Chap. VIII.} |
1522. |
1553 |
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in the belief that men would eagerly throng to the
coast, and put themselves under the protection of the council; and, in fact, adventurers were delayed, through fear of infringing the rights of a powerful company.1 While the English monopolists were wrangling about their exclusive privileges, the first permanent colony on the soil of New England was established without the knowledge of the corporation, and without the aid of King James.
The Reformation in England—an event which had been long and gradually prepared among the people by the opinions and followers of Wickliffe, and in the government by increasing and successful resistance to the usurpations of ecclesiastical jurisdiction—was at length abruptly established during the reign and in conformity with the passions of a despotic monarch.
The acknowledgment of the right of private judgment,2 far from being the cause of the separation from Rome, was one of its latest fruits.
Luther was more dogmatical than his opponents; though the deep philosophy with which his mind was imbued, repelled the use of violence to effect conversion in religion.
He was wont to protest against propagating reform by
persecution and massacres; and, with wise moderation, an admirable knowledge of human nature, a familiar and almost ludicrous quaintness of expression, he would deduce from his great principle of justification by faith alone the sublime doctrine of the freedom of conscience.3 Yet Calvin, many years after, anxious-
1 III. Mass. Hist. Coll. III. 32. Smith, II. 263.
2 Under Edward VI. Intolerance sanctioned by law. See Rymer, XV. 182.250, under Elizabeth. Rymer, XV. 740 and 741. Compare Lingard, VII. 286, 287; Hallam's England, i. 130, 131, 132, 133.
3 Nollem VI et caede pro evangelio certar Compare the passages from Luthers Seven Sermons, delivered in March, 1522, at Wittenberg, quoted in Planck's Geschichte des Protestantischen Lehrbegriffs, II. 68—72. Summa summarum! Predigen will ichs, sagen will ichs, schreiben will ichs, aber zwingen, dringen mit Gewalt willich niemand; denn der Glaube will willig, ungenothigt und ohne Zwang angenommen werden. I have quoted these words, which are in harmony with Luther's doctrines and his works, as a reply to those, who, like Turner, in his History, III. 135, erroneously charge the great German reformer with favoring persecution.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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