; and these restless 
 
96 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Baptists, allied with the Presbyterians, were not 
 satisfied until through their joint endeavors this 
 inconsistenc} r was removed, as it was in 1802, when 
 the glebe-lands were ordered to be sold. As Bishop 
 Meade says, " The warfare begun by the Baptists, 
 seven and twenty years before, was now finished. 
 The Church was in ruins, and the triumph of her 
 enemies was complete." They had indeed succeeded. 
 Thej* had secured the abolition of all ecclesiastical 
 distinctions, and had wiped the last trace of spiritual 
 tyranny from the old Commonwealth. But they had 
 toiled for no exclusive privilege. What they won 
 for themselves, they conceded to every Christian, 
 every Jew, and every infidel, alike. The methods 
 they adopted were frank and manly. They wel- 
 comed as allies the Presbyterians, or whoever else 
 might sympathize with them ; and they were ani- 
 mated by no sectarian spirit against the Episcopacy, 
 but only demanded that it should stand, as other de- 
 nominations, unsupported by law, upon the strength 
 of its own merits. 
 
 Simultaneously with these efforts, and possibly 
 encouraged by them in their earlier stages, a more 
 general movement was inaugurated to secure for the 
 whole country what was being so nobly won in 
 Virginia. A general committee had been appointed 
 in New England, of which Rev. Isaac Backus 
 became the secretary in 1772, to whose management 
 
THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS. 97 
 
 the whole matter was committed. The secretary- 
 was active in this service. He collected facts, pre- 
 pared and circulated petitions, and corresponded and 
 travelled, for the promotion of this object. 
 
 Before the first Continental Congress at Phila- 
 delphia, Sept. 5, 1774, the committee, with Mr. 
 Backus as leader, presented themselves with a 
 » memorial, pleading for the protection " of the in- 
 alienable rights of conscience to all." Here they 
 encountered much opposition from the Massachu- 
 setts delegates, and even from Robert Treat Paine. 
 Old John Adams replied to them, that " they might 
 as well turn the heavenly bodies out of their annual 
 and diurnal course, as to expect that they — in Mas- 
 sachusetts — would give up their Establishment." 
 Not in the least discouraged, the committee memori- 
 alized the Provincial Congress, and obtained the fol- 
 lowing response : — 
 
 " On reading the memorial of Rev. Isaac Backus, 
 agent of the Baptist churches of this government, 
 Resolved, That the establishment of civil and reli- 
 gious liberty to each denomination in the Province 
 is the sincere wish of this Congress ; but being by 
 no means vested with the powers of civil govern- 
 ment, whereby we can redress the grievances of any 
 person whatsoever, they therefore recommend to the 
 Baptist churches, that, when a general assembly 
 shall be convened in this Colony, they lay the real 
 
98 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 grievances of said churches before the same, when 
 and where their petition will most certainly meet 
 with all that attention due to the memorial of a 
 denomination so well disposed to the public weal of 
 their country. By order of Congress. — John Han- 
 cock, President." 
 
 In 1787 the National Convention at Philadelphia 
 completed its draft of a constitution, and referred 
 it to the States for their adoption by their respective 
 legislatures. It was adopted, but in Massachusetts 
 by a majority of only nineteen votes, one of the chief 
 objections being against the article which provided 
 that no religious test shall be required as a qualifi- 
 cation for office. While the Baptists favored the 
 Constitution as a whole, they were dissatisfied with 
 this last article, on the ground of its insufficiency 
 to secure liberty of conscience to all people. 
 
 As a consequence, the Committee of Virginia 
 determined to address Gen. Washington upon the 
 subject ; and in reply he assured them of " his 
 readiness to use his influence to make these rights 
 indisputable," and declared that " the Baptists had 
 been the persevering promoters of the glorious 
 Bevolution." Their appeal was strengthened by 
 remonstrances from other quarters, especially by the 
 declarations of several States, such as Virginia, New 
 Hampshire, and New York, that liberty of con- 
 science should not be abridged, restrained, or modi- 
 
THE VICTORY WON. 99 
 
 fied. The effect of these representations is written 
 in that Magna Charta of religious freedom, which, 
 to her everlasting honor, was proposed by Virginia, 
 and which became the first amendment to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States. 
 
 In the course of time, some earlier, others later, 
 each of the great commonwealths, with (according 
 to The Catholic Review} the exception of New 
 Hampshire, wheeled into line, and, by conforming 
 their constitutions and laws to the doctrine of the 
 general government, delivered the country from 
 the withering blight of ecclesiastical favoritism and 
 oppression. 
 
 Thus was the victory won upon these shores. 
 The members of a despised and calumniated sect, 
 few in numbers and poor in fortune, thus brought 
 to public view those immortal principles which 
 dignify humanity by placing each soul on terms 
 of personal and independent commerce with the 
 Almighty, and, by their unexampled labors and 
 sacrifices, secured their recognition by the highest 
 authority of the Republic. 
 
 I have not spoken at length of those who co- 
 operated with them in this glorious task, nor of 
 the influence of certain political events, such as the 
 practical sympathy of Catholic France with the civil 
 revolution, which, by abating sectarian prejudice, 
 
100 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 moulded public opinion, and in no small degree 
 facilitated the triumph of religious liberty. These 
 aids, powerful and possibly absolutely necessary, 
 should neither be overlooked nor undervalued ; 
 but, after every allowance has been made for their 
 potency, the fact still remains, that the Baptists 
 were the first, most consistent and persistent, ad- 
 vocates of this sacred cause, and that the amount 
 of service they have performed in its behalf is so 
 incalculable, that impartial posterity will not fail 
 to honor them as the chiefest among earth's noblest 
 benefactors. 
 
 A century has passed since the dawning of this 
 long-hoped-for day. It has been a century of trials 
 and of changes. The theories which were regard- 
 ed by many, a hundred years ago, as visions and 
 delusions, have been subjected to the searching 
 test of experience. Predictions muttered by croak- 
 ers and prejudiced judges have not been fulfilled. 
 The abandonment of Christianity, which was fore- 
 told as a consequence of the separation of Church 
 and State; the fail are to support a gospel ministry, 
 the increase of licentiousness, and the prevalence 
 of impiety, which were inevitably to destroy us, — 
 most happily have not been realized. 
 
 Instead of these evils, Christianity has continued 
 to be revered ; and her progress in these States is 
 one of the marvels of the century. Her growth in 
 
THE GLORY OF AMERICA. 101 
 
 numbers is unprecedented, and the generousness 
 of her gifts is unparalleled. She has founded and 
 endowed magnificent seats of learning ; she has 
 favored and fostered an enlightened system of 
 popular education ; she has sanctioned and promoted 
 the advancement of scientific inquiry ; she has 
 originated and cherished the noblest philanthropies ; 
 and she has established and sustained the sublimest 
 missionary enterprises. 
 
 The fathers of liberty were not visionaries. They 
 were men of rugged common sense ; and, after a 
 hundred years of trial, their great thought is not 
 found wanting. Should we not, therefore, revere 
 their memories ? Should we not, also, bless our 
 country, to whose patriotism and statesmanship the 
 doctrine of soul-liberty is indebted for the fair, 
 broad, open field it here enjoys, where its resources 
 are developed, and its treasures are displayed, in 
 absolute security? Had America bestowed upon 
 her citizens no other boon than this, it alone would 
 have entitled her to everlasting honor; and when, 
 in the course of human events, her now waxing 
 greatness shall wane, and the vicissitudes of fortune 
 shall erase from the tablets of time the records of 
 her most notable achievements, this one act shall 
 survive all others, crowning her memory with im- 
 mortal renown, and enshrining her name in the 
 hearts of remotest generations. 
 
102 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 u Oh, sprung from earth's first blood ! oh, tempest-nursed ! 
 
 For thee what fates? I know not. This I know : — 
 The soul's great freedom-gift, of gifts the first, 
 
 Thou first on man in fulness didst bestow. 
 Hunted elsewhere, God's Church with thee found rest : 
 Thy future hope is she, that queenly guest." 
 
 The history of religious liberty is not completed. 
 It is no dead issue. The past has but prepared the 
 present to take up this cause, and carry it forward 
 into the future. Edouard Laboulaye, in his work 
 entitled " La Liberte Religieuse," expresses the 
 conviction, that " La liberte religieuse, c'est la 
 grande question de l'avenir." He is correct. Lib- 
 erty cannot pause. Its blessings are too divine to 
 be arrested on their march toward universal empire. 
 It is the " question of the future." Millions upon 
 millions of our race have never heard of it ; or, if 
 they have heard, do not possess it, and are merely 
 hoping and praying for its presence. Millions who 
 have acknowledged its sovereignty do not compre- 
 hend its nature, or perceive its bearings ; and 
 thousands of these millions, we fear, are dead to its 
 spirit, and are alive only to its letter, — condemning 
 all persecution, and yet blind to the fact that the 
 intolerance they cherish is persecution in the matrix, 
 only waiting to be born. 
 
 For liberty in the coming years, golden words 
 must be spoken, and golden deeds performed ; 
 
THE FUTURE OF LIBERTY. 103 
 
 triumphs won must be extended, positions gained 
 must be defended, and suffering witnesses must be 
 befriended. There are principles to be vindicated, 
 problems to be solved, inconsistencies to be cor- 
 rected, excesses to be restrained, and abuses to be 
 remedied. 
 
 We should rejoice that no longer is the mission 
 of liberty dependent on the zeal and courage of a 
 few humble and despised disciples. It now gathers 
 to its banner the enlightened Protestantism of 
 America, and rallies to its support not only a con- 
 siderable section of the same party in Europe, but 
 also many of the wisest statesmen and philosophers 
 of Christendom. Greater things should be done 
 for liberty in the future than in the past ; for the 
 passion it engenders is as deep as in former times, 
 and certainly it is more extended. 
 
