New England, they expelled Baptists and hanged Quakers on the virgin soil of Massachusetts before and after the Westminster Assembly. On the other hand, however, there is not a Christian Church or sect that has not complained of intolerance and injustice under persecution, and that has not furnished some bold advocates of toleration and freedom, from Tertullian and Lactantius down to Roger Williams and William Penn. This is the redeeming feature in this fearful picture, and must not be overlooked in making up a just esti

mate.

It is therefore the greatest possible injustice to charge the persecutions to Christianity, which breathes the very opposite spirit of forbearance, forgiveness, love, and liberality; which teaches us to suffer wrong rather than to inflict wrong; and which, by restoring the divine image in man, and lifting him up to the sphere of spiritual freedom, is really the pure source of all that is truly valuable in our modern ideas of civil and religious liberty. Whatever may be said of the severity of the Mosaic legislation, which assumes the union of the civil and ecclesiastical power, Christ and the Apostles, both by precept and example, strictly prohibit the use of carnal means for the promotion of the kingdom of heaven, which is spiritual in its origin, character, and aim. The reminiscence of this spirit lingered in the Church through the darkest ages in the maxin Ecclesia non sitit sanguinem.

It is also wrong to derive intolerance from the strength and intensity of religious conviction-although this undoubtedly may come in as an additional stimulus-and to trace toleration to skepticism and unbelief. For who had stronger convictions than St. Paul? His Jewish conviction or pharisaical fanaticism made him a bitter persecutor, but his Christian conviction inspired his seraphic description of love (1 Cor. xiii.) and strengthened him for martyrdom. On the other hand, the Deist philosopher, Hobbes, by giving the civil power an absolute right to determine the religion of a nation, taught the

pion of civil and religious liberty in the seventeenth century, was unwilling to tolerate Romanists, because he regarded them as idolaters and as enemies of freedom. See his Areopagitica, of which Lecky (Vol. II. p. 80) says that it is as glorious a monument of the genius of Milton as his Paradise Lost, and that it 'probably represents the very highest point that English eloquence has attained.'

This is the theory of Lecky.

extreme doctrine of persecution; and the reign of terror in France proves that infidelity may be as fanatical and intolerant as the strongest faith, and may instigate the most horrible of persecutions.

Intolerance is rooted in the selfishness and ambition of human nat ure and in the spirit of sectarian exclusiveness, which assumes that we and the sect to which we belong have the monopoly of truth and orthodoxy, and that all who dissent from us must be in error. Persecution follows as a legitimate consequence of this selfishness and bigotry wherever the intolerant party has the power to persecute.

The Roman Church, wherever she controls the civil government, can not consistently tolerate, much less legally recognize, any form of worship besides her own, because she identifies herself with the infallible Church of Christ, out of which there is no salvation, and regards all who dissent from her as damnable schismatics and heretics. Prot estants, who began with the assertion of private judgment against the authority of Rome, and complained bitterly of her persecuting spirit, are inconsistent and more inexcusable if they refuse the same right to others and persecute them for its exercise. For a long time, however, Protestantism clung to the traditional idea of uniformity in religion, and this was the source of untold suffering, especially in England, until it became manifest beyond a doubt that doctrinal and ceremonial uniformity was an impossibility in a nation of intelligent freemen. The Toleration Act of May 24, 1689, for the relief of Dissenters, marks the transition. Since that time religious persecution by the civil power has ceased in the Anglo-Saxon race, and the principle of religious liberty has gradually become a settled conviction of the most advanced sections of the Christian world.

For this change of public sentiment the chief merit is due to the English Non-conformists, who in the school of persecution became advocates of toleration, especially to the Baptists and Quakers, who made religious liberty (within the limits of the golden rule) an article of their creed, so that they could not consistently persecute even

1 The limited toleration in some Roman Catholic countries exists in spite of Romanism, and the liberal opinions and Christian feelings of individual Catholics have no influence on the system, which is the same as ever, as may be inferred from the papal Syllabus of 1864, and from the recent papal protest against even the minimum of religious toleration in Spain (1876). In Protestant countries the Roman Church claims as much liberty as she can get, and advocates toleration in her own interest, but would deny it to others as soon as she attained to power.

if they should ever have a chance to do so. It was next promoted by the eloquent advocacy of toleration in the writings of Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor,3 and other Anglican divines of the latitudinarian school; further, by the mingling of creeds and sects in the same country where persecution failed of its aim; and, lastly, by the skeptical philosophy and the religious indifferentism of the eighteenth century, which, however, has repeatedly shown itself most intolerant of all forms of positive belief, and can therefore be no more trusted than the bigotry of superstition. Religious freedom is best guaranteed by an enlightened Christian civilization, a liberal culture, a large-hearted Christian charity, a comprehensive view of truth, a free social intercourse of various denominations, and a wise separation of civil and ecclesiastical government.

During the last stages of the age of persecution Providence began to prepare in the colonies of North America the widest field and the proper social basis for the full exercise of religious liberty and equality by bringing together under one government the persecuted of all

1 See the 'Fourteenth Proposition' of Barclay, adopted by the Quakers: 'Since God hath assumed to himself the power and dominion of the conscience, who alone can rightly instruct and govern it, therefore it is not lawful for any whatsoever, by virtue of any authority or principality they bear in the government of this world, to force the consciences of others; and therefore all killing, banishing, fining, imprisoning, and other such things, which men are afflicted with, for the alone exercise of their conscience, or difference in worship or opinion, proceedeth from the spirit of Cain, the murderer, and is contrary to the truth; provided always that no man, under the pretense of conscience, prejudice his neighbor in his life or estate, or do any thing destructive to, or inconsistent with, human society; in which case the law is for the transgressor, and justice to be administered upon all, without respect of persons.' This was published in 1675. Bossuet, therefore, was imperfectly informed when at the close of the seventeenth century (1688) he mentioned the Anabaptists and Socinians as the only Christians who did not admit the power of the civil sword dans les matières de la religion et de la conscience' (Hist. des Variations, LIV. x. 56).

