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formists parts them by a deep and wide gulf from the uncompromising Separatists who had come over in the Mayflower. The distinction certainly needs to be borne in mind, but in our judgment it is not of that vital importance which is sometimes claimed for it. It does not seem to us that much is gained by contending that the Pilgrim Fathers were not Puritans, but Separatists. We know no valid or sufficient reason for refusing them their right of inheritance in the great name and traditions of Puritanism. They were both Puritans and Separatists. It were as unreasonable to deny their right to be called Protestants. The Separatists in the Puritan party were only extreme Puritans; they were the vanguard of the Puritan host, that is to say, they carried their zeal for reform and purity of doctrine and worship to its implied and, as they believed, necessary conse

1 See pamphlet entitled, The Pilgrim Fathers neither Puritans nor Persecutors. A Lecture delivered at the Friends' Institute, London, on the 18th January 1866. Reprinted in 1891, with Preface, by the late Benjamin Scott, Esq., F.R.A.S., Chamberlain of the City of London. Third edition. (Elliot Stock.) Mr. Scott makes much of the hostility existing between Puritan and Separatist-the fact that the former was sometimes more bitter against Separatism than against Prelacy or Popery—as an evidence of the marked and radical difference between them, but this by no means sustains his contention. It is unhappily only too common for those who are members of the same household of faith, whether in politics or in religion, to regard each other with inveterate dislike. The feeling which the Whig sometimes has for the Radical and the Radical for the Whig, the feeling which the general Baptist sometimes has for the strict Baptist, and the strict Baptist for the general, not to speak of numerous other instances, should have led him, we think, to suspect the conclusiveness of such evidence. The old classification of "moderate” Puritans and "rigid" Puritans (see Fletcher's History of Independency, vol. iii. p. 28), or Puritans and Puritan Separatists, seems on every ground to be preferred to that of Puritans and Separatists.

quence. To borrow a political illustration, the Whigs may be said to compose the right, and the Radicals the left wing of the Liberal party, but the right of both to be designated Liberals is allowed and recognised.1 In the same way there is no reason to deviate from traditional usage in regarding those who were zealous for separation from the Church of England as members of the great Puritan party.

But there are other reasons why this distinction should not be pressed, and not the least influential is that derived from the character of New Plymouth Independency, as impressed upon it by Robinson. Quoting once more from the memorable address: "Another thing he commanded to us that we should use all means to avoid and shake off the name of Brownist, being a mere nickname and brand to make religion odious and the professors of it odious to the Christian world. For," said he, "there will be no difference between the unconformable ministers and you when they come to the practice of ordinances out of the kingdom." This prediction was literally fulfilled. Separatists and conforming Puritans, as they were called, found no difficulty in composing their differences on the free soil of New England. The fact

1"The English Reformation was brought about, as every other great change is brought about, by the co-operation of two classes of men, who are, on the whole, content with the principles by which they have hitherto guided their lives, though they think some changes ought to be made in matters of detail; and those who start upon an entirely new principle, and who strive to realise an ideal society which commends itself to their own minds. They answer, in short, to the Whigs and Radicals of modern political life, whilst the Conservatives are represented by a third class, averse to all change whatever."-Gardiner's Puritan Revolution, p. 1.

that there was no Church to dissent from was an effectual guarantee that this apple of discord would not be introduced among them. The seed of liberty soon found a congenial nidus in the prolific soil of New England. Its growth could not be checked. The Conformists soon found themselves making common cause with the Separatists; not only did scruples and differences begin to melt away, but they found themselves also, by a spontaneous and rapid process, assimilating the extreme principles of the latter.1

The Puritans in England were amazed as well as alarmed at the boldness of their brethren in Massachusetts, and the correspondence that passed between them—expostulation on the one side and self-defence on the other—is instructive and entertaining. It shows that no sooner had Endicott and the Puritans who came with him begun to breathe the air of the free wilderness, than they began to lose the antipathy of their party against Separatism, and to see that the theory of the Pilgrims concerning "the outward form of God's worship" was "warranted by the evidence of truth." In the Utopia of New England there was no room for the

1 The ease with which rigid Puritanism drifted into Separatism in New England, is signally illustrated in the case of John Cotton, formerly rector of St. Botolph's Church in Boston, Lincolnshire. "As long as he abode in England, in all his opposition to the episcopal corruptions, went not beyond Cartwright and the Presbyterians. So soon as he did taste of the New English air he fell into so passionate an affection with the religion he found there, that, incontinent, he began to persuade it with a great deal more zeal and success than before he had opposed it."-Palfrey's History of New England, vol. ii. p. 84, note.

2 See Hanbury's Historical Memorials, vol. ii. chap. xxxv., entitled, "Nine positions sent to New England-Answers-Reply."

propagation or assertion of erroneous opinions, even about "things indifferent." 1 It will thus be seen that the Church position taken up by the colonists at Salem was substantially the same as that which had been outlined by Robinson and adopted by the Fathers at Plymouth.

There is no preciser form of democracy extant than that which was established as the basis of the government of Massachusetts. Voting by ballot was introduced from the beginning, and "government of the people, for the people, by the people "-to use the memorable words of Abraham Lincoln-gave token that it was nevermore to "perish from the earth." The time was not yet`ripe for universal suffrage, but, with this exception, representative democracy was as perfect in New England as it is in the America of to-day.

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Church membership a condition of the franchise. -In their zeal for religion the colonists of Massachusetts went beyond the Fathers of New Plymouth, for "to the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was 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." On this account the accusation of narrowness has been freely brought against the colonists of Massachusetts. But it does not appear that, in this instance, the accusation has any firm basis on which to rest. The condition imposed seemed to the members of

1 The Genesis of the New England Churches, by Dr. Leonard Bacon, pp. 456, 462.

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a theocracy such as Massachusetts aspired to be, the most suitable and the most natural thing possible under the circumstances. Unquestionably it would have been wiser if they had seen their way to the broad position taken up by Cromwell: "The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies." But in Massachusetts things were not ripe for such a principle of selection. Indeed, it is difficult to see how they could have acted upon any other principle than that which they did, though it was sure to be found unworkable as the colony grew stronger and more numerous. We may say, with Dr. Palfrey,1 that the conception, if a delusive and impracticable, was a noble one. "Nothing better can be imagined for the welfare of a country than that it shall be ruled on Christian principles; in other words, that its rulers shall be Christian men-men of disinterestedness and integrity of the choicest quality that the world knows-men whose fear of God exalts them above every other fear, and whose controlling love of God and of man consecrates them to the most generous aims. The conclusive objection to the scheme is one which experience had not yet revealed, for the experiment was now made for the first time."

In New Plymouth church membership was not made a condition of the elective franchise. As we shall have occasion to show in what falls to be said upon this subject, the spirit of toleration was more prevalent among

1 History of New England, vol. i. p. 345. See also, for defence of Massachusetts, Dr. Dexter's Congregationalism as seen in its Literature, p. 420.

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