 Among the many allies of the old cause, what 
 should be the position of its earliest friends ? Should 
 they become followers where they have been leaders ? 
 Whither should they be impelled by their history ? 
 Whither should they be led by their spirit ? What 
 attitude should the Baptists assume and maintain, 
 towards the varying aspects of religious liberty in 
 this, and the approaching age ? 
 
 These questions I desire to consider. 
 
 As we have already stated, toleration reigns in 
 
104 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 England ; but this degree of freedom, far short as it 
 is of what the people are entitled to, is not enjoj'ed 
 by Continental nations, save in the scantiest meas- 
 ure, and secured by the most precarious of tenures. 
 
 A few years ago, its proclamation in Spain was 
 celebrated by too-credulous Protestants with flour- 
 ishes of drums and trumpets, with double-leaded 
 newspaper leaders, and with eloquent predictions of 
 a speedy-dawning millennium. But, in fact, the 
 so-called religious liberty of the Peninsula never 
 amounted to much. Never, excepting possibly the 
 brief administration of Castelar, have those who dis- 
 sent from Rome been free from some kind of moles- 
 tation in that land of the Inquisition. And, within 
 the past few months, the re-appearance of the Pope 
 in the Basilica of St. Peter, to receive ten thousand 
 Spanish pilgrims, was made by his Holiness the 
 occasion of bitter lamentations that any degree of 
 toleration had been conceded to his enemies ; and, 
 though he could bewail what he regards as persecu- 
 tion on the part of the King of Italy towards his 
 sacred person, he found it in his heart to denounce 
 the few miserable privileges permitted to Protestants 
 in Spain. 
 
 From present indications, his grief will not be of 
 excessive duration ; for the party of re-a^tion is in 
 power, and each day fresh steps are being taken to 
 abridge the constitutional rights of the anti-Roman- 
 
THE OUTLOOK IN EUROPE. 105 
 
 ists. Already they are forbidden to announce their 
 religious services in the newspapers, or to call the 
 people to their churches by sabbath bells, or to open 
 wide their sanctuary doors as an invitation for the 
 spiritually weary to enter. Their schools are subject 
 to Papal surveillance, foreign teachers are ostracized, 
 and native converts are oppressed. These aggrava- 
 tions are doubtless preparing the way for more 
 serious outrages. These too are being threatened. 
 The Bishop of Minorca, in a circular to his clergy, 
 pronounces anathemas on those who have any 
 friendly intercourse with Protestants. Kind looks, 
 as well as kind acts, are alike forbidden under pain 
 of ecclesiastical censure. Such tyrannical decrees 
 can only mean mischief. 
 
 The same spirit appears in other quarters. In 
 France the clergy antagonize with the Republic ; for 
 the Republic means equal rights for Christians of 
 every persuasion, and ultimately disestablishment. 
 Efforts recently made in the French Chamber, 
 to curtail the appropriations for ecclesiastical pur- 
 poses, met with fierce and fiery resistance. Some 
 notable speeches were made on that occasion in 
 the interests of religious freedom ; but the tone 
 of the opposition was such as to leave the impres- 
 sion that its triumph cannot be secured without 
 revolution. Various works upon the subject have 
 excited considerable attention in France, — notably 
 
106 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 those by Edouard Laboulaye and Jules Simon. The 
 latter author sums up his review of the condition of 
 religious liberty in Europe in these terms : " Je con- 
 clus que la liberte de conscience est nouvelle, qu'elle 
 est incomplete, meme en France, et qu'elle est 
 meconnue dans la moitie de TEurope. Cependant, 
 nous croyons la posseder. Nous ne sentons pas notre 
 maladie, ce qui est la pire de toutes les maladies. 
 Nous ne comprenons pas qu'il n'y a pas de liberte 
 du dehors, pour qui ne possede pas la liberte du 
 dedans." — La Liberte de Conscience, p. 318. True 
 it is, as he intimates, that many realize not their sick- 
 ness ; but we rejoice that in France there are those 
 w T ho stand nobly forth, the champions of soul-liberty, 
 and that there is a Baptist church in Paris, and 
 members of the same faith scattered throughout the 
 provinces, pledged to advocate every intelligent 
 measure for its advancement. 
 
 In Mexico spiritual thraldom is the rule. Infa- 
 mous outrages have there been wantonly committed 
 against Protestants by the reigning faith. Indeed, 
 wherever the Papacy has the power, in the New 
 World or in the Old, it never hesitates to employ the 
 most unjustifiable means for the extirpation of what 
 it is pleased to regard as heresy. And what is more 
 monstrous, an Englishman, Cardinal Manning, in 
 the name of unity steps forth to justify this cruel 
 policy. His recent extenuation of the Spanish 
 
DOOMSDAY COMING. 107 
 
 authorities is a masterpiece of special pleading, 
 worthy an inquisitor of the fifteenth century, but 
 unworthy an ecclesiastic of the nineteenth. 
 
 The Greek Church is governed by similar views ; 
 and, although lately she has been wringing her hands 
 in well-simulated horror over the atrocities com- 
 mitted in Bulgaria, she has not abstained from vio- 
 lence against those of a purer faith than her own 
 within the territory of Russia. If she would only 
 present the spectacle of a weeping suppliant at the 
 throne of the Czar, pleading for the liberty of con- 
 science to which all dissidents are entitled, it would 
 be as edifying a sight as it is improbable. 
 
 Alas that it should be improbable ! Alas that 
 even Protestant countries, such as Germany and 
 Sweden, where national religious establishments 
 reign, should be guilty of injustice towards the 
 helpless thousands who cannot sustain their eccle- 
 siastical authority ! But so it is. The dominant 
 Lutheran faith has but little sympathy with those 
 who differ from it, however honestly. The spirit of 
 Luther still tenants the house he founded; and much 
 labor and many prayers will be required to exorcise 
 it entirely. 
 
 This unhappy condition of things in Europe can- 
 not long continue. The day is near, which shall 
 prove a doomsday to spiritual tyranny. A struggle 
 is impending. Exhausted by taxes to support an 
 
108 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 aristocratic clergj^, impatient of petty annoyances, and 
 outraged by flagrant wrongs, the people long for 
 deliverance. The example of America, the slowly 
 dawning consciousness of their own strength and 
 dignity, renders them restless and dissatisfied under 
 the restraints of priestly masters, and must end in 
 the most radical and beneficent of changes. By 
 agitation and legislation they may seek to accom- 
 plish their purposes ; but if these fail the power 
 of revolution will not go untried. Law-abiding 
 as the people of Europe may be, they have in 
 the past recognized^ and, very likely, will in the 
 future recognize, a limit to submission. They may 
 patiently endure to the utmost; but, when the utmost 
 has been borne, they will spurn the favor and pat- 
 ronage of governments, conferred in ever so broad a 
 toleration act, and with the strong hand of revolt 
 wrest their inalienable rights. 
 
 Before such a storm, the millinery of ritualism 
 would be torn to shreds, the sacramental mummeries 
 of sacerdotalism and the superstitious solemnities of 
 Jesuitism would be scathed and blasted. Priestly 
 thrones would totter, priestly crosses be broken, 
 priestly privileges be abolished, and possibly every 
 trace of cruel hierarchies be obliterated. 
 
 God hasten the dawning of such a day ! but God 
 avert so sombre au evening from heralding the 
 morning ! We can pray for the new creation, but 
 
DUTY OF AMERICAN CHRISTIANS. 109 
 
 not for the chaos ; for the glorious clay over which 
 "the sons of Gocl will shout with joy," but not for 
 the terrible night, which, all too probably, must pre- 
 cede it. While we would not fan the smouldering 
 fires of revolt, we should not be indifferent specta- 
 tors of the evils which afflict our brethren in other 
 lands ; we should not retire from the conflict ; we 
 should not close our ears to the cry of the oppressed, 
 nor shut our eyes to their necessities. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell shook his clinched mailed hand 
 in the face of Catholic Europe when the hunted 
 Vaudois were threatened with extermination ; Milton 
 excited the sjmapathy of millions in their behalf, by 
 his touching ode, — 
 
 " Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints ! " 
 
 and Geneva could find a refuge for them, where the 
 wanderers could securely rest. While it is not for 
 the friends of religious liberty in America to threaten 
 like Cromwell, it is at least their duty to imitate 
 Milton in shaping public sentiment through the 
 agency of the printed page. They can also offer in 
 this land shelter and protection to all who desire 
 deliverance from tyranny. And, what is better still, 
 out of their abundance these Christian freemen can 
 contribute towards the support of Protestant pastors, 
 and the founding of Protestant schools and churches 
 in Europe. Certainly, with honor to themselves, 
 
110 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the Baptists can do no less ; and I am thankful that 
 they have not failed to attempt as much. By their 
 missions in Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece, and 
 Spain, they have already planted the seeds of reli- 
 gious liberty; and it is incredible, that, through a 
 mistaken economy, they should leave them to perish 
 in the soil. 
 
 Jules Simon has expressed the sentiment, that 
 " Liberty is never safe." Her enemies are always 
 vigilant and active, always energetic and untiring in 
 their efforts to accomplish her destruction. They 
 are as much in earnest in America as in any other 
 country. Religious liberty is no more attractive to 
 them beneath our skies, than it is beneath the sun- 
 nier skies of Italy. If we would discover these per- 
 sistent foes, they are to be found grouped around 
 the banner of the Papacy. 
 
