It was well said in Stoughton's Election Sermon, preached in 1668, that "God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness." "They were men of great renown in the nation from whence the Laudian persecution exiled them; their learning, their holiness, their gravity, struck all men that knew them with admiration. They were Timothies in their houses, Chrysostoms in their pulpits, Augustines in their disputations." Indeed, this exodus of so many of the choicest of England's educated and Christian sons, consequent upon this fanaticism for the church, not religion, — alarmed the sober-minded. We find an expression of this in the anecdote of the vice-chancellor's strenuous exception to printing the two lines in Herbert's "Temple,”—

"Religion stands a-tiptoe in our land,

Ready to pass to the American strand,”.

when they requested his imprimatur for that poem; and his reluctant assent was given with the "hope that the world would not take Herbert for an inspired prophet." This was in 1633. Towards the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the judicious Hooker defined the "clergy as a state”- or order of men -"whereunto the rest of God's people must be subject, as touching"-only-"things that appertain to their soul's health." This was a great advance in the right; but the leaven of Puritanism had then been some time fermenting in England, and many of the churchmen now challenged this claim of the priesthood.

points upon which the

In substance the pre

A late able writer1 sums up clearly "the Puritan clergy and their lords were at issue. lates claimed that every word, ceremony, and article, written in the Book of Common Prayer, and in the Book of Ordination, was as faultless and as binding as the Book of God, and must be acknowl

1 Hopkins, "Puritanism and Queen Elizabeth," vol. ii. p. 369.

edged as such. The Puritans dared not say it. The prelates claimed to themselves — or, more modestly, to the church which

they personified — an infallibility of judgment in all things pertain-
ing to religion. The Puritans denied the claim.
The prelates
claimed obedience; the Puritans, manhood; the prelates, spiritual
lordship; the Puritans, Christian liberty." And these preposter-
ous claims of the prelates rested upon acts of Parliament !

The quarrel was in the church. Some of these Puritans fled to New England. They came hither protesting against these prelatical assumptions, and were really a church rather than a state. Separation from the Church of England was at first viewed by those of Massachusetts with repugnance; but it was facilitated by a quasi adoption of a very mild type of the Genevan or Presbyterian polity, the validity of whose ordination had been repeatedly recognized by the hierarchy, and also declared by Act of Parliament, 13th Elizabeth; the very same authority which created the "Established" Church, and tinkered its "infallibility" to suit the changing times. But soon "they read this clearly," as did Oliver Cromwell, John Milton, and John Cotton, that

"New Presbyter is but Old Priest writ large."

-essen

As they were already imbued with the spirit, they gradually adopted
the principles of Independency, absolute democracy,
tially as held and taught by their Plymouth brethren. This was the
legitimate result of the Reformation, and it was distinctly conceded
to be such by one of Hooker's ablest scholars, George Cranmer.
In a letter to his teacher, he said: "If the positions of the Reform-
ers be true, I cannot see how the main and general conclusions of
Brownism" - Independency - "should be false." That great man,
Sir James Mackintosh, incidentally renders them a noble tribute, in

1 In the Appendix to Izaak Walton's Life of Mr. Richard Hooker.

his admirable article on the philosophical genius of Bacon and Locke. Mr. Locke was admitted to Christ Church College in 1651, when Dr. Owen, the Independent, was Dean,—the same who was thought of for the presidency of Harvard College. "Educated," says Sir James," among the English Dissenters, during the short period of their political ascendency, he early imbibed the deep piety and ardent spirit of liberty which actuated that body of men; and he probably imbibed also, in their schools, the disposition to metaphysical inquiries which has everywhere accompanied the Calvinistic theology. Sects, founded on the right of private judgment, naturally tend to purify themselves from intolerance, and in time to learn to respect in others the freedom of thought to the exercise of which they owe their own existence. By the Independent divines, who were his instructors, our philosopher was taught those principles of religious liberty which they were the first to disclose to the

world."

