auspicious to the foundation of a new and hope

ful system.

P

Religious reformation was the original principle, which enkindled the zeal of our pilgrim fathers; as it has been so often acknowledged to be the master principle of the greatest movements in the modern world.* The religions of Greece and Rome were portions of the political systems of these countries. The Scipios, the Crassuses, and Julius Cæsar himself, were high priests. It was, doubtless, owing in part to this example, that at an early period after the first introduction of Christianity, the heads of the church so entirely mistook the spirit of this religion, that, in imitation of the splendid idolatry, which was passing away, they aimed at a new combination of church and state, which received but too much countenance from the policy of Constantine.† This abuse, with ever multiplying and aggravated calamitous consequences, endured, without any effectual check, till the first blow was aimed at the supremacy of the papal power, by Philip the Fair of France, in the fourteenth century,

who laid the foundation of the liberties of the Gallican church, of which the Constitution may be called the Catholic Reformation.*

After an interval of two hundred years, this example was followed and improved upon by the Princes in Germany, that espoused the protestant reformation of Luther, and in a still more decisive manner by Henry the Eighth in England; at which period we may accordingly date the second great step in the march of religious liberty.†

Much more, however, was yet to be effected toward the dissolution of the unnatural bond between Church and State. Hitherto a domestic was substituted for a foreign yoke, and the rights of private conscience had, perhaps, gained but little in the exchange. In the middle of the sixteenth century, and among the exiles, whom the frantic tyranny of Queen Mary had driven to the free cities on the Rhine, the ever memorable communion of Puritans arose. On their return to England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they strenuously opposed themselves to the erection and peculiarities of the English national church.

Nearly as we have now reached, both in simplicity of principle and point of time, to our pilgrim forefathers, there is one more purifying process to go through, one more generation to pass away. The major part of the Puritans themselves, while they rejected some of the forms, and disliked the organization of the English church, adhered in substance to the Constitution of the Genevan church, and their descendants were willing, a century later, to accept of an establishment by law in Scotland.

It remained, therefore, to shake off the last badge of subjection, and in the person of Robert Brown, an individual himself of no very commendable qualities, the last step was taken in the progress of reform, by asserting the independence of each single church. The personal character of Brown was such as to throw no little discouragement on the cause ; nor did it acquire firmness till espoused by Robinson, who may be called the father of the Independent churches. His own at Leyden was the chief of these, and fidelity to their principles was the motive of their departure from Holland, and the occasion of their settlement at Plymouth.*

* See Note H.

But all may not be disposed to join us, in so exact a specification of the beginning of the seventeenth century, as the period, when religious reform had reached its last perfection, and consequently, as the era most favorable to the establishment of a new and free state. None, however, on a larger view of the subject, will be unwilling to allow that this was the great age of general improvement. It was the age, when the discoveries of the Spanish, Portuguese, and English navigators had begun to exert a stimulating influence on the world at large, and the old continent and the new, like the magnetic poles, commenced those momentous processes of attraction and repulsion, from which so much of the activity of both has since proceeded. It was the period when the circulation of knowledge had become general; and books in all languages were in the hands of a very large class in every country. The history of Europe, in all its states, shows the extent and vehemence of the consequent fermentation. With their new engines of improvement and new principles of right, the communities of men rushed forward in the course of reform; some with firmness

and vigor, proportioned to the greatness of the object in view, most with tumult and desperation, proportioned to the duration and magnitude of their injuries, and none with entire success. The most that was effected, in the most fortunate states, was a compromise between the new claims and the old abuses. Absolute kings stipulated to be no longer absolute; and free men preferred what they called petitions of right. In this way, and after infinite struggles, a tolerable foundation for considerable practical liberty was laid on two principles, in the abstract entirely false; that of acquiescence on the part of the sovereign, and prescription in favor of the people. So firmly established are these principles, by consent of the statesmen of the freest country in Europe, as the best and only foundation of civil rights, that so late as the last years of the eighteenth century, a work of ingenuity seldom, of eloquence never, surpassed, was written by Mr Burke, to prove, that the people of England have not a right to appoint and to remove their rulers; and that if they ever had the right, they deliberately renounced it at what is called the glorious revolution