 Some genial souls imagine that the Romish 
 Church has been softened into forbearance and 
 charity by republican institutions. This is a de- 
 lusion. The tigress is only caged. Her nature 
 remains unchanged. What ecclesiastics accepted 
 the dogma of infallibility with more alacrity than 
 did those of the United States? Where in the 
 ranks of the Catholic clergy can firmer advocates be 
 found, than in this land, of the infamous doctrine 
 that thought on religious subjects should be regu- 
 
PRESENT ATTITUDE OF ROMAN IBM, 111 
 
 latecl by the priesthood ? Here, as in Europe, they 
 may submit to uncontrollable circumstances ; but 
 neither here nor there have they abandoned the 
 war against soul-liberty. If the Catholic clergy of 
 America believe the infallibility of the pope, then 
 must they believe, what he has declared, "that 
 religious liberty and freedom of the press are deliri- 
 ous ravings;" and, if they believe this, in very- 
 consistency, they must employ every means to arrest 
 them. 
 
 Should these ecclesiastics assure us that our sus- 
 picions are unfounded, we could not believe them, 
 because it is a part of their avowed creed to keep 
 no faith with Protestants. Moreover, the attitude 
 of the Papacy is of such a kind as to awaken 
 most serious apprehension. Its devoted sons have 
 obtained, from state and municipal authorities, large 
 and valuable grants of land ; they have also secured 
 extraordinary immunities ; and, to advance still fur- 
 ther their own interests, they are tampering with 
 political parties, are aiming to control legislation, and 
 are seeking to break up and destroy our educational 
 system. 
 
 These movements are but means to an end. They 
 are steps leading to the recognition of Romanism as 
 the established religion of these States. Though 
 the scheme may appear visionary and wild, it can be 
 matched by others, in the past, seemingly as hopeless, 
 
112 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 which have succeeded. Nothing is really impossible 
 to the determined, who through years steadily pursue 
 a definite plan ; and no class of men are more fully 
 consecrated to a single aim than the Catholic clergy. 
 If they abolish our public schools, if they can obtain 
 immense possessions, and political supremacy at the 
 ballot, what is to hinder them at last from making 
 their Church national in name, as it will be in 
 fact? 
 
 The danger must not be ignored. I would not 
 encourage the least unfairness towards our Catholic 
 fellow-citizens. The rights secured to them by the 
 first constitutional amendment, should be respected. 
 Their interests before the law, should be equally 
 sacred with our own. But the Church of which 
 they are members will bear watching, and she should 
 be watched. There should be no division of the 
 school funds to satisfy her demands, and no special 
 grants of land to win her political support. It is 
 for the Protestant party of America to resist such 
 measures, as it is its duty to check this growing 
 power, by keeping itself apart from Romish mum- 
 meries, and by withholding patronage from Romish 
 seminaries. 
 
 Upon the Baptists, in common with others, this 
 obligation rests. They are the ancient enemies of 
 the Papacy, and, from the Scripturalness of their 
 faith, are the best qualified to resist its encroach- 
 
BIBLE JN THE SCHOOLS. 113 
 
 ments. Their mission is peculiarly identified with 
 the interests of freedom ; and they should not 
 regard it as accomplished while such a foe, with 
 such a front, remains upon our shores. As well 
 talk to the wise general, that he has done every 
 thing, when his troops, flushed with victory, occupy a 
 field which the beaten foe is bound to re-possess, 
 and towards which by secret passes and circuitous 
 routes he is bringing up his forces. Such an officer 
 rejoices at his peril: to give himself, in self-con- 
 fident security, to repose would be madness. And 
 little short of madness will it prove for Baptists and 
 the mighty Protestant party of America, to engross 
 themselves in business, to steep their souls in apathy, 
 while Rome with untiring energy and subtle plead- 
 ing is sapping the foundation of their liberties. 
 O Samson ! if thou art asleep in the Delilah-lap of 
 luxurious ease, if thy strong arms have been bound 
 with withes, up, oh ! up, for the Philistines are upon 
 thee! 
 
 It is intimated in various quarters, that the cause 
 of religious liberty in this country is being as much 
 imperilled by its professed friends, as by its undis- 
 guised foes. The particular ground for this charge, 
 is the presence and use of the Bible in the pub- 
 lic schools. It is regarded by Romanists, and by 
 infidels, as a violation of the First Constitutional 
 Amendment, that the Scriptures by public authority 
 
114 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 should be read in the hearing of scholars, whose 
 parents cannot subscribe to its inspiration, nor 
 acknowledge that the text of the original has been 
 faithfully rendered, nor admit that it should be studied 
 without the aid of a priestly interpreter. The fact 
 that a large proportion of the Evangelical party are 
 in favor of this custom, is brought forward as evi- 
 dence of their insincerity in glorifying religious 
 liberty. 
 
 This assumption, I am satisfied, is entirely gratu- 
 itous. With Protestants the vexed question does 
 not take the shape of an expedient for the prose- 
 lyting of Catholics, or, in any way, for the special 
 furtherance of their own faith. Such thoughts are 
 very far from their minds. They mean to wrong no 
 man ; and, consequently, they have manifested a 
 disposition to harmonize in any practical way the 
 conflict of opinions upon this subject. Very many 
 of them have been so sensitive to the imputation 
 of persecution, that they have even expressed them- 
 selves willing to yield the point to their adversaries. 
 And, as for the Baptists, although they love the 
 Bible, and would gladly see it wherever it makes a 
 place for itself, they could not be induced to do any 
 thing that would look like forcing its authority on 
 the people, either by unequal law, or by the specious 
 plea of the right of the majority to rule. So thor- 
 oughly is this principle ingrained in their nature, 
 
STABILITY OF CHRISTIANITY. 115 
 
 that it is exceedingly problematical whether they 
 could be persuaded to give a decisive vote, North 
 or South, for the retention of the Bible in the 
 schools. As they neither regard their own existence 
 nor that of Christianity involved in the issue, they 
 are more than ready to deal, with those who 
 differ from them, as they would be done by. No 
 sectarian prejudice, no sectarian interest warps 
 their judgment. No alarms for the future impel 
 them to deal unfairly. They do not apprehend 
 dire calamities, even should the enemies of the 
 Scriptures carry their measures. Christianity has 
 had its mournful friends in every age, — men who 
 have heard in every change the knell of doom ; 
 but Baptists as a people are not of this number. 
 It has survived persecution, scientific discoveries, 
 and infidel ravings, — yea, it has survived the ob- 
 scuration of the Bible in dead languages as well as 
 legal prohibition ; and its life surely cannot now 
 depend on the retention of the Book of books in 
 primary educational establishments. 
 
 Personally, I should dislike exceedingly any 
 change in the prevailing custom. Yet, if I thought 
 the demand a just one, though made by those who 
 have no claim upon our consideration, I would not 
 hesitate to advocate that the voice of God's word 
 be hushed where our children gather to receive 
 instruction. But wherein lies the wrong ? where 
 
116 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the outrage? The position of the Bible in the 
 schools is not the result of any union between Prot- 
 estants and the State; nor was it secured by 
 the political action of one denomination, or of all 
 combined. The Church, as such, did not put it 
 there, and the Church, as such, cannot take it away. 
 A profound reverence for its teachings, a hearty 
 confidence in its inspiration, impelled the people in 
 the various States and municipalities of our country 
 to place it where the young might hear its precepts. 
 Unquestionably, they had a constitutional right to 
 regulate the matter through their school boards. 
 A similar right is now claimed by some Catholics 
 and infidels, in common with some Protestants, to 
 prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors ; and, what 
 is more, such enactments have been recognized as 
 lawful by those, who are qualified by judicial learn- 
 ing to express an opinion. 
 
 The preservation of morals, or their purification, 
 on which so largely rest the material interests of 
 commonwealths, lies at the foundation of both pleas ; 
 and their unsoundness has never yet been demon- 
 strated. Whether it will be in the future, or not, 
 remains to be seen ; but, whatever the decision, the 
 Church is not responsible. This I would have my 
 readers fully understand, that they may perceive, 
 in view of the facts, how utterly groundless the 
 charges of persecution are. 
 
A PRIESTLY WAR. 117 
 
 In this connection, I desire to submit a few 
 thoughts, which, in my judgment, should influence 
 the people to remain satisfied with existing arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 It should be remembered that the priests are lead- 
 ing in this agitation ; not because they advocate the 
 principle that a little religion in primary education 
 is an evil, but because they seek by these means to 
 break up what they call our secular system of 
 instruction altogether, that they may, through the 
 establishment of Papal schools, sustained by public 
 funds, be enabled to impart sectarian teachings. 
 They would shut out the light of true, clear, shining 
 knowledge, and obscure the mind of the rising gener- 
 ation with the ecclesiastical fog, which for ages has 
 enveloped the common people of Spain and Italy. 
 I confess to an indisposition to subscribe to this 
 programme ; for this reason, among many others, that 
 the priests are not the parties primarily responsible, 
 either by nature or law, for the training of children. 
 This issue mainly concerns parents; and, as the 
 doctrine of celibacy excludes priests from this rdle, 
 they should not be permitted to shape the nation's 
 policy on a subject so vital to its welfare. When 
 the Catholics of the United States declare that the 
 presence of the Bible in the schools is an outrage, 
 and that as parents, as citizens, — not Catholics, — 
 their conscience is aggrieved, then the question will 
 
118 TEE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 assume a slightly different phase. But, we are told, 
 that the priests say their parishioners are being out- 
 raged. Mark, the priests say this : those for whom 
 they speak never have said it. If it shall be 
 answered, " The priests are the voice of their peo- 
 ple," we cannot admit the plea ; for in a free 
 government every man must be his own voice. 
 The people have not spoken. Instead of such a 
 protest, they send their children to the public 
 schools, unless restrained by ecclesiastics. They 
 seem satisfied with present arrangements, convinced 
 that no perversion of their children's faith is at- 
 tempted by those who have them in charge. 
 
