The Travail Of Religious Liberty Nine Biographical Studies

<Erar>atI of

Ciberty

23tograpfytcal Stubtes
by ROLAND H. BAINTON

tDestmtnster press

COPYRIGHT, MCMLI, BY W, L. JENKINS

All rights reserved no part of this book may be re-
produced in any form without permission in writing
from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to
quote brief passages in connection with a review in
magazine or newspaper.

PUNTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To
HILDA AND GLEN KING

" Him that overcometh will I makf a pillar
in the temple of my God!'

Foreword

Mr. James Sprung of Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1911
established a perpetual lectureship at Union Theological
Seminary in Virginia, which would enable this institution to
secure from time to time the services of distinguished min-
isters and authoritative scholars as special lecturers on sub-
jects connected with various departments of Christian
thought and Christian work. The lecturers are chosen by the
faculty of the seminary and a committee of the Board of
Trustees, and the lectures are published after their delivery
in accordance with a contract between the lecturer and these
representatives of the institution.

The series of lectures on this foundation for the year 1950
is presented in this volume.

B. R. LACY, JR.,
President

Union Theological Seminary,
Richmond, Virginia.

Preface

The material in this book represents in large part lectures de-
livered at the invitation of the faculty and trustees of the
Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, on the
James Sprunt foundation. Portions of these lectures were de-
livered also at the Danforth Conference at Camp Mini-
wanca, Shelly, Michigan; at the Eden Theological Seminary,
Webster Groves, Missouri; and at the Vermont Congrega-
tional Ministers Conference, Montpelier, Vermont. For pub-
lication, these lectures were revised and in some cases am-
plified.

ROLAND H. BAINTON.

The Divinity School,

Yale University,

New Haven, Connecticut.

Contents

Foreword 7

Preface 9

Introduction 13

PART i

PERSECUTION: CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT

1. The Peak of Catholic Persecution: Thomas of

Torquemada 33

2. The Peak of Protestant Intolerance: John Calvin 54

3. The Victim of Protestant Persecution: Michael

Servetus 72

PART 2

THE TOLERATION CONTROVERSY

OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

4. The Remonstrator: Sebastien Castellio 97

5. The Heretic as Hypocrite: David Joris 125

6. The Heretic as Exile: Bernardino Ochino 149

PART 3

THE FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL

IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

7. The Bard of Speech Unbound: John Milton 179

12 CONTENTS

8. The Seeker: Roger Williams 208

9. Apologist for the Act of Toleration: John Locke 229

Reflections 253

Sources 261
Index

Crat?ail of
Heligious liberty

INTRODUCTION

The historian who set out twenty-five years ago to write the
history of the struggle for religious liberty believed the sub-
ject peculiarly suited to his pen because the evidence was all
in. The victory had been won, and to recount the tale was a
task of filial piety in order to extol the exploits of those who
had put to flight armies of aliens. Today the armies of aliens
hold the field in many quarters, and the history of religious
liberty is a chapter in the intelligent man's guide to the read-
ing of the newspapers. We approach the story now not sim-
ply to laud but to learn.

The contrast, however, between the now and the then is
not wholly due to the resurgence of persecution but in part
to an earlier provincialism which took into account only the
Western world. Even twenty-five years ago the picture would
not have been so rosy had the survey included the Near East
and the Far East and the Russian steppes. Russia has never
been a land of liberty. Under the old regime there was a
graded system of toleration determined by considerations of
political security. The religions of the annexed territories
were granted that degree of recognition requisite for tran-
quillity. The scale ran through the Catholics, Lutherans, Mo-
hammedans, and Armenians, to the Jews and the Russian
sects which enjoyed the least consideration of all. Moreover,
in the predominantly Catholic countries of Europe, Protes-
tantism could never be said to have enjoyed a genuine parity,

14 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

and certainly not in South America. Yet unquestionably the
last quarter of a century has seen retrogression. Fascism, first
in Italy and then in Germany, was the earliest setback, and
then the emergence of Communism has exhibited the major
characteristics of a militant religion the like of which has
not been seen since the rise of Mohammedanism. Liberty has
receded even in Russia, and notably in those countries that
have been sucked into the Soviet orbit. We tremble for our-
selves lest we too be engulfed, and even more lest in the
effort to extricate ourselves we succumb to the very methods
that we abhor.

We turn now to the record of the earlier gains for religious
liberty in order to be instructed, both as to why men perse-
cuted and as to how persecution can be overcome. A very
facile answer is that the Communists persecute because they
are atheists and if they were but Christians they would be
gentlemen. This answer is shattered on the concrete base of
history. With shame we must confess that the present ap-
palling methods employed to cow resistance by disintegrating
the very integrity of opponents is only a refinement along
technological lines of the devices elaborated under the aus-
pices of the Church, The story of persecution related in this
book was practiced entirely by Christians.

Then comes the equally facile answer that really religions
and religious ideas have nothing to do with the case. The
causes of persecution are sociological, and if the existence of
a people or a party be menaced, even though it profess the
religion of brotherly love, it will find some casuistry whereby
to bend even brotherhood to the service of suppression. The
difficulty with this explanation is that it fails to account for
crusading religions whose adherents are not content to in-
sure the cohesion of their communities by purges from
within, but with no provocation set out with a fanatical sense
of mission to benefit the world by constraint. As a matter of

INTRODUCTION 15

fact, both the ideological and the sociological, both beliefs
and situations, exercise a continual interplay.

The like is true also with regard to religious liberty. In
part tolerance has displaced persecution because the presup-
positions of persecution have been undercut, but in part also
because the entire religious question has been relegated to a
position of lesser importance in comparison with secular
concerns. Political security, economic prosperity, and aes-
thetic enjoyment have come to appear more significant than
religious rectitude. At this point liberty has come to depend
upon a diversion of interest.

The present study is distinctly limited first, as to scope,
because it deals only with the struggle in Christian lands in
the West and there chiefly with Protestantism. The selection
may well appear invidious, because there is a chapter on
Catholic persecution but none on Catholic liberalism, and to
recognize the possibility of a liberal Catholicism is particu-
larly important at the present juncture when such fears are
entertained of the possibility of Catholic dominance in the
United States. Yet the omission can be justified, partly be-
cause Catholicism is capable of tolerance on far fewer counts
than Protestantism, and partly because these lectures were
delivered at a Presbyterian seminary where a centering upon
our own tradition was not inappropriate.