Such was the origin of New England; such the men who founded it. Religion, the church, was the great thought, and civil interests were only incidental. This is not only evident in our history, as already narrated, but it is distinctly avowed and reiterated in the writings of the fathers of New England from the very beginning. Thus Roger Conant, the first Governor of Massachusetts Colony, suggested to the Rev. John White, of Dorchester, that it might be a refuge from the coming storm "on account of religion."1 Protestantism seemed to be in great danger on the Continent and in England, where the king, court, and many of the hierarchy were more than suspected of sympathy with Popery. Mr. White conferred with Bishop Lake, who favored the suggestion, especially as an opportunity for Christian missions among the Indians, and entered

1 History of New England, Edit. 1848, p. 107, by Hubbard, who, no doubt, had the facts from Governor Conant himself, who lived at Beverly, near Ipswich, Hubbard's residence.

into it with such zeal as to say to Mr. White that "he would go himself but for his age."

This most Christian bishop availed himself of an early and providential opportunity to speak, with apostolic earnestness, on the national neglect and duty in this matter. On the second of July, 1625, he "preached in Westminster, before his Majestie, the Lords, and others of the Upper House of Parliament, at the opening of the Fast," which had been ordered throughout the kingdom, on petition of the Puritan Parliament. It was on account of the public calamities, civil and religious. He spoke with great plainness. "There is," he said, “a kind of metaphysical locusts and caterpillars, locusts that come out of the bottomless pit, -I mean popish priests and Jesuits, and caterpillars of the Commonwealth, projectors and inventors of new tricks"— well known to the king and others who listened to these words --"how to exhaust the purses of the subjects, covering private ends with public pretences; .. in well-governed states they were wont to be called Pestes Reipublicæ, Plagues of the Commonwealth." Near the close of his sermon, the preacher said: "Neither is it enough for us to make much of God's truth for our own good, but also we should propagate it to others. And here let me tell you, that there lieth a great guilt upon Christian states, and England among the rest, that they have not been careful to bring them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to the knowledge of Christ and participation of the gos

1 The anecdote seems to come direct from the lips of Mr. White to Mr. Hugh Peter, who records it in his autobiography, -"Last Legacy to his Daughter," Boston, Ed. 1717, p. 77,- and says, "That good man, my dear firm friend, Mr. White, of Dorchester, and Bishop Lake, occasioned, yea, founded that work;" i. e., Massachusetts Colony. It is a curious fact, that part of Archbishop Laud's library came into the possession of Mr. Peter, who intended to send it to New England. There is an interesting reference to Mr. White and Mr. Peter in Governor Cradock's letter to Governor Endecott. Mass. Records, i. 384.

2 "Svndrie Sermons de tempore, by Arthur Lake, D. of Diuinitie, Lord Bishop of Bath and Welles." London, 1629: folios 200-220.

pel. Much travelling to the Indies, East and West, but wherefor? Some go to possess themselves of the lands of the infidels, but most, by commerce, to grow richer by their goods. But where is the prince or state that pitieth their souls, and, without any worldly respects, endeavours the gaining of them unto God? Some show we make, but it is a poor one; for it is but an accessorie to our worldly desire; it is not our primary intention; whereas Christ's method is, first seek ye the kingdom of God, and then all other things shall be added unto you; you shall fare the better for it in your worldly estate. If the apostles and apostolic men had affected our salvation no more, we might have continued to this day such as sometimes we were, barbarous subjects of the Prince of Darkness."

In exact accordance with these teachings, the king and colonists declared "the principal ende of this plantation" of Massachusetts to be," to win and incite the natives of the country to the knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Saviour of mankind, and the Christian faith;" and to complete the moral unity of the bishop's missionary sermon, and the designs of our fathers, we parallel with his anathema against the Papacy the first of their “general considerations for the plantation in New England," which was in these words: "It will be a service to the church, of great consequence, to carry the gospell into those parts of the world, and to raise a bulwarke against the kingdom of antichrist, which the Jesuits1 labor to rear up in all places of the world."

When the "governor and companie"- that branch of the Massachusetts government which, under the charter, had its legal residence in England - were about emigrating to the colony, they issued a manifesto, April 7, 1630, declaring themselves to be a

1 "The Jesuits," wrote John Cotton, in 1647, "have professed to some of our merchants and marriners, they look at our plantations (and at some of us by name) as dangerous supplanters of the Catholick cause" in America, especially in Canada.