 Another consideration which should weigh with 
 the voters of America, in coming to a final decision, 
 is the unexampled beneficial influence the study of 
 the Bible has upon all, especially upon the young. 
 The history of the race during many weary years 
 is exclusively recorded there ; the views of some of 
 the wisest, and best of men on morals are there 
 expressed ; the relation of God to law is there 
 unfolded ; and some of the loftiest types of heroism, 
 and the grandest sentiments of piety are there pre- 
 sented. Understanding, imagination, and affection 
 alike are cultivated by its pages. While the chil- 
 dren should not be forced to receive these writings 
 as from God, — even were such a thing possible, — 
 they should not be kept in ignorance of them. The 
 
PERILS TO FAITH FROM SCIENCE. 119 
 
 evidences of their claims to divine origin may 
 wellbe left for future, and individual investigation; 
 but their teachings should be mastered. The pupil 
 may be left free to accept or reject their inspiration ; 
 but he should not be free to remain in ignorance of 
 their contents. 
 
 If, however, it should be objected that their study 
 might bias the mind of the child in favor of 
 their loftiest pretensions, and on that account 
 should be forbidden ; then, on similar grounds, might 
 Christians object to instruction in physical science. 
 It is generally understood, that the drift of this 
 study is towards materialism in its baldest form, 
 and towards the doctrines of necessity and atheism. 
 The very primary lessons of geology, as usually 
 unfolded, appear contrary to the Mosaic history of 
 creation. But on this account, we should not desire 
 to have its study abandoned, either in academy or 
 seminary. No : no man's education can be counted 
 thorough, apart from the information it conveys, and 
 discipline of mind it imparts. If it should shake a 
 boy's confidence in the Bible, we would regret it ; 
 but he must encounter the peril. For the peril's 
 sake I dare not say to him, "Be ignorant of the prog- 
 ress of modern thought." In every blessing lurks a 
 danger. Freedom may run into licentiousness : 
 shall I forbid freedom ? Pleasure may lead to vice : 
 shall I proscribe pleasure ? Investigation may lead 
 
120 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 to error : shall I denounce investigation ? So 
 science may lead to * infidelity, and the Bible to 
 Christian faith ; but would not an interdict on 
 either, because of what should be regarded by 
 parents as the peril, be a fearful outrage and an 
 invasion of the scholar's liberty? 
 
 In his autobiography, (a melancholy book,) John 
 Stuart Mill says, " I was brought up, from the 
 first, without any religious belief in the ordinary 
 sense of the term. It would have been wholly 
 inconsistent with my father's idea of duty, to allow 
 me to acquire impressions contrary to his convictions 
 and feelings respecting religion." And this, I am 
 persuaded, is the narrow spirit that dictates in infidel 
 quarters their opposition to the Scriptures in educa- 
 tion. We cannot yield to it in them, nor en- 
 courage it in ourselves ; but most heartily must 
 plead, in the name of liberty, that the doors be open 
 to the young, that they may enter at will the store- 
 houses both of Scripture and science, leaving the 
 consequences to their own intellect and conscience, 
 and the good providence of God. 
 
 A small, but somewhat influential class of agi- 
 tators, are announcing another peril to religious 
 liberty, which they believe they have discovered 
 in the legal provisions exempting from taxation 
 property held for ecclesiastical, educational, and 
 philanthropical enterprises. They allege that such 
 
TAXTNG CHURCH PROPERTY. 121 
 
 exemption is unfair towards the persons, who have 
 no sympathy with the objects represented by these 
 various interests, and in reality is an indirect method 
 of taxing them for their support. They also profess 
 to see in this privilege a practical alliance between 
 Church and State, which in coming years may lead 
 to more serious abuses. Visions of ecclesiastical 
 bodies and religious corporations, grown corrupt and 
 tyrannical through the influence of unbounded 
 earthly possessions, chronically haunt these alarm- 
 ists, and disturb the serenity of their mind. Their 
 fervid imagination pictures a future for the United 
 States, in which a spiritual despotism is the central 
 figure, with dungeons, proscriptions, and possibly 
 martyrdoms, as its sombre and mournful surround- 
 ings. 
 
 In my judgment, there is no real ground for this 
 alarm. These visions are not born of inspiration, 
 but of a species of nightmare. So far as they are 
 infidel in origin, their aim undoubtedly is to embar- 
 rass Christian progress ; so far as they are Protes- 
 tant, they seem to be born of a desire to curb the 
 material prosperity of Romanism ; and in neither 
 case is there proof furnished that either party is 
 actuated by the higher motive which they both so 
 persistently avow. On the other hand, there are 
 cogent reasons why the nation should not adopt the 
 narrow policy, which these agitators advocate with 
 so much zeal. 
 
122 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 One of the strongest pleas in support of the 
 church-taxation theoiy is found in the statement, 
 that exemption means a contribution from the State 
 for the maintenance of religion. This, it is claimed, 
 is utterly irreconcilable with the American doctrine 
 of absolute separation of civil government from 
 ecclesiastical institutions. But the fallacy of the 
 argument can readily be perceived by reversing it. 
 If a tax is levied on the church-edifice, religion is 
 required by the act to pay tribute to the State. Or 
 in the case of buildings and appliances devoted to 
 education, if they are taxed, the value being esti- 
 mated by the cost, then education is made to care 
 for the pecuniary necessities of government. But 
 this is as much a perversion of the American idea 
 of separation, if we are to receive it as interpreted 
 by the advocates of such measures, as exemption 
 itself. If it is true, as they declare and we believe, 
 that the two domains should be held rigidly apart, 
 then the only practical consistent plan is the one 
 now in operation ; for it requires neither Church nor 
 State to pay tribute to the other. They are left, 
 as they should be. independent of each other, and in 
 the best position for their mutual prosperity. 
 
 It should also be remembered, that the lands and 
 buildings held in the interests of religion or educa- 
 tion, are not property in the commercial sense of the 
 word. They do not represent material productive 
 
SPIRITUAL AND MATERIAL VALUES. 123 
 
 values. The church-edifice, set apart to spiritual 
 labors, represents no tangible material assets. As 
 far as pecuniary returns are concerned, there are 
 none ; for such a building has withdrawn from the 
 community the precise amount of capital which it 
 cost, and henceforth it yields no profits in kind. 
 Commercially the capital is dead, is no longer 
 available. It is customary to estimate property 
 by its actual or potential material income. Val- 
 uations can only thus be regulated. But meet- 
 ing-houses and school-buildings are not revenue- 
 prbducing property, and cannot, therefore, be equita- 
 bly taxed with other property for the support of 
 government. Though it cost money, it has ceased to 
 possess money value, and is worthless to the commu- 
 nity, except in the spiritual revenue it yields. And 
 how shall the state proceed to levy a money tax 
 upon spiritual values ? 
 
 There is another principle governing taxation, 
 which the non-exemptionists appear to overlook. 
 Political economists have shown that there is noth- 
 ing in the nature of such levies, which requires 
 that every earthly interest should bear part of the 
 burden. At best, they are but expedients adopted 
 to meet general and specific wants of the govern- 
 ment, which should be imposed in the least onerous 
 manner, and which should be exacted only where 
 they will work least detriment to the common weal. 
 
124 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Iii harmony with this view, it is admitted that things 
 least necessary, and things of doubtful benefit, 
 should be made to bear the heaviest burden. Ac- 
 cordingly, intoxicating liquors, tobacco, and luxuries, 
 as silks and laces, in their order are first assessed for 
 revenue purposes ; and, after them, other and more 
 needful things, if demanded by public exigencies, 
 and then, as lightly as possible. But what is more 
 requisite and indispensable to a nation than that 
 which church and educational property yields ? 
 What is of more importance to the community than 
 the object to which it is devoted ? This is noth- 
 ing less than the formation of character ; and 
 character is the glory and security of States. Acad- 
 emies, colleges, are consecrated to the training of 
 the mind, and the development of its resources; 
 while churches are engaged in the grander work of 
 perfecting its morals, and quickening its spiritual 
 aspirations. They are means by which the race is 
 preserved from rankest materialism, and from a rapid 
 retrogression towards the Darwinian ape-ideal. 
 
 This work the State cannot do directly, by bare 
 authority. Character cannot be enacted by law ; 
 legislation cannot call it into existence ; proclama- 
 tions cannot fashion it ; no police force can regulate 
 it, and no army win its glories. From what source, 
 then, must it come ? It cannot be dispensed with : 
 it is a quality more important to government than 
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER, 125 
 
 all the material value of its territory. How is it to 
 be attained ? 
 
 Evidently it can only be furnished by the citizens 
 themselves, through the medium of their education- 
 al and religious establishments. But shall the State 
 come in and weaken her own life by insisting on a 
 tax from churches and institutions of learning, which 
 must tend to paralyze benevolence, and discourage 
 its efforts ? When no eternal principle of right is 
 involved in the tax, and when it may go far to 
 repress the ardor of those who are engaged in labor 
 which is actually vifcal to the welfare of the com- 
 monwealth, shall its civil authorities impose unne- 
 cessary burdens upon the sources of its higher life ? 
 Better sacrifice any material gain, than do aught to 
 jeopardize the moral and intellectual development of 
 the nation. 
 
 What ! is America so poor, that to provide a 
 revenue she must condescend to ask a contribution 
 from the funds of charity towards her support ? Is 
 she so bankrupt that the means donated by benev- 
 olence to rescue her neglected children from evil, 
 to shield her helpless sons and daughters from 
 starvation, and to save her entire citizenship from 
 immorality and animalism, must be taxed to sustain 
 her material splendor ? Surely she is not so necessi- 
 tous, nor so blind to her real grandeur, as to counte- 
 nance such spoliation. 
 