There is a limitation also in time, in that the period se-
lected runs from the late fifteenth century to the late seven-
teenth, a span of only two hundred years, and of course per-
secution had been rife long before the fifteenth century and
liberty was far from wholly won in the seventeenth. Never-
theless, the essential struggle is bracketed within these years.

Finally, the biographical approach entails very serious limi-
tations. The impression may be created that the whole prob-
lem was simply one of personal clashes, whereas entire
peoples and cultures were in convulsion. The nine persons se-

l6 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

lected were all passionate Christians and their lives therefore
afford no illustrations of the secular motives for liberty. They
were likewise private persons and not subject to the pressures
of political responsibility, which induced even a bigot like
Charles V to moderate his severity and engendered indiffer-
ence to religion in Queen Elizabeth and Henry IV as they
observed the disruptive force of confessional controversy for
the body politic. The economic arguments for liberty might
have been illustrated through Jakob Fugger or William the
Silent, who were not disposed to see the transport of goods
wrecked on transubstantiation. If these limitations be adduced
as objections, the answer is simply that this is but a little book
and leaves abundant room for another manner of treatment,,
and this way has also ks merits. To deal with specific persons
keeps continually to the fore what is so readily forgotten^,
that persecution thwarts, warps, and crushes individuals. The
drowning of a thousand Anabaptists or the exile of ten thou-
sand Huguenots may leave us cold, whereas a picture of one
man burned, one man broken, one man exiled, may invest
with meaning all the thousands and the tens of thousands.

The nine selected fall into three groups. The first trio have
been chosen to illustrate persecution, Catholic and Protes-
tant. They consist of two persecutors, the first Catholic, the
second Protestant, namely, Torquemada and Calvin, and one
victim of persecution from both parties, namely, Michael
Servetus. The second three epitomize the struggle for liberty
on the Continent in the sixteenth century. They are Sebastien
Castellio the Frenchman, David Joris the Hollander, and
Bernardino Ochino the Italian. The third three exemplify
the struggle in England and the colonies in the seventeenth
century, namely, John Milton for the Puritan revolution in
the Old Country and Roger Williams in the New, and John
Locke for the age of the Glorious Revolution and the Act of
Toleration.

INTRODUCTION Ij

Before turning to these men, a word is in order with re-
gard to the theory of persecution and in justification of the
remark that Protestantism can be more readily tolerant than
Catholicism. The prerequisites for persecution are three:
(i) The persecutor must believe that he is right; (2) that
the point in question is important; (3) that coercion will be
effective.

On all three counts Catholicism and Protestantism, in so
far as they were persecuting, were agreed. Both believed that
outside the Church there is no salvation and that heresy
damns souls. Lord Acton was quite mistaken in portraying
the Protestant theory of persecution as diametrically opposed
to the Catholic on the ground that Protestants had nothing
left for which to persecute save error, whereas Catholics with-
stood the disruption of society through dissent. This picture
is utterly misleading. Neither Catholic nor Protestant ever
persecuted mere error but only obstinate error. Both perse-
cuted heresy as heresy, and both believed that heresy, if un-
checked, would disintegrate society. Both were driven by the
exigencies of the situation to suppress dissent.

A few differences there are between the Catholic and Prot-
estant theories, but they are not important. Luther sought to
limit persecution by restricting it to blasphemy instead of
heresy, but the gain was slight because he well-nigh identi-
fied heresy and blasphemy. Calvin declined to avail himself
of this subterfuge and burned Servetus outright as a heretic.
At several points Calvin intensified the Catholic theory of
persecution. First, he accentuated the feudal conception of
sin, according to which the enormity of an offense depends
on the rank of the person against whom it is committed.
When Calvin exalted God to dizzy transcendental eminence,
heresy as an insult to his majesty became a crime of infinite
depravity. In consequence the Catholic proviso that only a
relapsed heretic should be put to death was abandoned. On

l8 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

no pretext could Servetus be regarded as relapsed. The other
great difference was that the doctrine of predestination neces-
sarily altered the purpose of persecution, which could not be
to save souls, since they were saved or damned already, but
could only be for the glory of God.

The greatest difference lay in the legal basis for persecu-
tion. For Catholics this was the canon law which was jet-
tisoned by the Protestants. For it were substituted the Bible
and the Roman law. In the long run this shift made for
liberty, because the Bible provides but an insecure basis for
the persecution of heresy, and the Roman law, while explicit
enough, was to enjoy only a temporary vogue. The difficulty
in the case of the Bible is that, although the Old Testament
is severe in its penalties, they are directed, not against heresy,
but only against idolatry and apostasy, whereas the New
Testament, though mentioning heresy, is mild in its treat-
ment of the offender. The Protestant persecutors had to com-
bine the offense of the New with the penalty of the Old
Covenant, a combination that the liberals were not slow in
prying apart.

The Roman law was more explicit with regard to both
the offense and the penalty. The two heresies penalized by
death in the Codex Justinianus were a denial of the Trinity
and a repetition of baptism. This ancient legislation directed
against Arians and Donatists was revived in the sixteenth
century and applied to Anti-Trinitarians and Anabaptists.
Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin all appealed to the impe-
rial law. Joris, Gentile, and Servetus, and the Anabaptists as a
whole, suffered under its terms. In fact the very name " Ana-
baptist," meaning " Rebaptizer," was invented in order to
subject to the imperial laws those who preferred to call them-
selves simply Baptists. They would never admit that they
baptized over again, for infant baptism was to them no bap-
tism, but rather a " dipping in the Romish bath." The preva-

INTRODUCTION Ip

lence of the imperial code goes far to explain why Anti-
Trinitarianism and Anabaptism were the two heresies visited
with the severest penalties in the sixteenth century. Signif-
icantly, the last infliction of the death penalty for heresy in
England under James I was for just these offenses. Roman
law, however, was destined to succumb in favor of national
codes, and a policy of persecution resting on no deeper legal
basis than the old imperial laws could not indefinitely sur-
vive.

Differences, then, there are between the Catholic and Prot-
estant theories of persecution but they are comparatively triv-
ial. When one turns to the theory of liberty, the case is dif-
ferent, for Protestantism can be tolerant on more grounds
than Catholicism, which cannot relinquish so many of the
requisites for persecution.

