quarter. English Puritanism made George Whitfield CHAP. III and John Wesley what they were, and in so far Puritanism was the parent of Methodism. But Whitfield and Wesley were clergymen, and that fact alone swept away a huge mass of prejudice. They were Oxford men. They preached in gown and bands. They were always ready to use the church liturgy. They would not hold service in church hours. They admonished their hearers that they were not to cease to be good church people. In their early days, all these things contributed largely to smooth their way before them. Dissenters, on the contrary, were attached to forms of polity and worship which had become theirs at a great price, and which it was both natural and right in them not to abandon. But, if the Nonconformists were not to do the work of Methodism, they were to do much by their general influence towards giving existence to that potent agency; and were to receive their own again as with usury from that quarter, in more recent times.

Not that Methodism, even in the evangelical sense, was simply a perpetuated Puritanism. It had a phase of its own. It may be called a second reformation; but its great doctrine was not the great doctrine of the first reformation. In the place of justification by faith, came the doctrine of the new birth. Luther had to take the soul out of the hands of the priest, by giving it a sense of pardon and safety independent of the services of that functionary. But the evil spirit to be expelled by Whitfield and Wesley was formalism. One was a Calvinist, the other an Arminian; but their aim as preachers is the same to vitalize an admitted creed, to ensure that church-going shall lead to the church of Christ. They left metaphysics to philosophers, and history to histo

Special mis

sion of Me

thodism.

BOOK III. rians, and preached the means of a great moral and spiritual renovation to those who needed it. That was 'the present truth' for their time, and it did its work. From that day the stream of English Nonconformity widens without ceasing to our own time.

Retrospect,

We have seen, then, what the policy of the Anglican church has been from the days of Elizabeth. To this hour it remains unchanged. Those old Tudor and Stuart forms of thought concerning matters theological and ecclesiastical are still imposed upon us. We cannot, it seems, amend what was then done. We cannot know anything which was not then known. That past must be our present. And what has followed from this Chinese philosophy? Every second worshipper in the kingdom is a Nonconformist; and a large majority of Nonconformists have come to be opposed, not merely to the formularies of the church of England, but to the principle on which all such church rest. The action of the civil power in reference to religion in our history has been such as to have forced thoughtful and conscientious men to ask many curious questions in relation to it. The result is, that in place of praying that the exercise of this sort of authority may be considerate and humane, they have come to pronounce the authority itself a mistake a great and terrible mistake. To such persons the words RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION possess a dark, magic power. They call up to the eye of the imagination chambers of horror, which cover many lands, and come down from many ages, and they point to the vision as it passes and say, of all that poor humanity would have known nothing, and of the shame of all that Christ's religion would have known nothing, had civil rulers been content to leave religion to conscience and to

God. It may be said, but think of the good which has CHAP. III. come from that source. We answer-if you take the principle at all you must take it with all its sins upon its head, and who in this case is to weigh the evil against the good, and to show the good that has been prevented along with the good that has been done? Surely a principle which is accountable for everything included in that hell-chapter in the world's history-religious persecution—is a tree to be known by its fruits. Many good men do not look at this principle in such relations; but in the name of charity let there be a little forbearance towards those who cannot avoid so looking at it, and who denounce it accordingly.

When we plead that religion should be left to the individual conscience, we do not plead for a senseless individualism. Every man is bound to avail himself reverentially of all the sources of conviction within his reach; and in innumerable ways is to subordinate the less to the greater, for the sake of united action. But to deny that the ultimate decision on all grave questions should be with the personal judgment, would be to put an end to individual responsibility, and to introduce a remedy much worse than the disease. The right of private judgment, properly understood, is opposed to the abuse of authority, not to the use of it. But in religion, if there is not individual liberty, there is no liberty. A free church in a free state,' said Count Cavour, in his last moments. Good-so far as it goes. But the great thinkers in France are looking beyond the Italians on this question, and are ready to adopt as their watchword, freedom of religion.' It would be easy to show that the doctrine of personal right and liberty, proclaimed long since by our Independent forefathers, is

BOOK III. commending itself apace to the advanced intelligence of Europe.

Nonconformists suffer little now from bad laws. That stage of evil is happily passed away. But let not our Episcopalian neighbours account it strange if there are still signs of discontent among us. Churchmen cannot persecute us after the manner of their fathers, but they often persecute us bitterly after a manner of their own. The many forms of social disparagement, disownment, and wrong to which Nonconformists are exposed as such, it would require large space to describe. So long as our Established Church shall continue to be the great vested interest it is, so long, in ten thousand quarters, all that can be done to discredit, to depress, and to crush us, will be done. Our very strength subjects us to penalty. A weak dissent might be despised; a strong dissent is an object of fear, and we all know what the courses are to which fear generally prompts. Were the Episcopalian church in England a free and self-sustained church, the motive to this policy would cease, and the policy would come to an end. But the cause is not likely to be removed, and so long as human nature is what it is, a church conditioned as the church of England now is, will extent, a persecuting church. profess to be Christians, and these things. No doubt we should, and we must try to do so-but let our friends bear in mind that we are men, and not angels.

be sure to be, to a large We may be told that we should know how to bear

APPENDIX.

1.

GREAT censure has been cast on some of the New England settlers on account of some of their proceedings towards the natives. In the spring of 1623, Winslow, the governor of New Plymouth, visited the friendly chief Massasoit, who was supposed to be in mortal sickness. Winslow became his physician, his nurse, and his cook; and by his humane assiduity the sufferer was brought back as from the gates of death. The chief, in the fulness of his gratitude, disclosed to the governor, that in consequence of some injury from certain disorderly settlers at Wessagusset, a place at some distance from New Plymouth, a widespread conspiracy had grown up among the natives against the whites, who were all to be destroyed. Other circumstances corroborated this disclosure. Only the year before a similar plot had been entered into in Virginia, and three hundred and fifty settlers, including women and children, were put to death without any sort of warning. The governor communicated the intelligence to the whole company, and asked their advice. 'The company referred the matter back to the governor, the assistant, and the captain. These consulted among themselves, and with others, and concluded that the

tion of the settlement depended upon energetic measures.

preserva

Being

guiltless of injury, they had no peaceable way to accommodation and

security; having done nothing to provoke the assault which impended,

I they could only escape by anticipating it. To strike a blow such as their little strength was equal to, and such at the same time as 'would be widely known, and make an effective impression, Standish was despatched by water, with eight men, to the central point of