126 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 From time immemorial, it has been counted one 
 of the chief glories of states to foster the arts and 
 sciences, promote culture, and encourage genius. 
 Such an enlightened policy has rendered the names 
 of Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Florence, Paris, 
 and other ancient cities, forever famous. Can it be, 
 that in this nineteenth century, the world is to 
 behold the sad spectacle of a nation so utterly mate- 
 rialized as to have no sympathy with all that tends to 
 refine and elevate ? Can it be that America should 
 ever covet the shame of laying an embargo on intel- 
 lectual expansion and moral progress, when all other 
 civilized nations are doing what they can to quicken 
 them? Were she called upon to foster art and 
 philanthropy at great pecuniary cost to herself, some 
 excuse might be framed for her refusal ; but as she 
 is simply requested not to hinder, not to impede 
 their development, for her to refuse, would be to 
 incur indelible reproach. 
 
 As well might the eagle rend and tear the pinions 
 of her eaglets, thus dooming them to a life among 
 misty valleys, when they might have soared and held 
 communion with the skies, as for America, whose 
 symbol the eagle is, to maim her people by discour- 
 aging that culture, which as wings is fitted to bear 
 them to purer regions than politics or the mere sec- 
 ularities of life can furnish. 
 
 I cannot believe that counsels so ignoble will pre- 
 
MISLEADING OPINIONS. 127 
 
 vail. I cannot think that the citizens of America 
 will ever sanction the adoption of a policy so narrow. 
 They must ultimately realize that the jealousy for 
 liberty, which its advocates avow, is gratuitous and 
 needless, and that the exemption of church and edu- 
 cational property from taxation can never compro- 
 mise its integrity, nor endanger its existence. 
 
 The doctrine enunciated by the Baptists, the 
 progress of which I have tried historically to trace in 
 these pages, has exclusively to do with the relations 
 which should exist between Church and State. It 
 goes no farther than to define, bound, and limit the 
 extent of their mutual independence. Here it ter- 
 minates ; and here it might be left, but for the fact 
 that for half a century or longer, and especially in 
 our day, efforts have been made to give it a wider, 
 and, in some cases, a misleading application. 
 
 It is now claimed by not a few Christian brethren, 
 that religious liberty should reign as absolutely in- 
 side of a church organization, as in her outward 
 relations. In Dr. Channing's time the singular 
 position was maintained, on the part of certain 
 dissidents, that they had as much right to recogni- 
 tion and standing within Congregational churches 
 since their abandonment of evangelical views as 
 before. This assumption was met by Prof. Moses 
 Stuart, and some remarkable letters were pub- 
 
128 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 lished on both sides of the controversy. A sim- 
 ilar claim is put forth to-day, by those who do not 
 agree with all the teachings of the denominations 
 of which they are members ; and it is a mat- 
 ter of interesting inquiry, to ascertain how far 
 such a claim should be countenanced, and in what 
 manner, the brethren who make it should be treated. 
 Having ' voluntarily entered into engagements with 
 others, which voluntarily they can terminate, are 
 they warranted, by any fair construction of the doc- 
 trine of liberty, to demand the privileges of their 
 position if they disregard their obligations ? and, if 
 they are not, how should they be dealt with ? 
 
 The importance of this inquiry is possibly greater, 
 than at first may appear to my readers. There is a 
 tendency, more wide-spread than is generally sup- 
 posed, to complain that articles of faith cramp intel- 
 lectual liberty, and that the laws and rules of 
 religious communities restrict unduly inclination and 
 action. In the name of liberty, latitudinarianism is 
 exalted ; in its name, disorder is encouraged ; in its 
 name, fixity is unfixed, and the solidities of Christian 
 societies reduced to a state of flux. A restless spirit 
 has invaded the peaceful realms of wholesome gov- 
 ernment ; and, growing more restless, it drives 
 wildly against things apj)ointed, and seems to be on 
 the eve of proclaiming the anarchic doctrine, that no 
 power to appoint should exist any where. 
 
SPREAD OF LIBERALISM. 129 
 
 This evil is not confined to any particular denomi- 
 nation. It shows itself among the Presbyterians 
 and Episcopalians, as distinctly as among the Con- 
 gregationalists and Baptists. The English Church 
 is not free from the growth of what her articles 
 condemn as heresies; and the American arm of that 
 body is not in a perfectly sound condition. Among 
 her members in the Old Country, and in this, a 
 great diversity of opinion exists regarding the inter- 
 pretation of the creed, the position and efficacy of 
 rites and ceremonies, and the dignities and authority 
 of ecclesiastics. Psedobaptists of other names have 
 their own internal troubles : on the side of the 
 laity, they perceive the practice of infant-baptism 
 rapidly falling into desuetude, and, on the side of 
 the clergy, an increasing drift towards an attenuated 
 orthodoxy. In common with their brethren of the 
 Baptist faith, they experience how difficult it is to 
 restrain and control the ambition of struggling lead- 
 ers, and how hard it is to maintain any thing like 
 order and continuity in the life of a Christian com- 
 munity. 
 
 Among the Baptists these evils may have been 
 magnified by their opponents ; but they are vigorous 
 enough to cause disquiet and anno3'ance. Less 
 excusable though they are in a denomination, where 
 the republican theory of church government is 
 sometimes carried to an extreme irreconcilable with 
 
130 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 order, they have obtained an unpromising degree of 
 strength. Some of its preachers, in the name of 
 liberty, ridicule doctrines they pledged themselves to 
 support, and reply to remonstrances against their 
 course in terms foul with the charges of bigotry and 
 sectarianism ; and others, who have never known 
 the weight of spiritual manacles, conceive that they 
 are called of God to be the apostles of a freedom, 
 which, in its last analysis, is only a form of irre- 
 sponsible insubordination. 
 
 This tendency to set at defiance law and order, to 
 encourage looseness in faith and practice, fills the 
 majority of Christian people with distress and appre- 
 hension. They have in them a deep sense of the 
 need of ecclesiastical, as well as of social order. 
 There is a notion in their minds, that the structural 
 necessities of religious societies demand, equally 
 with those of a secular character, some definite 
 authority, some definite rights and duties, and some 
 definite limitations to forbearance. They cannot 
 bring themselves to believe that liberty means that 
 there should be no authority in Israel, and that 
 every man should do what is right in his own eyes, 
 without regard to the welfare of the community in 
 which he lives. 
 
 To my way of thinking, they are correct ; for the 
 sentiments of the latitudinarian are pernicious, and 
 can only result in dire calamity to Christendom. 
 
LIBERTY AND LAW. 131 
 
 The interests of law are no less sacred than the 
 interests of liberty ; for law is the guaranty of lib- 
 erty, not its enemy ; and liberty, if it would guard 
 its own honor, must ever be the enthusiastic friend 
 of law. Each of them rests upon an ultimate fact 
 which is divine, — liberty, on the majesty and great- 
 ness of the individual conscience ; law, on the fact 
 of our God-given social instincts, and, as a conse- 
 quence, on the divine origin of the Church. And 
 there is an inevitable necessity of upholding and pro- 
 tecting the Church by law against caprice or passion. 
 To depreciate, insult, or overthrow law, in the name 
 of liberty, must sooner or later end in licentiousness 
 and ruin, in whatever domain of life the unholy mis- 
 sion is undertaken. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle expresses some sober thoughts 
 upon this subject, which are as applicable to the 
 Church as to the State. " Disorder," he saj^s, " is a 
 thing which veracious created nature, even because 
 it is not chaos ami a waste-whirling baseless phan- 
 tasm," rejects and disowns. " Disorder," he ex- 
 claims, " insane by the nature of it, is the hatefullest 
 of things to mail;, who lives by sanity and order." 
 " All anarchy, all evil, all injustice, is by the nature 
 of it, suicidal, and cannot endure." " Arrangement 
 is necessary to man ; arrangement, were it grounded 
 only on that old primary evangel Force, with 
 sceptre in the shape of hammer." So wrote 
 
132 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 Southey, testifying that " order is the sanity of the 
 mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, 
 the security of the state." And Richard Hooker, 
 with a stately eloquence, most admired by the most 
 admirable masters of English prose, at the close of 
 his first book on Ecclesiastical Polity, bears similar 
 testimony in these words : " Of Law there can be no 
 less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom 
 of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all 
 things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very 
 least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not 
 exempt from her power ; both angels and men, and 
 creatures of what condition soever, though each in 
 different sort and manner, yet all with uniform 
 consent, admiring her as the mother of their peace 
 and joy." 
 
 If the convictions of these men are worthy our 
 attention, if their views are entitled to our respect, 
 then we must admit, that serious disorder counte- 
 nanced by the Church must prove the prelude of her 
 destruction. How long, think you, would benevo- 
 lent associations, scientific circles, and educational 
 societies endure, and continue their usefulness, were 
 they to approve or tolerate its reign? And what 
 aspect would our country present to the world, were 
 her constitution ignored, her laws disregarded, and 
 their administration neglected ? Such abuses would 
 speedily transform her into the likeness of the 
 
THE NECESSITY OF ORDER. 133 
 
 stormy republic of Greece, that meteor of liberty, 
 which shot athwart the heavens, dazzled, and 
 exploded. Like ancient Rome she would be cursed 
 with the despotism of mobs, the corruption of 
 demagogues, the ostracism of justice ; she would be 
 destroyed by patrician arrogance, plebeian madness, 
 tribunal storms, unending factions, and perpetual 
 wars. 
 