With regard to the first prerequisite for constraint in re-
ligion, that the persecutor must believe he is right, the Cath-
olic can never admit any uncertainty as to the cardinal affir-
mations of the Church. Neither can he concede that a willful
denial of an article in the ecumenical creeds is a venial
offense, since it will certainly entail damnation. The only
ground for tolerance is expediency; but this is a larger
ground than the word at first connotes, for expediency may
be ecclesiastical, political, or religious. The Church can argue
from the ecclesiastical point of view that persecution will re-
coil upon Catholics and do the Church more harm than
good. This has been the situation in the United States. If any
Church had been established, it would not have been the
Catholic, and if any Churches were persecuted, the Catholic
would not have been exempt. Leading American Catholics
have clearly recognized this situation and in the past have
wholeheartedly endorsed the American system of toleration.

Again expediency may be conceived in political terms.
Persecution is then regarded as indiscreet because it wrecks

2O THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

the State. Here is the program of the French Politiques- As
a Catholic, Henry IV promulgated the Edict of Nantes, and
as a Catholic, Joseph II established the Decree of 1781. He
was actuated by distress over the impoverishment and de-
population of the land through the expulsion of wealthy
Protestants. As a corrective, toleration was granted openly
to Lutherans and Calvinists and tacitly to Husites, though
not to Deists who presumably mattered less.

Finally, expediency may be religious. From this point of
view persecution is ineffective because incapable of engen-
dering that heartfelt adherence which alone the Church can
regard as adequate. Such a feeling presumably lies behind the
repeal in the latest edition of the canon law of every penalty
for heresy save excommunication.

In saying, however, that Catholics can be tolerant only on
grounds of expediency one must not forget that Catholicism
has nurtured three movements that made for tolerance, espe-
cially when transferred to Protestant soil, namely, mysticism,
humanism, and sectarianism. Mysticism contributes by di-
verting attention from dogma to experience and by equating
the way to God with the way of suffering, which comports
more readily with martyrdom than with persecution. Hu-
manism demands freedom for investigation in a limited area,
and sectarianism, as in the case of the Spiritual Franciscans,
places obedience to God or to the founder of the order, or to
the Holy Spirit, above obedience to the pope. Such move-
ments, to be sure, were restricted or suppressed by Cathol-
icism, but nonetheless served in a measure to check dog-
matic intolerance within Catholicism and proved a powerful
solvent when transmitted to the Reformation.

Protestantism has made for liberty in much more varied
ways, because it has been able to attenuate all three reasons
for persecution. Certitude with regard even to the most car-
dinal doctrines and with regard to the authority of the

INTRODUCTION 21

Church and the Bible has wavered in the face of attack on
Protestant soil A vein of rationalism runs from Erasmus
through Castellio to Locke.

The second prerequisite for persecution, that the point in
question be regarded as important, was demolished in part
by a shift of interest within the realm of religion itself and
in part by a secularism which diverted attention from reli-
gion as a whole, though this of course is extraneous to Protes-
tantism.

Within the sphere of religion the importance of the dog-
mas supported by the sword of the magistrate was mini-
mized in favor of the mystical and ethical elements. The one
elevated inner experience, the other right conduct, as more
significant than correct opinions. In Protestantism the ethical
attack was the more prevalent. The argument was that in
the eyes of God deeds count for more than creeds and creeds
themselves must be subject to ethical tests. Just as the medical
theories are judged by the cures which they effect, so too
must theological affirmations be evaluated in terms of the
correction of sins. Creeds are even ethically conditioned, for
correctness of opinion is valueless apart from sincerity of con-
viction. From this position the step was easy to the assertion
that sincerity is to be esteemed even though the opinions
held be incorrect. Thus even error has rights as a stage in the
quest for truth. Error is not the goal, but honest error is
nearer to the truth of religion than dishonest correctness.

On this basis alone does conscience acquire any rights. The
dominant Reformers of the sixteenth century scoffed at any
conscience save a right conscience. Conscientia, they claimed,
means nothing apart from scicntia; Gewissen must be based
on Wissen. Heretics have only a fictitious conscience. One
recalls how Knox scoffed at Queen Mary's appeal to her con-
science. The plea for conscience becomes relevant only when
moral integrity is prized above dogmatic impeccability.

22 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Another way of minimizing the importance of the points
over which persecution raged was to make a distinction be-
tween one dogma and another. In this way fundamentalism
arose. It was an attempt to segregate the fundamentals from
the nonessentials in the interests of liberty. This type of
thought has a long history. The Devotio Moderna had dep-
recated theological speculation to the point that Wessel
Gansfort declared no ampler theology necessary for salva-
tion than that of the penitent thief who was admitted to
Paradise on very minimal terms. In the same vein Erasmus
upbraided those who dissipated their energies on arid triviali-
ties. The mediators between the Lutherans and Zwinglians
relegated the sacramentarian controversy to the periphery.
Other examples will appear in the course of this study.

The third premise for persecution is the belief that perse-
cution is of some good. Here the Protestant was compelled
to inquire, " Good for what ? " The Catholic would have
had an immediate answer, for the obvious purpose of perse-
cution for him would be to save souls. But the Protestant, if
he were a Lutheran or more particularly a Calvinist, could
never say this, because according to the doctrine of predesti-
nation the salvation of souls is predetermined by God. The
purpose of persecution is not to alter his decrees but to vindi-
cate his honor. To this, the liberals replied that also here per-
secution is ineffective, since God is quite able to look out for
himself. Neither can his honor be vindicated by burning
men, for he takes no delight in holocausts.

The champions of liberty, while hammering at the notion
that persecution either should or can glorify God, at the same
time drew from the predestinarian arsenal in order to batter
the Catholic position that persecution can be of any avail in
saving souls. The doctrine of predestination at this point be-
came a weapon of liberty, on the ground that if man's salva-
tion depends wholly on God, then constraint is futile. On

INTRODUCTION 23

the Godward side it means indifference to the fate of the
damned, but on the manward side it means impotence to
alter matters by coercion. The particular determinist slogan
on which the liberals fastened was a phrase from the apostle
Paul that faith is a gift of God (Eph.2:8).

