The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-01-03

could not be taxed without consent of the legis-
lature, and that princes could only govern in con-
formity to laws. England especially had a par
lament, the type of modern legislatures, trial by
jury, magma charta, and the common law, consti-
tuting one four-fold and majestic arch for the
support of civil liberty. She had, moreover,
emancipated herself from the supremacy of the
See of Rome, and the popular mind was intently
engaged equally in the pursuit of theological
truth, and in the application of the organic laws
to the maintenance and defence of public and
private rights.
Ii was the age of Spenser Shakespeare, Bacon,
and Milton. Poetry had risen from lyric beauty to
epic dignity; history, from fabulous chronicle to
philosophical argument; and learning, from words
and forms, to things and laws. Reasoning from
these circumstances, it seemed that the onward
progress of society was assured, and that civil
and religious liberty were about to be established
on broad and enduring foundations
Nevertheless, a reaction had already begun,
whose force is even yet unspent. The See of
Rome took alarm at the movement of the Ref
ormation, and combined with kings against
nations Henry VIII arrogated to himself the
very same spiritual supremacy, which, with
the aid of the people, and in the name of Chris
tian liberty he had wrested from the Pope and
with singular caprice employed 1t in compelling
conformity to the obnoxious faith and worship OF
Rome, conducted by ecclesiastics who derived
their appointments from himself, and held them at
his own pleasure. The reign of Mary inaugu-
rated that relapse to Rome, which the caprices OF
Henry had rendered inevitable. Elizabeth REIN
stalled the Reformation, but reserved the regal
claim to spiritual supremacy. The people resisted
all these ecclesiastical usurpations of the Tudors,
and they, in retaliation, boldly attempted to sub
vert the constitutional authority of Parliament.
Elizabeth, under the advice of sagaciOus states
men, and supported by temporizing churchnen,
resorted to the favorite expedent of politicians
compromise Compromises a feasible and often
a Unnecessary mode of adjusting conflicting material
interests, but can never justly or wisely be extend
ell to the subversion of the natural rights or the
moral duties of subjects or citizens Even where a
compromise is proper in itself, it derives all its
strength from the fair and full consent of all the
parties whom it binds. Elizabeth caused the RO-
man Catholic creed discipline, and ritual to be
vised and altogether recast under the direction of
leaders of some of the conflicting sects and thus
Il new system was produced, which, as was claimed,
stood midway between the uncompromising
Church of Rome and equally uncompromising
latitudinarian Professionalism. The new system
was established by law, and hierarchy was
appointed by the crown, to whose care twas COM
mitted. Absolute and even active conformity
was commanded, to be enforced by pains and PEN
alties in special aud unconstitutional tribunals
acting without appeal and in derogation of the
common law. The new system, whatever might
be its religious and ecclesiastical harmony with
the Divine precepts, was, in its civil aspects, a
mere political institution. II was offensive and
odous to a Jealous people, who, though divided
into opposing sects agreed in regarding the polit-
ical authority assumed by the State as a sacrile-
gious usurpation. The friends of civil liberty also
condemned it, as turning of the batteries that
had been won from the Roman See, in the name
of Liberty, against the very fortress of Liberty
itself Nevertheless, portion of the clergy, who
had now become dependent on the State men,
bers of the privileged classes always disinclined
to political agitation, placemen and walters for
places, the timid, the venal, and the frivolous,
early gave in their adhesion, and the compromise
daily gained wider acquiescence, through the ap-
piances of political seduction, prescription, and
persecution. The Church of England was built
on that compromise. Incorporated into the con-
Stitution with such auxiliary political powers, it
must necessarily augment the influence of the
throne and be subversive equally of the civil and
religious liberties of the people
conservative power, new conservative
power, was necessary to prevent that fatal consum-
nation. That power appeared in the form Of a
body of obscure religious sectares, men of mo-
nastical devoutness, yet retaining the habits of
domestic and social life simple but not unlearned !;
unambitious neither rich enough to forget their
God, nor yet poor enough to debase their souls :;
content with mechanical and agricultural occu-
pations in villages and rural districts, yet con-
scious of the liberty with which Christ had made
them free, and therefore bold enough to confront
ecclesiastical and even royal authority in the
capital Serious as became their religious pro-
fessOn they grew under persecution to be grave,
formal, and austere. Chosen emissaries of God,
as they believed, they willingly became outcasts
among men, Divinely constituted depositaries of
pure and Astounding truth, as they thought, they
announced, as their own rule of conduct that no
article of faith exercise of ecclesiastical au-
thority, no rule of discipline, and not even a
shred of ceremonial or sacrament, should be ac-
cepted, unless sanctioned by direct warrant from
the Scriptures as Unexpectedly themselves, in the
free exercise of their consciences Illuminated
by the Holy Spirit God, although a benevolent
Father, was yet, as they believed, Jealous
towards disobedience of His revealed will, and
would punish conscious neglect of its command
ments. These were the Puritans. They came into
the world to save it from despotism and the
world comprehended them not. They refused to
acquiesce in the compromise, because it involved
surrender of natural rights, and dereliction
from duty toward God. Nevertheless they were
true Christians, and therefore they declined to
set up their own convictions as a standard for
others who subscribed to the Christian faith. and
freely allowed to all their fellow subjects the
same broad religious liberty which they claimed
for themselves. They persisted in non-conformity.
The more hardly pressed, the more firmly they
persisted. The more firm their persistence, the
more severe and unrelenting was the persecution
they endured. More than an hundred years yir-
tually outlawed citizens and subjects. and
outcasts from the established church. the Puri-
tans bore unhinchingly their unwaverino testi-
mony against the compromise, before magistrates
and councils in the pillory, under stripes. in
marches in camps, in prison, in flight, in exile
among licentious soldiery and dissoIute COM
panions in neighboring lands; On the broad and
then unexplored ocean, when the mariners lost
their reckoning, and the ships supplies became
scanty and her seams opened to the waves. ON
unknown coasts, homeless, houseless, famishing
and dying in the leafess forest, surrounded nv
ice and snow, fearful of savage beasts and con-
fronting savage men. The compromise policy
failed. Civil and religious liberty was not over
borne; it rose erect; it triumphed; il il still
gaining new and wider and more enduring fri
umphs and tyrants have read anew the lesson
so often wasted upon them before, that where
mankind stand upon their convictions of moral
right and duty, in disobedience to civil authority
there is no middle course of dealing with them
between the persecution that exterminates. and
the federation that satisfies. The Puritans were
not exterminated, they were not satisfied
The Puritans thus persisted and prevailed be-
cause they had adopted one true, singular, and
sublime principle of civil conduct, namely that
the subject in every State has Il natural right "a
religious liberty of conscience They knew toe
well the weakness of human guarantees of civil
liberty, and the frsilty of civil barriers against
tyranny. They therefore did not affect to derive
the right of liberation from the common law. O,
the statutes of the realm, or magma charta, OF
even from that imaginary contract between the
sovereign and the subject, which some public.
lists had about that time invented as a basis for
civil rights. They resorted directly to a law
broader, older, and more stable than all Theses
law universal in its application and in its obliQa-