 Surely definite government, settled order, must be 
 as needful to a spiritual community, whose purpose 
 it is to maintain truth and righteousness, oppose 
 error and wickedness, while it toils to secure the 
 salvation of the race. God has wan-anted this 
 opinion by imparting to the Church in his word the 
 form of her organization, the principles and rules 
 of her administration, and the ordinances by which 
 she is to be made distinctively Christian before men. 
 He who called her into being, has invested her 
 spirit with a body as tangible and palpable as that 
 with which he clothed at first the immortal soul. In 
 such a world as this, a disembodied man or woman 
 would be powerless ; and equally powerless to wage 
 her warfare against sin, and to subdue the sinner to 
 Christ, must every church be that commits the 
 suicidal folly of maiming or destroying the form 
 which God has given her. 
 
 And now, in what temper, and after what manner, 
 should they be dealt with, whose influence lies in 
 
134 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 the direction of such dissent, confusion, and disin- 
 tegration ? How should a majority of any church, 
 holding faithfully to its doctrines and practices, 
 treat those brethren who are constrained to differ 
 from them ? Clearly, they should not be indifferent 
 to what is going on around them. To fold their 
 arms apathetically, and take no thought for the 
 honor of God's truth or the dignity of God's 
 ordinances, does not comport with any just con- 
 ception of Christian obligation. They must do one 
 thing or the other : they must either check these 
 inroads, or abandon the Church to lawlessness of 
 one kind or another. If they are unwilling to incur 
 the guilt involved in a course so pusillanimous, how 
 shall they proceed, that, in maintaining the sacred- 
 ness of God's revealed will, they may not entirely 
 disregard the sacredness of a brother's conscience ? 
 
 Unquestionably they would not be warranted in 
 proscribing the spirit of investigation. It is not 
 Protestant, but papal, to forbid free and unlimited 
 inquiry. A profession of religion does not termi- 
 nate a man's duty to search for truth. No progress 
 can be made in knowledge, unless its treasures are 
 ardently sought. To condemn investigation, is to 
 paralyze intellect ; yea, it is to affirm that there is 
 nothing more to learn, or nothing more worth learn- 
 ing, from the Sacred Scriptures : it is to assume that 
 the spiritual universe has no new facts to yield in 
 response to the painstaking of the patient inquirer. 
 
LIBERTY OF SEARCH AND OF SPEECH. 135 
 
 The Baptists have never proceeded on supposi- 
 tions so untenable. They have ever stood forth 
 the champions of untrammelled intellect, — of liberty 
 of search, and liberty of speech everywhere. The 
 creed which symbolizes their views, is not their Bible. 
 Their definitions and formulas, are the growth of 
 centuries. They have been modified again and 
 again, while the truths which they represent have 
 been substantially preserved ; and, were they to be 
 recast to-day, the light which has been thrown upon 
 theology by natural science and Biblical criticism, 
 would modify them yet again. The Bible is a fixed 
 quantity, nature is a fixed quantity; but theology 
 and science are not. They are unfixed, changing 
 and changeable. By recognizing this fact, and 
 acting upon it, Baptists have delivered themselves 
 from Antinomian as well as from other errors, 
 and from an anti-missionary spirit. They cannot, 
 therefore, consistently with their past, denounce the 
 aggressive spirit of inquiry in the present. Nor, is 
 there any reason to believe that they are disposed to 
 adopt so narrow a policy. They still say to each 
 other, " Search, think, study ; leave no effort untried 
 to ascertain the mind of the Spirit on all subjects 
 pertaining to life and godliness." 
 
 While Protestantism very generally encourages 
 this enlightened and enlightening spirit, those who 
 are moved by it to strenuous endeavor should not 
 
136 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 forget, as they avail themselves of their right, that its 
 exercise has never been child's play, and never will 
 be. On the whole, it is rather rugged business, and 
 not such business as the sensitive and timid should 
 engage in. It is no field for carpet-knights, no work 
 for the self-conceited. New opinions cannot be pro- 
 claimed without inviting criticism, and the sharpest 
 scrutiny. They shock conservatism and settled 
 convictions, and necessarily excite antagonism. 
 Thoughtful men, will not abandon long-cherished 
 views without a struggle. And, consequently, the 
 man who ventures to broach a novel doctrine, must 
 possess his soul in patience, and must be prepared to 
 make a way for it at the cost of personal ease and 
 peace. He will never succeed in gaining a place for 
 it among the received teachings of the Church, by 
 fretfulness or denunciation. Manfully must he bear 
 himself in a manly conflict. For him to weep over 
 the so-viewed prejudices of his brethren, who cannot 
 be convinced by mere assertions, is to make himself 
 ridiculous. And for him to meet the sharpness of 
 inevitable resistance with vituperation, or for him to 
 cry bigotry, because a whole denomination cannot see 
 as he does, is to be guilty of the very bigotry which 
 he charges upon others. 
 
 Let us now suppose an unfortunate case, — that 
 some of those who ardently investigate are led 
 to embrace conclusions diametrically opposed to 
 
THE LAW OF SEPARATION. 137 
 
 the teachings of the organization of which they are 
 members, and which naturally tend towards its utter 
 overthrow : can their duty under the circumstances, 
 or that of their associates, be at all problematical? 
 If they have fallen into infidelity, or free religion, 
 or, Unitarianism, their views, iowever honestly held, 
 can no more be tolerated in evangelical churches, 
 than can allegiance to the monarchical principle of 
 government be maintained harmoniously with alle- 
 giance to republican institutions. The man who is 
 a loyal citizen of America, cannot, at the same time, 
 be a loyal citizen of England. And no more could 
 an unbeliever consistently maintain, or be encour- 
 aged to maintain, his relations with a church. In 
 the nature of things, there must be a separation. 
 For the Church to countenance his infidelity, would 
 be fatal to her own existence ; and for him to be 
 willing to continue in membership with her, would 
 be ruinous to his own character. If neither can 
 honorably indorse the other, they abide no longer in 
 real fellowship ; and, the sooner the nominal connec- 
 tion is severed, the better for the integrity of both. 
 While the dissident should see that it is effected at 
 once, if he fails to pursue the only honorable course 
 open to him, the Church in self-defence must employ 
 the instrument of excision. And if she should do so, 
 his liberty would not be violated ; for liberty does 
 not mean the right to force her to sustain what she 
 repudiates : that were tyranny. 
 
138 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 But, investigation, happily, does not frequently lead 
 to such radical changes in the views of ministers or 
 laymen. If, however, it results in modifications of 
 their belief, which, though they do not harmonize 
 with the doctrines or practices of the Church, do 
 not obscure her essential character, nor subvert her 
 organic integrity, what course should she take? 
 Should she cut them off ? Should she thrust them 
 forth from her membership ? Or should she exer- 
 cise towards them a generous though qualified tole- 
 ration ? The latter course is the one I most heartily 
 approve ; and, when it is at all practicable, it is the 
 one most commonly pursued by the Baptist denomi- 
 nation. 
 
 Unquestionably there are among the Baptists, as 
 among other religious people, those who seem to be 
 constitutionally averse to the exercise of toleration. 
 They prefer the more direct process of summary 
 decapitation. It is difficult for them to make allow- 
 ances for variations in belief from accepted stand- 
 ards. Possibly, they have never thought much on 
 their own account, and so cannot appreciate those 
 who must settle all questions for themselves, and 
 who cannot readily yield allegiance to the traditions 
 of the Fathers. 
 
 Such brethren, make broad their phylacteries in 
 the presence of dissent. God's fair pasture-land, 
 where weak ones of the flock may feed side by side 
 
TOLERATION IN CHURCHES. 139 
 
 with the strong, they convert into a dry, stony 
 plain, where few, even of the strongest, can find 
 spiritual herbage. The heritage of the saints on 
 earth, they change into a sombre pine-wood, in whose 
 frowning shadow no other species of the heavenly 
 plant, than that which they approve, is permitted to 
 take root. Just as primroses cannot grow in a pine- 
 forest, just as its dark aisles are never lighted by 
 starry anemones, and just as blue-bells and forget- 
 me-nots cannot spread among its brown needles and 
 empty cones the azure reflection of a little heaven 
 below, so forbearance, tenderness, gentleness, charity, 
 have no scope for their growth, no congenial soil 
 for their roots, in the sunless intolerance of these 
 brethren. 
 
 Were their advice generally followed, and their 
 example commonly imitated, Christendom would be 
 forced into as many divisions as there are shades of 
 belief. Under such circumstances, the prayer of the 
 Free Kirk minister, offered in Scotland not many 
 years ago, " that all might be baptized into the spirit 
 of disruption," would receive a too literal response. 
 Surely we have sects in sufficient number. It can- 
 not be necessary to increase them ; and it cannot be 
 best for the interests of religion, to found a church 
 upon every shade of opinion, or difference in prac- 
 tice, which obtains among Christians. There must 
 be some place for toleration ; but, if we invariably 
 
140 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 separate from those who differ from us, we leave no 
 room for its exercise, unless, as some brethren do, 
 we condescend to tolerate those who do not dissent 
 from our convictions regarding truth and duty. 
 
 Fenelon once said, " Accordez a tous la tolerance, 
 non pas en approuvant tout comme indifferent, mais 
 en souffrant avec patience ce que Dieu souffre ; " 
 and something of this spirit, I am satisfied, must 
 prevail in the churches of all denominations, unless 
 we would see the evils of sectarianism indefinitely 
 multiplied. 
 