Because, however, the liberals in general were not them-
selves predestinarian in their thought, they preferred to give
the determinist argument a different slant and shifted it
from the soul to the mind. There is a determinism of the in-
tellect. No more can the mind assent to that to which it does
not assent than can the eye see as red that which it sees as
blue. Constraint will not mend matters. In some cases this
determinism is absolute. A moron never can grasp an argu-
ment; but in other cases the point is simply that appercep-
tion is slow and impeded by many obstacles. To effect con-
version we must then master the art of persuasion. The
greatest hindrances to clear sight are passion, pride, and prej-
udice, and these are only accentuated by vainglory and ar-
rogance on the part of the one who is seeking to persuade.
Humility and obvious devotion above everything else to the
truth are the prime requisites for winning converts. Beneath
the argument, of course, lies a confidence in the ability of
truth to shift for itself and in the long run to command
assent.

In the realm of theory certain considerations had an in-
direct bearing on the problem of persecution, and among
them none was more important than the theory of the
Church. Christian history exhibits two main views, and they
are sometimes distinguished by calling the one the church
type and the other the sect type. In England the terminology
has been more frequent of the " parish " versus the " gath-
ered " Church. They differ markedly in their attitude to re-
ligious liberty. The church type is based on a sacramental
theory of salvation in which force is more appropriate be-

^ THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

cause the sacrament can be regarded as a " medicine of im-
mortality " which, will benefit the recipient whether he likes
it or not The sacrament of Baptism is administered to babies.
In a Christian land the Church is then considered to include
all those born and baptized into the community. Alliance
with the State becomes more natural because both Church
and State comprise the same persons. Salvation outside the
Church is impossible because the Church, even the visible
Church, is like the ark of Noah, outside of which no souls
were saved. To be in the ark one must receive the sacraments,
subscribe to the doctrines, and obey the officers. Achievement
of the moral demands is not so imperative because the un-
clean beasts were allowed in the ark. They are the tares to
be left until the harvest. The heretics are not the tares. To
them applies the text, f{ Cotnpdle intrarc" for they are com-
parable to Noah's wife in the mystery plays, who, incredu-
lous of the flood, refused to board the ship until picked up
bodily and shoved up the gangplank by her sturdy sons,
whose place in the Christian commonwealth is taken by the
secular arm. This theory of the Church is entirely compatible
with a latitudinarianism which makes the gangplank broad >
that as many as possible may enter the ark.

The sectarian theory of the Church looks upon the insti-
tution less as an ark of salvation than as a city set upon a hill
to save itself and the world by an example of righteousness.
The emphasis is ethical rather than sacramental. The tares
are the heretics, who must be left outside and not compelled
to come in lest they sully the purity of the community. The
moral offenders are not the tares, and they must be excluded
by excommunication. Babies are not to be baptized and
church membership depends on mature conversion. This the
State cannot effect by the sword of the magistrate. All con-
straint in religion is renounced, and commonly any alliance
with the State is repudiated, since the State is instituted by

INTRODUCTION 25

God because of sinners and is to be administered only by
sinners. This view of the Church makes it exclusive. The
ideal of comprehension is rejected and liberty is demanded to
form small purist groups. The slogan of this party Is:

We are the choice elected few:

Let all the rest be damned:
There's room enough in hell for you.

We won't have heaven crammed.

These two types can be combined, provided the community
itself be select, granting residence, or at any rate the fran-
chise, only to the saints.

Another question of significance for liberty is that of the
form of political organization. The assumption is common
that democracy is the form most conducive to tolerance, but
democracy of itself is no guarantee of liberty. In Cromwell's
days toleration could be achieved only by dictatorship. Crom-
well could accord liberty to the Anglican Church, as he was
disposed to do, only by flouting Parliament, which he was
not disposed to do. On the other hand, religious restrictions
were progressively removed under enlightened despots like
Frederick the Great. The democratic form of the State means
most for religious liberty in those cases where the Church
seeks to influence political issues. Such activity will be tol-
erated only by a State that grants a similar liberty to various
groups within its structure, like trade-unions. The totalitarian
State will concede freedom to those Churches alone that con-
fine themselves strictly to divine worship. Hence we may say
that although the democratic State need not be tolerantly
disposed, nevertheless in no other State is there so wide a
scope for the activity and influence of the Churches.

As an administrative problem, the policy to be adopted by
the State to dissident groups is conditioned only in part by
its own constitution. Much more depends on the number

26 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

and the temper of the groups themselves. Only if they are
willing to live and to let live can the State drop the matter. If
they are not so disposed, some measure of control becomes
inevitable. Three solutions have been tried: territorialism,
comprehension, and complete religious liberty. The first
two methods were tried when the sects were intolerant of
each other. The third became possible only as their temper
changed.

Territorialism was rooted in the view which went back to
antiquity that the State must be supported by a religion and
that a single established religion is the best guarantee of
the security and unity of the people. Such a motive led to the
adoption of Christianity as the most favored religion of the
Roman Empire. The division of Christendom occasioned by
the Reformation was far from shattering the ideal. Since it
could no longer be realized on a universal scale, the attempt
was made to conserve it in many miniatures. The welfare of
the State was still the determinative factor, and the prince
was permitted to decide which religion should prevail in his
domains. No other religion should be tolerated. Dissenters
could be banished. The system of the union of Church and
State, of the fusion of religion and the community, was thus
conserved by an exchange of populations, and that was the
point at which the system of territorialism enshrined liberty
of a sort. Extermination was displaced by emigration.

This solution was adopted in Europe at the Peace of Augs-
burg of 1555, which recognized, however, only the Catholic
and Lutheran Churches. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648
was conceived after the same pattern, but added the Re-
formed. And the American Constitution of 1787 was still
cast in the same mold. Though no religion was to be estab-
lished by the Federal Government, the states were free to
retain or introduce any or none. The colonies had naturally
grown up on the principle of territorialism. The Congrega-

INTRODUCTION 27

tionalists gravitated to Massachusetts and Connecticut, the
Baptists to Rhode Island, the Presbyterians to New York and
New Jersey, The Catholics went to Maryland, the Quakers
and Pietist sects colonized Pennsylvania, and the Anglicans
predominated in the South. Established Churches prevailed
everywhere save in Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, which
latter presented the anomaly of religious disabilities without
an establishment. The Federal Constitution interfered with
none of this. Certain prerogatives of the Episcopalians in
Virginia lasted until 1802. The establishment of Congrega-
tionalism continued in Connecticut until 1818 and in Massa-
chusetts until 1833. As a matter of fact, territorialism was
nowhere so compatible with liberty as in the American colo-
nies because the right of emigration was not too difficult of
realization so long as the frontier remained open.

