CHAPTER VII
AN ENGLISH OPPOSITION BECOMES A NEW ENGLAND OLIGARCHY
In an earlier chapter, in discussing the problems which confronted Elizabeth, we spoke of an established church as a necessity in her day from all three standpoints—of religion, morals, and politics. We also touched upon the simplicity of problems as they appear to those in opposition, as contrasted with their aspect to those who bear the responsibility of power. In England, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, in spite of the example of Holland, the doctrine of the necessity of a state church, to which all men must conform, in their capacity of citizens as well as of Christians, was still held, although the influence of the "dissidence of dissent," as the logical outcome of individual interpretation of the Bible, was beginning to be felt. Voices were being raised in many quarters denouncing the intolerance of the various sects, both Anglican and Puritan; and, although the Protestants might consider that the religious glacier which held all men in its embrace was as rigidly frozen as ever, the ice was, in truth, rapidly melting beneath the surface. To Englishmen in tolerant Leyden, John Robinson was preaching that "magistrates are kings and lords over men properly and directly, as they are their subjects, and not as they are Christ's," and that by "compulsion many become atheists, hypocrites, and Familists, and being at first constrained to practise against conscience, lose all conscience afterwards."[1] In England, Chillingworth, through the doctrine of the innocence of error, was elevating toleration into a principle of justice and a practicable rule of government.[2] In the New World, Roger