 I have said that toleration should be qualified. 
 Unless it is, it will probably run into latitudinarian- 
 ism or indifference. But here I confess a difficulty. 
 In what terms shall its boundaries be prescribed? 
 How shall its limitations be defined ? Possibly 
 they can never be absolutely determined. Dissi- 
 dence varies so materially in its character, the 
 circumstances which surround it are so diverse, the 
 spirit which animates it is so different in different 
 individuals, that it does not seem practicable to lay 
 down unchangeable rules for its uniform treatment. 
 No set of regulations on the subject, can be applica- 
 ble to all "cases. The spirit of toleration must be 
 left to work out its own manifestations ; and these 
 will always be influenced by the peculiarities of its 
 surroundings, and by the occasion which seems to 
 call for its exhibition. 
 
DOCTRINAL DIFFERENCES. 141 
 
 While I recognize the force of this difficulty, and 
 while I cannot hope to obviate it by any thing I may 
 write, a few general principles, suggested mainly by 
 the usual practice of that denomination, whose 
 history is so fully identified with the progress of 
 liberty, may not be altogether useless. They may 
 at least serve to show how, in ordinary cases, tol- 
 eration can be exercised compatibly with personal 
 integrity and the interests of good government. 
 
 When one differs from his brethren on some non- 
 vital point of doctrine, such as the order of conver- 
 sion, the time or nature of the second advent, the 
 extent of the atonement, he is not to be restrained 
 in its proclamation. Among the Baptists, various 
 opinions exist upon these subjects. Some of them 
 are old school Calvinists, others are new school ; 
 some believe that faith precedes repentance, others 
 that repentance precedes faith ; some ardently ad- 
 vocate the pre-millennial doctrine, while others as 
 ardently deny it. But, as all agree to the reality of 
 the atonement, the need of efficacious grace to save, 
 the supernaturalness of conversion, and to the 
 certain coming of Christ at last in judgment, they 
 tolerate each other's differences, and permit no 
 breach in their fellowship. Should one or the other 
 of these parties be dissatisfied with the arrange- 
 ment, and insist that his views become the standard 
 of orthodoxy, a conflict would occur which could 
 
142 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 only end in new compromises, or in separation. If 
 such an agitator, should be led by his fiery zeal to 
 denounce as narrow bigots those who cannot sub- 
 scribe to his notions, he would simply be transgress- 
 ing the bounds of his own liberty, and in spirit 
 would be violating that of others. In such a case, 
 toleration would cease to be commendable. 
 
 A brother, in the course of his life, may em 
 brace a peculiar sentiment, which, if generally 
 adopted, would materially affect the Church in the 
 sphere of practice, modifying her government, and 
 possibly, her ordinances. While neither hiding nor 
 denying his convictions, he may, for reasons satisfac- 
 tory to his own conscience, be perfectly willing to 
 conform to the requirements of the body in which he 
 has membership. If he holds what he believes as a 
 private opinion, holds it unobtrusively and kindly, 
 no one, in the name of uniformity, should wage a 
 warfare against him, or disturb him in the enjoyment 
 of his personal right. For instance, if he regards 
 democratic church government as unscriptural, and 
 favors the hierarchical form, it is for him to decide 
 how far his conscience will permit him to live under 
 the first while believing the divine authority of the 
 second. He must decide on his own course of 
 conduct. Certainly so long as Baptists are *iot 
 expected to indorse his theories, and he submits to 
 their practice, they can have no controversy with 
 
OPEN COMMUNION. 143 
 
 him. So long as they are not called upon to violate 
 their own convictions, or act inconsistently with 
 their faith on the subject, they can afford to pass 
 unnoticed his innoxious dissent. But, should the 
 innovator insist that the entire body shall make his 
 theory their practice, then unless they are prepared 
 to abandon their cherished doctrine, a collision of 
 consciences will be unavoidable. If his conscience 
 demands the recognition of what his brethren can- 
 not conscientiously but regard as erroneous, tolera- 
 tion is at an end : one or the other of the disputants 
 must conform, or they must separate. The time will 
 have come for the adoption of that course, which 
 was pointed out many centuries ago by an old man, 
 who said to his brethren in a season of heated 
 controversy, " Let us agree as far as we can ; and, 
 where we cannot agree, in God's name let us agree 
 to differ." But, if he will not yield to such an 
 admonition, then must the Church heed the apos- 
 tolic direction to " mark, or avoid those who cause 
 divisions contrary to the doctrine of Christ ; " and 
 she can only do this by rigidly enforcing her disci- 
 pliue. 
 
 This principle is substantially followed by Bap- 
 tist churches, in their dealings with those who pro- 
 fess what are known as open-communion sentiments. 
 In the United States, they maintain, with singular 
 unanimity the doctrine that the Lord's Supper is 
 
144 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 an ordinance committed to the care of a local 
 church, and should be administered exclusively to 
 its members. Wide-spread differences of opinion 
 obtain among the brethren, regarding the degree of 
 rigidity with which the laws of its administration 
 should be enforced ; but only a few, comparatively, 
 dissent from the doctrine itself. Some believe that 
 no invitation to partake of the elements should be 
 given at all, to any one ; others maintain that mem- 
 bers of sister Baptist bodies should be invited : some 
 deny the right of immersed disciples of other congre- 
 gations to a seat with them ; while not a few as ar- 
 dently contend, that believers who have submitted to 
 this ordinance should be welcome, come they from 
 any denomination whatever. There are those who 
 would withhold the bread and the wine from a Paedo- 
 baptist brother, who might be in attendance on the 
 service ; and there are those who would administer 
 them to him, or pass them to him if he were near 
 them, believing that all responsibility in the case 
 must be left with the recipient. These variations 
 have, doubtless, deepened the impression, that has of 
 late been industrious^ made, that the denomination 
 is on the eve of abolishing all restrictions to the 
 Lord's Supper. But such is not the case : they only 
 indicate the spirit of mutual consideration and for- 
 bearance which distinguishes the Baptists in the in- 
 terpretation of -these restrictions; they are but signs 
 
TOLERATING OPEN CO MM UNIONISTS, 145 
 
 of a charity which makes allowances, and does not 
 expect exact conformity in details and particulars. 
 
 It is notable, also, that this charity is not withheld 
 even from those who, though members of Baptist 
 churches, deny the scripturalness of close communion. 
 There is a wide-spread desire in the denomination, 
 to bear with them as far as possible, and not to pro- 
 ceed to extremes with them, unless no other course 
 is open. Doubtless, among the two million regular 
 Baptists in America, there are several hundred, pos- 
 sibly several thousand, open-communionists, but very 
 rarely are they made subjects of discipline. They 
 come and go in their pews, they preach and pray in 
 their pulpits ; and the case is exceptional where they 
 suffer any loss of standing. Instances quite numer- 
 ous could be given to show, that they are, almost uni- 
 formly, treated with the most marked consideration. 
 
 This, in my judgment, is as it should be. Al- 
 though I hold very rigidly to the principle of 
 church communion, if a brother in a Baptist church 
 cherishes the opposite view as a sacred opinion, I 
 would have him neither denounced as a sentiment- 
 alist, nor excluded as a heretic. The order of the 
 ordinances is not the all and in all of the denomina- 
 tion. He who differs from the great majority of his 
 brethren on this point, may be in strict accord with 
 them on all others. He may be inconsistent as a 
 Baptist in this respect, and yet may be a very thor- 
 
146 THE GREAT CONFLICT, 
 
 ough Baptist in every thing else. Orthodoxy on 
 this subject should not be magnified, even in appear- 
 ance, above orthodoxy on more important questions, 
 such as the supremacy of the Scripture, or the spirit- 
 uality of church-membership. We cannot see alike 
 on all other doctrines : no wonder, then, that there is 
 some disagreement on this. He who entertains the 
 open theory, as a theory, has a right to fair treat- 
 ment and candid consideration. Even if he occasion- 
 ally communes with other denominations, as such 
 an act does not necessarily compromise those who 
 could not honestly do so, he should not be dealt with 
 as an alien ; for in such case he is responsible to God 
 alone. He may have reasons for his course, which 
 may be so native to his temperament and modes of 
 thought, as to be beyond the comprehension and 
 sympathy of his brethren. His act may be born 
 of an inward craving, which they have never felt. 
 Absence from home in foreign lands, circumstances 
 in which he may be placed, where he may feel that a 
 refusal to partake with others might do more* harm 
 to Christianity than participation ; and even other 
 considerations, may influence his judgment. Such 
 departures from the practice of the denomination 
 should not be approved ; and yet it may not be best 
 to make them matters of discipline. They may be 
 criticised in a tolerant manner ; and the privilege of 
 defence, in the same manner, should not be refused. 
 
LIMITS OF TOLERATION. 147 
 
 An enlightened exchange of views upon the subject 
 will always clo more than high-handed discipline 
 towards remedying the defect. 
 
 If it is thought that I carry toleration too far in 
 this respect, then I must confess, that the denomina- 
 tion of which I am a member is largely to blame. 
 She has taught me, by her practice in such cases, 
 what I candidly avow in sentiment. Not a few of 
 her leading men, both lay and cleric, have partaken 
 of the Supper with those who are members of other 
 bodies ; and I have never known her to discipline 
 them for their conduct. The newspapers may have 
 censured them, but the churches have invariably left 
 them alone. They may have felt that the matter 
 lay beyond their jurisdiction, or that its investiga- 
 tion was hindered by obstacles almost insurmount- 
 able ; or, what is most likely, they may have been 
 constrained by a charity which " suffereth long," to 
 overlook, what they were far from approving. 
 
 But, as I have intimated, there is a limit to such 
 toleration. If nothing will satisfy the open-com- 
 munion brother, but the recognition of his theory in 
 the practice of the churches, then the time has 
 come for resistance to his revolutionary programme. 
 If he insists that they shall adopt his principles, let 
 down all barriers, receive all professors to the table, 
 then as he is demanding that their faith shall con- 
 form to his, they can not be warranted in bearing 
 much longer with him. 
 