But to pull up with goods and kin was never easy, and for
that reason governments had recourse to another expedient
for solving the problem through a system of comprehension,
which sought to satisfy as many as possible in the commu-
nity by latitude as to their most cherished tenets. These being
conceded, they were then asked to subscribe in other matters
to a scheme of uniformity. The recusants on the fringes to
the right and the left were subject to one penalty or another.
The Augsburg Interim which Charles V endeavored to im-
pose on Germany enshrined this plan, and only after it
failed did he have recourse to the territorialism of the Peace
of Augsburg.

The English settlement was built on the same theory and
succeeded. The reasons for the failure of comprehension in
Germany and the success in England are a matter of specu-
lation, but some differences are obvious. Charles V tried to
reconcile the Catholics and Protestants. Elizabeth attempted
comprehension only within the Protestant frame. Charles
was half Spanish. Elizabeth was English and Tudor. And the

28 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

date was later. England was already wearied by change and
persecution from Henry through Edward and Mary. The
disastrous effects of the religious wars on the Continent had
given dramatic reinforcement to the theories of the Politiques.
Besides, Erastianism from the outset had been deeply rooted
in England. This, by the way, was not the doctrine that the
State might introduce any religion it chose, but that in a
Christian community the king held the two keys rather than
the pope. Here we have the culmination of medieval im-
perialistic thought transferred to the head of one of the new
national states. Perhaps deeper than any other reason is the
closer continuity of the Reformation with the Renaissance
in England than in other lands. The comprehensive philoso-
phy of the Florentine Academy, with its candles for Plato
as well as for Christ, suggested chapels for diverse cults be-
neath the one dome of the universal temple. The incursion
of the Arminians further reinforced universalist tendencies.
The system of comprehension, however, succeeded only rela-
tively in England, since the champions of the narrow way
refused to be comprehended and at length won for them-
selves an unmolested place outside of the Establishment.

The same thing happened in the American colonies, for
if our Federal Constitution is an instance of territorialism,
the individual colonies, whatever the religion established,
displayed the same basic pattern as that of England. The
rigidity of the first settlements soon moved in the direction
of comprehension. At the same time the dissenters on the
fringe gained an increasing footing: Baptists, Quakers, and
Presbyterians in Virginia; Episcopalians, Baptists, and Quak-
ers in Connecticut; and these, plus Unitarians, in Massachu-
setts. The process was arrested at this stage in England, but
in America passed on to the third solution of the problem,
that of a complete religious liberty in which the dissidents
agree to differ.

INTRODUCTION 29

The pax dissidentium had its first exemplification in Po-
land, in 1573, when those who frankly differed in religion
covenanted to preserve the peace among themselves, to shed
no blood, to impose no penalties, and to confiscate no goads
because of diversity in faith and practice. This peace, how-
ever, was made only between Protestant groups, and was
soon upset by the Counter Reformation. The next great at-
tempt at this type of settlement was made by Oliver Crom-
well, and will be discussed in connection with Milton.

An idea of great moment for the entire problem is that of
a united Christendom. The advance in liberty has actually
been associated with the disintegration of this ideal. The
Protestants of the sixteenth century had lamented the rend-
ing of the seamless robe of Christ and did their best to mend
the rents among themselves. But the sectaries of the seven-
teenth century definitely abandoned the ideal of unity and
regarded diversity and competition as wholesome and stimu-
lating, sometimes adducing the analogy of laissez faire in
trade.

The previous discussion refers several times to liberals over
against persecutors, as if there were two parties within Prot-
estantism. That is correct. The one strain stemming from
Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin was dominant and continuous.
The other, stemming from Erasmus, asserted itself at recur-
rent intervals in all the rationalist movements and notably in
the Age of the Enlightenment. Coupled with the rationalist
approach were sometimes mystical and sectarian motifs. The
implication appears, then, to be that if Protestantism became
tolerant, it was only because of the triumph of the one party
over the other. The case, however, is by no means so simple.
Persecuting Protestantism also made its contribution to lib-
erty not, of course, by its persecution, but rather by its utter
intransigence. The liberals were in danger of securing toler-
ance by the evaporation of faith and the dissolution of the

30 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Church. The intransigents were in danger of springing from
resolute defiance to an imposition of their own creed, but
their very defiance required that they be either exterminated
or tolerated, and if they were numerous, toleration com-
mended itself as the wiser expedient. They thus wrung tol-
eration for themselves from the Catholic powers. To extend
the same liberty to others was, however, possible only after
some modification of their own position. They might, of
course, wring their hands if unable to suppress their rivals,
but if they became genuinely tolerant, as indeed they did, it
could be only because they had come to esteem honest error
as a stage toward truth, and even to conceive of themselves as
possibly mistaken. But to concede this was to go over to the
other camp. Very largely in Protestantism this is what has
happened.

These themes will not be pursued systematically in the fol-
lowing study because it is set up around particular men.
Rather, an attempt will be made to show the continual inter-
play of forces both in the realm of idea and in the realm of
external circumstance, the tensions between the struggle to
uphold truth and the effort to achieve tolerance. The story
is carried through the most significant milestone, namely,
the Act of Toleration in England in i(

PART

PERSECUTION:
CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT

Chapter (Dm

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION:

Thomas of Torquemada

A bald enumeration of the presuppositions of Christian
persecution gives no sense of the devastating intensity of
conviction that could impel men to
banish, imprison, torture, strangle,
behead, drown, and burn. The su-
preme example and symbol is
Thomas of Torquemada who, more
than any other, fomented persecution
in Spain, was instrumental in estab-
lishing and heading the Inquisition,
and was the prime mover in the ex-
pulsion of the Jews. Torquemada
was a bigot; he was also a Spaniard,
and in him religious fanaticism and
nationalist zeal were combiaed.

The passion of his life was to unify
Spain under the banner of Christian
orthodoxy. Spain occupied a unique

Thomas of Torquemada

position. Prior to the Crusades this land had been the meet-
ing point of three religions Islam, Judaism, and Christian-
ity. Under the tolerant regime of the caliphs the three dwelt
in peace. Cultural interchange was fostered. Spain was the
bridge between the Arabian and the European worlds, the
crossroad of Islam and Christendom, where the Jews also
had free passage. The ability of these religions to lie down

34 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

together was due to no inherent tolerance, because each of
them on occasion had been highly intolerant. Each makes
exclusive claims. In this instance they manifested mutual re-
spect, perhaps because the Saracens, like the Romans and the
British, discovered that tolerance of religions is a convenient
instrument for a tranquil administration. Wars, to be sure,
there were, but not along confessional lines. Spain stood at
the meeting of East and West.