The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation, 1637 (or 1638; dedicated in a most humble preface to King Charles I.; 3d ed. 1664; 10th ed. 1742; reprinted in the first two vols. of the Oxford ed. of Chillingworth's Works, 1838, in 3 vols.). This book is a vindication of Protestantism and of the author's return to it, and proclaims that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, is the religion of Protestants, and that no Church of one denomination is infallible. At Chillingworth's burial, in Jan., 1644, Dr. Cheynell, who had shown him great kindness during his sickness, flung this book into the grave, with the words, 'Get thee gone, thou cursed book; go rot with thy author.' Chillingworth, however, had no idea of civil liberty, and wrote as an extreme royalist on the Unlawfulness of Resisting the Lawful Prince, although most Impious, Tyrannical, and Idolatrous.

Liberty of Prophesying, written in exile (1647), and unfortunately retracted in part after the Restoration by the author himself, who declared it to have been a ruse de guerre. Coleridge regards this weakness as almost the only stain on Taylor's character.

nations and sects, so that the enjoyment of the liberty of each de pends upon and is guaranteed by the recognition and protection of the liberty of all the rest.

$98. THE WESTMINSTER STANDARDS IN AMERICA.

With the Puritan emigration from England and the Presbyterian emigration froin Scotland and the North of Ireland, the Westminster standards were planted on the virgin soil of America long before the Declaration of Independence. The most popular is the Shorter Catechism, which has undergone no change except a very slight among the Cumberland Presbyterians.'

THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES OF NEW ENGLAND.

The Confession of Faith was first adopted for substance of doctrine,' but without the principles of Presbyterian discipline, by the Congregational Synod of Cambridge, in the Colony of Massachusetts, A.D. 1648, one year after its issue in England; then, in the Savoy recension, by the Synod of Boston, Mass., May 12, 1680; and again, in the same form, by the Congregational churches of Connecticut at a Synod of Saybrook, Sept. 9, 1708.

The Smaller Catechism was formerly used as a school-book in New England, but has been thrust into the background by the modern prejudice against catechisms and by a flood of more entertaining but less solid Sunday-school literature.

THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES.

The various Presbyterian bodies of English and Scotch descent used at first all the Westminster standards without alteration. The Presbytery of Philadelphia, the oldest in America, was organized in 1706, the Synod of Philadelphia in 1717, and the Synod of New York in 1743. The Synod of Philadelphia, Sept. 19, 1729, adopted the Confession with a liberal construction, in these words:

Although the Synod do not claim or pretend to any authority of imposing our faith upon other men's consciences, but do profess our just dissatisfaction with and abhorrence of such impositions, and do utterly disclaim all legislative power and authority in the Church, being willing to receive one another as Christ has received us to the glory of God, and admit to

1 See next section.

fellowship in sacred ordinances all such as we have grounds to believe Christ will at last admit to the kingdom of heaven: yet we are undoubtedly obliged to take care that the faith once delivered to the saints be kept pure and uncorrupt among us, and so handed down to our posterity.

'And [we] do therefore agree that all the ministers of this Synod, or that shall hereafter be admitted to this Synod, shall declare their agreement in and approbation of the Confession of Faith, with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, as being, in all the essential and necessary articles, good forms of sound words and systems of Christian doctrine, and do also adopt the said Confession and Catechisms as the confession of our faith.

'And we do also agree that all the Presbyteries within our bounds shall always take care not to admit any candidate of the ministry into the exercise of the sacred function but what declares his agreement in opinion with all the essential and necessary articles of said Confession, either by subscribing the said Confession of Faith and Catechisms, or by a verbal declaration of his assent thereto, as such minister or candidate shall think best. And in case any minister of this Synod, or any candidate for the ministry, shall have any scruple with respect to any article or articles of said Confession or Catechisms, he shall, at the time of his making said declaration, declare his sentiments to the Presbytery or Synod, who shall, notwithstanding, admit him to the exercise of the ministry within our bounds, and to ministerial communion, if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge his scruple or mistake to be only about articles not essential and necessary in doctrine, worship, or government. But if the Synod or Presbytery shall judge such ministers or candidates erroneous in essential and necessary articles of faith, the Synod or Presbytery shall declare them incapable of communion with them. And the Synod do solemnly agree that none of us will traduce or use any opprobrious terms of those that differ from us in these extra-essential and not-necessary points of doctrine, but treat them with the same friendship, kindness, and brotherly love as if they had not differed from us in such sentiments.'1

In the afternoon session the scruples about adopting these standards were solved, and the Synod unanimously declared that they do not receive some clauses in the twentieth and twenty-third chapters in any such sense as to suppose the civil magistrate hath a controlling power over Synods with respect to the exercise of their ministerial authority, or power to persecute any for their religion, or in any sense contrary to the Protestant succession to the throne of Great Britain.'

This supplementary action foreshadows the changes which were afterwards made.

When the Synods of Philadelphia and New York united in one body at Philadelphia, May 29, 1758, they adopted, as the first article of the plan of union, the following:

'Both Synods having always approved and received the Westminster Confession of Faith

'Minutes of the Synod of Philadelphia, as published in the Records of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (embracing the Minutes of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and of the Synods of New York and Philadelphia, from 1706 to 1788). Philad. Presbyt. Board of Public. 1841, p. 92. See also W. E. MOORE's Presbyterian Digest: a Compend of the Acts and Deliverances of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Philad. Presbyt. Board), second ed. 1873, pp. 45 sq.