148 THE GREAT CONFLICT. - . 
 
 No amount of declamation, vituperation, or re- 
 crimination, may be able to convince them. They 
 may modestly, but sincerely, believe the brother to be 
 in error, and humbly, but firmly think that they 
 have some rights which are not to be ignored. 
 Controversy will be inevitable ; and the issue must 
 be separation. 
 
 As it stands in fact, the conscience of the denomi- 
 nation will not permit her to assume the responsi- 
 bility of making common cause with the open- 
 communionist. If, therefore, in defence of her 
 integrity she casts the innovator out, is she fairly 
 liable to censure ? Is she under such circumstances 
 amenable to the charge of doing violence to his 
 liberty, when she is but guarding her own? Should 
 the innovator be unwilling to recognize this aspect 
 of the case, and be guilty of disturbing the peace of 
 the church, how shall he be treated? How would 
 other religious bodies deal with such a disturber? 
 If he avows his intention, as far as in him lies, to 
 enforce his peculiar view ; if he invites men and 
 women to the Lord's table, whom for reasons satis- 
 factory to themselves his brethren cannot welcome ; 
 and if he disregards the convictions of others, ridi- 
 culing those entertaining them, and possibly mis- 
 representing their motives and their spirit, — shall 
 he not be adjudged guilty of attempted tyranny? 
 Shall he not be regarded as despotic in conduct, 
 
A CRUEL SLANDER. 149 
 
 and on this account, if on no other, be excluded 
 from fellowship ? 
 
 In this way, and in this way only, can the present 
 drift towards looseness be checked, and at the same 
 time the gentle spirit of toleration be preserved. 
 
 I have been thus particular in these statements 
 because it is now repeatedly charged upon the Bap- 
 tists, that at last they are proving recreant to the 
 doctrine of soul-liberty. Never was there more 
 cruel slander. They are as catholic, and as chari- 
 table as at %ny former period of their history. They 
 concede to all Christians what they claim for them- 
 selves, — the right to guard their faith from insult, 
 and their churches from anarchy. They have made 
 a way for all creeds to stand on equal footing before 
 the law ; and for this they have incurred reproach, 
 and sacrificed every thing but honor. Were it 
 needful, they would do the same again, and shed 
 the last drop of blood to insure to the humblest dis- 
 ciple unfettered freedom to speak what he believes, 
 to practise what he thinks. Having done this in the 
 years gone by, willing to do so still, is it a great 
 thing for them to ask from their brethren the privi- 
 leges of that liberty, which they concede to others ? 
 
 It has been said, that the Baptists are losing some 
 of their more refined clergymen, on account of their 
 close communion. If the statement is correct, the 
 ministers who withdraw, because license, in effect, 
 
150 THE GREAT CONFLICT 
 
 is not substituted for law, can well be spared. Such- 
 chaff may be permitted to fly : it will always be 
 light enough to be blown by every wind of popu- 
 larity. Although it is more delicate and refined 
 than the wheat, it is hardly as valuable. Baptists 
 can afford to be purged of proud, indolent humors : 
 the body will be more vigorous in consequence. 
 But they may rest assured, if the powerful under- 
 current which has borne against their denomination 
 for centuries has not sapped her foundations, a 
 thousand lesser tides can only froth and bubble on 
 the surface, and waste their strength, not hers. So 
 long as there is generosity and manliness in human 
 hearts to follow with sympathetic, and, yet, exult- 
 ing spirit the reverses and the triumphs of their 
 ancestral principles, so long as the justice of their 
 cause shines forth both broad and clear through the 
 din and the dust of the conflict, there shall never 
 be wanting ministers, prepared to take their posi- 
 tion on the well-trodden battle-field in defence of 
 liberty and law. 
 
 Harrington, a Baptist writer of note in Cromwell's 
 time, penned these significant words : " Where lib- 
 erty of conscience is entire, it includes civil liberty." 
 This passage we quote, that those who are not of us 
 in faith may realize, that this sacred cause cannot be 
 indifferent to the citizens of our country. They can 
 
CIVIL LIBERTY. 151 
 
 no more afford than we to see its progress checked, 
 or its supremacy diminished. 
 
 Liberty of conscience and civil liberty are sisters, 
 but the first is the elder of the two. Where the 
 first exists, where the intellect spurns shackles, and 
 the heart refuses allegiance to any lord but God, 
 the other will soon appear ; for noble people will be 
 nobly ruled, and they who are freemen before God, 
 will not long consent to continue in bonds to man. 
 
 M. Jules Simon (La Liberie de Conscience^), has 
 recently said, that " liberty of conscience is certainly 
 the most necessary of all our liberties : it is the 
 condition and the source of all the others." His 
 countryman M. Edouard Laboulaye, in an elaborate 
 passage, confirms this sentiment. He shows, that 
 every kind of spiritual despotism results in ignor- 
 ance and fanaticism, that the pretended religious 
 unity of Spain and Italy is death, while the reli- 
 gious freedom of England and the United States 
 is conspicuously beneficial. Castelar, in his cele- 
 brated papers on " Republicanism " creates a similar 
 impression. The real glory of our county in its 
 origin and progress, he ascribes to the freedom all 
 enjoy of reading and stud} T ing an open Bible. 
 
 If, then, to this lofty principle we owe the spirit 
 which called these States into being, we can be no 
 less dependent upon it for their maintenance. If Ave 
 would preserve our civil institutions, we must pre- 
 
152 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 serve our love of religious liberty. It is in the sense 
 of obligation to God which it fosters, it is in the 
 self-governing power which it imparts, and it is in 
 the inveterate hatred of every species of tyranny 
 which it excites, that the security of a free common- 
 wealth is lodged. A free nation cannot be stricken 
 down as long as she is guarded by a free church. 
 Only by the way of her heart's blood can her sister's 
 life be reached. 
 
 Behold the Capitol of our nation, that lifts its 
 mighty dome towards heaven ! The sculptured 
 marble sparkles in the sunlight, and the long rows 
 of massive pillars gleam as shafts of silver. As it 
 stands serene and immovable, it looks at once the 
 model of aspiration and stability. Hark, the mut- 
 tering thunder ! see how the dark clouds lower on 
 the magnificent structure, and the shadows grow less 
 distinct in its recesses. The golden skies assume a 
 leaden tinge, and the storm-rack gathers into rugged 
 masses rolling earthward like the billows of a tem- 
 pestuous ocean. Distant echoing thunder comes 
 nearer, its reverberations growing louder, until its 
 swift-repeating peals appall the stoutest heart. From 
 the overhanging blackness flash follows flash, and 
 now the thunderbolt comes crashing down. Well 
 may the spectators pause; well may they with up- 
 lifted hands exclaim, " Our country's Capitol is 
 ruined ! " 
 
PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTY. 153 
 
 Timid ones, be not afraid ! The glaring light- 
 ning has not touched the proud pinnacle which 
 seemed to invite its stroke. Only for a moment 
 it glistened round its summit, like an aureole con- 
 verted into anger. Why has it paused in its swift 
 career? Examine more closely, and you will dis- 
 cover projecting above the glittering dome, rising 
 nearer than it to heaven, an unpretending but lofty 
 rod, which has caught the descending fire and 
 diverted it from the endangered pile. The conduct- 
 ing medium has drawn to itself, and has buried 
 in the earth the swift, consuming wrath of God. 
 
 The Capitol at Washington fitly symbolizes the 
 nation, strong, glorious, free, reposing in stability 
 and beauty beneath the calm serenity of heaven. 
 We cannot hope that it will always be thus peaceful 
 and secure. Storms must gather, and dangers come. 
 Already there are signs of tempests wild and high. 
 Let us rejoice that the nation is not at their mercy. 
 The modest rod that penetrates the sky from yonder 
 dome is the expressive sign of that which is almost 
 unrecognizable to the common eye, soul-liberty. 
 Bound to the walls of our political structure, and 
 rising higher than its pinnacle, soul-liberty must 
 avert the bolts of dire calamity, come they from the 
 thick clouds of passion and ambition, or from the 
 thicker ones of ignorance and fanaticism. Though 
 tempests may rage, and lightnings flash, in vain 
 
154 THE GREAT CONFLICT. 
 
 their fury. Partisan politicians, fierce demagogues, 
 corrupt officials, may hurl themselves like unbridled 
 thunderbolts against the integrity of our civil institu- 
 tions ; but impotent to harm are they so long as soul- 
 liberty endures, and holds communion with the sky. 
 
 We stand on the threshold of a new age: the 
 present is creating the future. You, my readers, are 
 the present; and it is for you to dash down, and 
 crush beneath the weight of your sacred indignation 
 every barrier to the continued progress of Liberty. 
 From her hands you must unfasten every shackle, 
 from her wings you must unloose every bond, from 
 her feet you must remove every dragging chain. If 
 she is faint, you must revive her ; if she is weak, 
 you must strengthen her ; if she is maligned, you 
 must vindicate her. To do this you must enrich her 
 with knowledge, invigorate her with justice, and 
 adorn her with beauty. Then from your side shall 
 she speed her way into ages you shall never see, and 
 into lands you shall never tread, to bless them with 
 her sublime philanthropy forever. 
 
 " There's a fount about to stream, 
 There's a light about to beam, 
 There's a warmth about to glow, 
 There's a flower about to blow, 
 There's a midnight blackness changing into gray: 
 Men of thought and men of action. 
 Clear the way ! 
 
PROTECTING CIVIL LIBERTY. 155 
 
 Aid the dawning, tongue and pen I 
 Aid it, hopes of honest men ! 
 Aid it, paper ! aid it, type! 
 Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 
 And our earnest must not slacken into play: 
 Men of thought and men of action, 
 Clear the way ! " 
 
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