This situation was not to last. The great disturbing factor
was the Crusades. The root idea was religious, to protect the
holy places from profanation and the holy pilgrims from
molestation by dislodging the Turks and the Saracens from
the Holy Land. An incidental effect was to forge a sense of
European unity, to give reality to the ideal of Christendom.
But this could scarcely be realized so long as the infidel re-
tained a foothold in Europe itself. The Moor must be dis-
lodged from the Iberian peninsula. The Mediterranean must
become a Christian sea.

In this strife for unity the Jews were caught. The Crusad-
ers on their way to the Holy Land, wearying of the long
trek, vented their fanaticism in pogroms. In Spain the plan
of reconquest demanded, not merely that the political power
of the Moor be broken, but that the Christian faith be every-
where recognized, in which case the devotees of Jehovah
were as alien as the worshipers of Allah.

As military pressure was applied to the Moor, popular
antipathy was inflamed against the Jew. Friars preached
hate. Archbishops, kings, and even popes might remonstrate,
but those who had dedicated themselves to the most rigorous
forms of the Christian life would not suffer themselves to be
intimidated from attacks upon those alien to the Christian
faith, Late in the fourteenth century a wave of anti-Jewish
riots swept Spain.

They are better described as anti-Jewish than as anti-

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 35

Semitic, because race played no part and the Jew by renounc-
ing his religion could relieve himself of all persecution. The
temptation was acute, especially because no safe asylum was
anywhere open. The Jews had been expelled from England
in 1290, and from France in 1306, and in Germany were sub-
ject to periodic outbursts. For the first time in history a mass
movement occurred in the Jewish community of wholesale
conversion to Christianity. Thousands accepted baptism. The
laver of redemption then washed away all disabilities, and
the converses, as they were called, became not only immune
from molestation but eligible to the highest offices of the
State and likewise of the Church. Converted Jews became
treasurers, chancellors, bishops, and even archbishops. The
more flourishing married with the Spanish nobility, so that
scarcely any prominent family could claim purity of blood.
Conceivably this process might have continued until assimila-
tion was complete.

But it was not to continue, and one of the chief figures in
arresting the process was Thomas of Torquemada, a Domini-
can friar who is said himself to have had a Jewish grand-
mother. He fell into one of the two classes of the converses.
The majority accepted Christianity only superficially, and
in their homes continued to practice the rites of Judaism, to
keep the kosher regulations, and to observe the feasts and
the Sabbath. Some in clandestine circles may even have made
mock of Christianity, but others by way of compensation be-
came fanatically orthodox and sought to secure themselves
in the Christian community by excessive zeal against any
who lapsed into Judaism. Of such was Torquemada, or at
any rate so he is explained, though the extant evidence is
too scanty to warrant a confident judgment.

Apart from his personal motives this is clear, that Spain
had reached a point of turning. The intolerance fanned by
the Crusades had rendered impossible its former position as

36 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

the link between the crescent and the cross. Now it must be-
long either to Islam or to Christendom, oriented toward the
East or toward the West. And in the latter case there could
be but one religion, the orthodox faith of the Catholic
Church. Torquemada may or may not have sensed the full
import of the situation. From his behavior one can only
judge that he was fanatically committed to a Christian Spain,
purged of all alien elements, a veritable Gibraltar of Chris-
tendom.

In all this one observes that religious persecution was
closely tied to social concomitants. The kernel was the con-
cept of a Christian society, the Church itself built on a pure
faith. But this ideal could readily fuse with some earthly
entity, whether the Holy Roman Empire or one of the rising
national states. This time it was Spain.

The instrument on which Torquemada seized for the
achievement of his purpose was the Inquisition. In his day it
was already fully two hundred years old, and back of the
Inquisition itself lay a still longer history of persecution. To
understand what it was all about a little review is necessary.
For this purpose one need not go back quite to Adam.
Moses will do as a point of departure, because he is the
founder of Judaism and Judaism is the parent of Christian-
ity, notably with reference to the presuppositions of persecu-
tion. On the three counts of certainty, importance, and ex-
pediency, Judaism entertained no doubt. There could be no
question that the faith of Judaism was true, because delivered
by God upon the Mount to Moses. Neither could one deny
the supreme importance of maintaining the faith, since Jeho-
vah is a jealous God who will visit his displeasure upon the
disobedient unto the third and fourth generations. And coer-
cion certainly could preserve the purity of the elect people
by eliminating any apostates. The book of Deuteronomy
therefore decreed in the thirteenth chapter, the classic passage

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 37

on persecution alike for Jews and Christians, that if any Isra-
elite should entice his fellows to follow after other gods, he
should be taken beyond the camp and stoned. And in this
purge no son of the covenant should spare his brother, his
child, or even the wife of his bosom. Elsewhere in the Old
Testament, to be sure, one will find more liberal sentiments,
but here is the manifesto of persecution.

Christianity was the heir to Jewish exclusiveness and even
increased its claims. To the one and only God was added the
one and only Lord. The conflict in the Roman Empire was
not, as in Judaism, between Jehovah and Baal but between
Christ and Caesar. In place of the one chosen race arose the
one chosen religious community, the new Israel of God, the
Christian Church. Very soon emerged the view that outside
of this Church salvation was impossible. The Church was a
spiritual ark of Noah beyond which all were drowned. Ob-
viously, then, adherence to the Church was of supreme im-
portance. Adherence entailed submission to the Church of-
ficers, acceptance of the Church's rites, and subscription to
the Church's faith, the acceptance of a creed. This was a new
element. In the Old Testament the offense was apostasy, de-
fection from the community. In the New Testament the
offense was heresy, a wrong belief, the rejection of an article
of the faith. The penalty in the Old Testament was death,
in the New Testament only avoidance. " Him that is a heretic
avoid " (Titus 3:10). The day was yet distant when the New
Testament offense and the Old Testament penalty were com-
bined, but it was to come.

