slow, Miles Standish, William Bradford, had all passed away. New Plymouth was no longer an independent colony, but had become confederated with Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven. Clearly, then, no charge of persecution as against Friends or Quakers can be sustained against the Fathers and first settlers of New England.1 Reference has been already made to the prevalence of toleration in New Plymouth as compared with Massachusetts. The treatment of Quakers was far more humane. It was never guilty of the crime of hanging witches. In New Plymouth church membership was not made a condition of the elective franchise. Those larger and freer sentiments in regard to the toleration of differing opinions, which were fermenting in the minds of a large and influential section of their countrymen in England, were beginning to operate upon the minds of colonists, and they read with avidity the literature which was being continually imported into the colony. The impression that it made upon them may be gathered from a movement which was set on foot in New Plymouth : for a full and free tolerance of religion to all men, without exception, against Turk, Jew, Papist, Arian, Socinian, Familist, or any other." Winslow, governor of the colony, writing to Governor Winthrop, says: "You would have admired to have seen how sweet the carion relished to 1 See pamphlet entitled, The Pilgrim Fathers neither Puritans nor Persecutors, by the late Chamberlain of the City of London, Benjamin Scott, Esq., F.R.A.S. In this pamphlet Mr. Scott brings forward some interesting facts, showing how the sons and descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers were honourably distinguished for their hatred of, and hostility to, persecution. the palate of most of them." The movement was defeated by delay; but it shows in what direction the mind of these Plymouth Puritans was tending. Puritans and Puritans.-What has just been said about New Plymouth illustrates the necessity of careful discrimination when passing judgment upon the Puritans as a party or class. To their detractors and the majority of critics it never seems to occur that there were Puritans and Puritans; that the name stands for almost as much diversity of faith and character as the name "Protestant." Hence much that has been written about the Puritans recalls the saying of Napoleon, that "history is a fable that has been agreed on." 1 For instance, in his work on The Puritan Colonies, Mr. Doyle says: "To speak of the Puritan, whether in England or America, as the champion of spiritual freedom, is a proof of ignorance or worse. Toleration was abhorrent to him, even when he most needed it. He would have scorned those pleas of expediency which modern apologists have sometimes urged in his behalf. His creed on this matter was as simple as that of St. Lewis or Torquemada. had possession of the truth, and it was his bounden duty, by whatever means, to promote the extension of that truth, and to restrain and extirpate error. In this he in no wise fell short of the moral standard of He But as a specimen of wholesale reckless denunciation 1 See ante, p. 112; Doyle's English in America: Puritan Colonies, vol. i. p. 6. it would be difficult to match the following choice passage, taken from a leading literary English journal: 1 "The savage brutality of the American Puritans, truthfully told, would afford one of the most significant and profitable lessons that history could teach. Champions of liberty, but merciless and unprincipled tyrants; fugitives from persecution, but the most senseless and reckless of persecutors; claimants of an enlightened religion, but the last upholders of the cruel and ignorant creed of the witch doctors; whining over the ferocity of the Indian, yet outdoing that ferocity a hundredfold," etc. But probably enough has been quoted of this kind of swearing at large. It serves at least to illustrate the venomous antipathy which it has ever been the fate of the Puritans to provoke, whether in America or in England. Their enemies and critics (of this school) have never professed to be restrained by the usual urbanities of controversy, nor to be governed by the ordinary rules of literary warfare, but have gone upon the principle that any stick is good enough with which to beat a cur of a Puritan. The homage of such hate is perhaps the greatest of all tributes which has been paid to the greatness of Puritanism. 1 The Saturday Review, January 29th, 1881. CONTENTS OF CHAPTER VII Toleration not from scepticism, ignorance, or indifference, Lecky, Froude, Morley, Dr. Johnson, Charles James Fox-Lord Herbert and Hobbes, St. Louis-Philips Brooks' definition of tolerance-Wrong views rebutted—Appeal to history-Origin of toleration-Christian Church founded on. Edict of Milan Tertullian, Lactantius, Athanasius-William of Occam, Marsiglio-Wyclif--Augsburg Confession-Luther-Hallam points to More and Jeremy Taylor— Masson on-Pioneers of liberty and toleration, how to be judgedNote on "The duty of persecution"—Note on "The tolerance of indifference"-Earliest apostles of toleration from among the persecuted -Masson's testimony to Independents and Baptists-English Baptist Church at Amsterdam-Dutch Anabaptists first advocates of toleration-William of Orange-Dutch Anabaptists in London-Robert Browne first to advocate toleration in England-Toleration bound up with Independency-Bishop Hooper-Robert Browne-Yet Browne's doctrine not toleration in the fullest sense-Plea that Papists might be tolerated-Principle of toleration very imperfectly understood-Roger Williams gave it widest practical application— Henry Jacob, Leonard Busher-Both allow magistrate right of interference in religious matters Williams a fanatic for liberty – American Puritans, intolerance of--Less inexcusable, because living in age of intolerance-Note on "Does Calvinism promote intolerance ?”—Bancroft quoted-Buckle, Froude, Fairbairn― Note on "Calvinism and Puritanism not identical." |