MARTIN LUTHER AND ROGER WILLIAMS.

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going was made, they were glad when he left, December 2, 1737.109

Of the Southern colonies, Virginia took the lead, and was next to Massachusetts in intolerance and persecution. The colony was divided into parishes, and all the inhabitants were taxed to maintain the worship of the Episcopal Church. All the people were required to attend the churches of the establishment. The rights of citizenship were dependent upon membership in the Episcopal Church. Whoever failed to attend church any Sunday " without an allowable excuse," was to be fined one pound of tobacco, and if any one should be absent from Sunday service for a month, the fine was fifty pounds of tobacco.

Virginia, however, though standing in the lead of the Southern colonies in the severity of its religious legislation, was the first of all the colonies to separate Church and State, and to declare and secure by statute the religious rights of all men.

From this review of Protestantism, it plainly appears that after Martin Luther, until the rise of Roger Williams, not a single Reformer preached in sincerity the principles of Christianity and of Protestantism as to the rights of conscience, and that in not a single place except the colony of Rhode Island, was there even recognized, much less exemplified, the Christian and Protestant principle of the separation of Church and State, of the religious and civil powers.

Throughout this whole period we find that in all the discussions, and all the work, of the professed champions of the rights of conscience, there everywhere appears the fatal defect that it was only their own rights of conscience that they either asserted or defended. In other words, their argument simply amounted to this: It is our inalienable

109"John Wesley a Missioner to Georgia," by William Stevens Perry, D. D., bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Iowa; New York Independent, March 5, 1891, pp. 5, 6.

right to believe and worship as we choose. It is likewise our inalienable right to compel everybody else to believe and worship as we choose.

But this is no assertion at all of the rights of conscience. The true principle and assertion of the rights of conscience is not our assertion of our right to believe and worship as we choose. This always leaves the way open for the additional assertion of our right to compel others to believe and worship as we choose, should occasion seem to demand; and there are a multitude of circumstances that are ever ready strongly to urge that occasion does demand.

The true principle and the right assertion of the rights of conscience is our assertion of every other man's right to believe and worship as he chooses, or not to worship at all if he chooses. This at once sweeps away every excuse and every argument that might ever be offered for the restriction or the invasion of the rights of conscience by any person or any power.

This is the Christian doctrine. This is the Roger Williams doctrine. This is the genuine Protestant doctrine, for it is "the logical consequence of either of the two great distinguishing principles of the Reformation, as well of justification by faith alone as of the equality of all believers."— Bancroft. 110

In the promulgation of the principles of Protestantism, and in the work of the Reformation, the names of MARTIN LUTHER and ROGER WILLIAMS can never rightly be separated. Williams completed what Luther began; and together they gave anew to the world, and for all time, the principles originally announced by Him who was the Author and Finisher of the faith of both-JESUS CHRIST, THE AUTHOR OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

110"History of the United States," chap. "Self-Government in Massachusetts," par. 22.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE NEW REPUBLIC.

'HEN came the American Revolution, overturning all

THE

the principles of the papacy, and establishing for the enlightenment of all nations, THE NEW REPUBLIC,— the first national government upon the earth that accords with the principles announced by Jesus Christ for mankind and for civil government.

The American Revolution did not consist in the establishment of a government independent of Great Britain, but in the ideas concerning man and government that were proclaimed and established by it. This Revolution is the expression of two distinct ideas. First, that government is of the people; and, second, that government is of right entirely separate from religion.

The first decided step in this grand revolution was taken when the Declaration of Independence was signed. That immortal document declares:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Thus in two sentences was annihilated the despotic doctrine which, springing from the usurped authority of the