During the period when the Church was itself subject to
persecution there was of course no possibility of utilizing the
arm of the State for the punishment of heresy. But the pre-
suppositions of persecution were further intensified by the
growth of a spirit of fierce antipathy toward those of a dif-
ferent persuasion. The Early Church swarmed with sects,

38 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

and hostility was bitter. When the orthodox and the Mon-
tanists were condemned to die in the same arena for the
same Lord, they separated themselves to opposite corners
rather than be eaten by the same lions. Such an attitude could
manifest itself in active persecution. After the acceptance of
Christianity by the Roman Empire, Constantine inflicted
banishment upon the dissenting bishops at the Council of
Nicaea. By the end of the fourth century the death penalty
was actually exacted by the Emperor Theodosius, a Spaniard,
of the heretic Priscillian also from Spain. Churchmen were
aghast at this shedding of blood over a matter of the faith.

But churchmen were willing to condone and justify less
extreme measures, particularly when heresy coalesced with
social disorder in northern Africa, a region which by the end
of the fourth century had come to be dominated by the party
of the Donatists, who, after the persecution of Diocletian,
had seceded from the Catholic Church rather than commune
with those who had been lenient in receiving back collabora-
tionist bishops. Once the schism was consummated, the
Donatists attracted to themselves all the elements of discon-
tent in northern Africa, where the old Punic population,
after the demolition of Carthage, had long survived in the
condition of peonage. To the Donatists flocked the oppressed
and the dispossessed. Violence ensued. Saint Augustine, the
bishop of Hippo in this region, still would countenance no
retaliation. But when the government despite his remon-
strance, stepped in and compelled the Donatists by fine and
imprisonment to attend Catholic services, and when many
of the Donatists then averred that formerly they had been
intimidated by their own party from learning the truth and
that now, through the forcible unstopping of their ears, their
minds had been voluntarily opened, Saint Augustine de-
clared himself no longer able to withstand the testimony of
events.

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 39

He had questioned hitherto, not of course the truth of the
faith or its importance, but only the effectiveness and pro-
priety of constraint. With this example before him, he suc-
cumbed and proceeded to elaborate a theory of Christian
persecution based on the premise of Christian love and con-
cern for the welfare of the person coerced. If there is salva-
tion only in the Catholic Church and if constraint can re-
move obstacles to genuine conversion, then to employ it is
an act of kindness. Surely a father may properly hold back
a child from playing with a snake and a son may restrain a
crazed father from throwing himself over a cliff. A horti-
culturist prunes a rotten branch to save a tree and a doctor
amputates a diseased limb to conserve a life. Even so may the
erring be constrained. Augustine was here using fateful anal-
ogies which for him were comparatively innocuous because
he did not personify society and did not admit of the death
penalty. But if and when the body to be saved should be
identified with the Church or the State, then the rotten mem-
ber would become an individual to be destroyed. That step
in the chain of logic was, however, not taken for centuries.

In between came the barbarian invasions in the West. The
intruders were tolerant. Some were themselves heretical
Arians; some were at first pagans. None of them were con-
cerned about or so much as understood the intricacies of
Eastern theology. Persecution slumbered. It was not to be in-
voked again for some six centuries. The reason is that heresy
and sectarianism also slumbered. Why that should have been
the case is distinctly puzzling. The Early Church was rent
by sects, and likewise the Church of the late Middle Ages.
Conceivably during the intervening period the collapse of
culture and the decline of intellectual interest removed one
of the causes of conflict. Again the winning of the West for
Christianity consumed all energies, and monasticism pro-
vided a sufficient outlet for the urge to diversity.

40 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Persecution was revived when sectarianism and heresy re-
curred. The beginnings are found in the eleventh century
and culminated in the thirteenth, when, paradoxically, the
Church reached the zenith of its prestige and power as a con-
trolling and integrating factor in European civilization and
coincidentally was menaced with disruption by a prolifera-
tion of sects. Both developments stem from a great reforma-
tory movement which essayed to purge the monasteries,
purify the Church, and Christianize the world. The effort
produced new monastic orders, holy wars, and the papal the-
ocracy. But even such glittering successes were a disappoint-
ment to ardent reformers, who deplored the resurgent wealth
of the monasteries, the bestiality of the Crusades, and the
secularization of the papacy through the acquisition of tem-
poral power. The inference was that society cannot be Chris-
tianized and the Church as a whole cannot be reformed.
Consequently small convinced groups must undertake the
reformation, even at the price of secession. Conjoined with
this moral urge was defection at one point or another from
the faith. Such a dissipation of forces the Church could not
abide at the very moment when a united effort appeared
capable of erecting a new Jerusalem on earth. The arm of
the State was therefore invoked to allay dissent. The result
was the Inquisition, an institution founded by the popes in
the thirteenth century and directly subject to their control.
The Inquisitor was commissioned to ferret out heresy, un-
deterred by fear, favor, or affection. The convicted should
be committed to the secular arm to be burned, rather than
beheaded, because the Church abhors the shedding of blood.

Such was the instrument that lay at hand for Torque-
mada's purpose. Yet it was not entirely suitable for all that
he envisaged. To begin with, its jurisdiction was too re-
stricted, because the Inquisition could take cognizance of of-
fenses only when committed by Christians. The test of a

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 4!

Christian was exceedingly perfunctory, since it consisted in
infant baptism. The unbaptized were free. This meant that
the Inquisition might deal only with the converses, and not
with the loyal Jews and Moors. Increasingly Torquemada
was of the persuasion that they too, notably the Jews, must
come within the net, because the converses could never be
held to the Christian faith so long as the Jews were at hand
to seduce them. Either, then, the scope of the Inquisition
must be enlarged or some other device must be discovered.

Still another question was whether in any case the Inquisi-
tion could be bent to deal adequately even with the con-
versos, because the Inquisition was directly subject to the
popes and the popes in this era were not fanatical. The late
fifteenth century was the period of the Renaissance, when
the popes had become Italian despots, elegant, loose, some-
times flippant, and often indifferent as to the faith. Crusad-
ing zeal, now at its peak in Spain, had cooled at the very
seat of its origin, and Pope Alexander VI, himself a Spaniard
by the way, actually made a treaty with the Turk against the
most Christian king of France. It looked almost as if the
former role of Spain as the bridge between religions and
cultures might be taken over by Rome. Although such frat-
ernization was but of short duration, Torquemada was
rightly dubious as to whether the popes would abet his im-
placability.

The only recourse was to extricate the Inquisition from
papal hands, and no other power was strong enough to ac-
complish this save the crown. Already in France, Philip IV
had turned the Inquisition into an instrument of State to
suppress the Templars. Torquemada undertook to do the
like in Spain in order to extinguish the Judaizers. The sover-
eigns of Spain at this time were Isabella and Ferdinand. Isa-
bella deserves to be named first, for she was the abler and
more enterprising of the two. The contemporary verdict on

42 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

their relative endowments was registered on their tombs. The
head of Isabella sinks deeply into the stone cushion, whereas
the brains of Ferdinand make but a slight impression. Isabella
was a visionary, hospitable to the schemes of madmen. She
suffered herself to be persuaded by two such in her lifetime.
The one induced her to sponsor his wild plan to reach the
Indies by sailing westward; and the other enlisted her for
the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. To contemporaries,
Columbus probably appeared the madder of the two. Tor-
quemada became the confessor of Isabella in 1467, when she
was sixteen and he was forty-six.

Ferdinand was of a different breed. His primary concern
was to complete the process, already advanced in France, of
the establishment of order through the reduction of baronial
power and the concentration of authority in the crown. This
was one aspect of rising nationalism. The great nobles and
the great churchmen, who were also nobles, stood in the
way, and sometimes the pope interfered. An institution that
would not only preserve the unity of the faith but might at
the same time break the nobility, both lay and clerical, was
greatly to be prized, and just this the Inquisition might
achieve. The goods of the convicted were subject to confisca-
tion. If they could then be awarded, not to the Church, but
to the State, the victim would be impoverished and the
crown enriched. Furthermore, any who harbored heretics
were themselves subject to prosecution. If, then, any of the
feudal lords and great churchmen offered an asylum to the
converses, to whom they were frequently bound by ties of
blood, they would at once come under the jurisdiction of the
dread tribunal. Ferdinand perceived that the Inquisition
could be highly serviceable, provided he and not the pope
controlled it Torquemada was not averse to playing upon
the bigotry of Isabella and the cupidity of Ferdinand. The
Inquisition was thus to become the great weapon for the

THE PEAK. OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 43

purity of the faith and the honor of Spain. Orthodoxy and
nationalism were combined.

Torquemada well knew that he would not have easy going
even in Spain. The masses were not in a continuous state of
eruption against the converses, and the process of assimilation
had actually gone so far that only by a din of propaganda
could it be arrested. And propaganda in those days could not
employ the radio, nor to any large extent even the printing
press. The great instrument was the spoken word, and the
speakers were the friars. Long had they been the preachers of
intolerance. They were practiced in the art of inflammatory
harangues. For rougher work there were the familiares,
young nobles who were given certain clerical immunities in
return for running down and rounding up suspects. Children
even were encouraged to inform against their parents. Or-
dinarily a boy must be fourteen and a girl twelve to make
their testimony admissible. But a case is reported of a girl of
but ten who was forced to depose against her mother.

One of the chief weapons in the hands of Torquemada was
any act of indiscretion or retaliation on the part of the con-
versos. Every incident was magnified in proportions and gen-
eralized in extent. The first episode occurred when a young
Spanish noble, visiting his mistress among the Jewish con-
verts, overheard her father and his friends reviling the Chris-
tian faith. The young man's orthodoxy was above his morals,
and he promptly reported the case to the Church. The pen-
alty imposed was lenient. The noble then remonstrated to the
queen, and at this point Torquemada stepped in to plead that
the local clergy could not be trusted. Therefore an independ-
ent tribunal must be introduced, namely, the Inquisition.
The queen consented. Then the white-and-black-robed Do-
minicans marched in solemn procession into Seville and set up
the Holy Office. One of their number would post himself
every Saturday on the roof of the convent to scan the chim-

44 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

neys of the city. If any were without smoke, the house was
investigated to learn whether the Jewish Sabbath was being
observed within. One wonders why the Jews could not have
been suffered to retain certain of the externals of Judaism
just as the early Christians were not required to abandon the
observance of the law. But unhappily in times of stress the
trivial externals commonly become the symbols of diversity
and the objects of attack.

Torquemada pushed for the extension of the Inquisition
from Seville to the whole of Castile and Aragon and de-
manded further from the pope that the officials be appointed.,
not by the pontiff, but by the king. The pope refused and
demoted Torquemada. Ferdinand promptly backed the friar
and threatened financial retaliations against the papacy. The
pope, seeing his income jeopardized, at once capitulated, and
in October, 1482, Torquemada became the Grand Inquisitor
for Aragon and Castile.

The campaign began by exhorting all in the community to
confess or to inform. Those who confessed and did penance
could thereby forestall the confiscation of their goods. Three
days of grace were allowed. Then arrests were made of sus-
pects. If they proved tough, various methods of softening
were employed. The prisoner would be brought into a dark-
ened chamber. Before him sat the Inquisitors robed in white.
Behind him stood the guards. A notary was ready to take
down every word. The Inquisitor in silence fumbled papers,
casting a dubious eye at the accused. After he had been made
sufficiently apprehensive, his examination began. If the sus-
pect proved obdurate, the Inquisitor might announce that he
had to go on a journey and would leave the accused in chains
until his return. Or the hearings might be accelerated. Again
the prisoner might be transferred to pleasant surroundings
and allowed visits from his friends, who would insinuate the
suggestion that he confess. A spy might come, pretending to

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 45

be himself a prisoner, and would seek confidences. A com-
plete pardon might be proffered in return for confession and
the implication of others, though after the information was
elicited, the pardon would be interpreted as that of God and
not of the Inquisition, or the reward might be merely stran-
gling prior to burning. The witnesses for the prosecution
might be heretics or criminals, but for the defense only good
Catholics.

All other attempts having failed, torture might be used.
The rack and the burning of the feet became popular later.
In Spain the commonest modes were the hoist and the water
torture. The hoist consisted in tying the hands behind the
back. One end of a rope was then secured around the hands
and the other end of the rope passed through a pulley on
the ceiling. The victim was raised and then dropped by sud-
den jerks. Each time the elevation was increased and weights

A Burning at the Sta^e in the Spanish Inquisition

46 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

might be placed on the feet. In the water cure the suspect was
bound to a ladder, so placed that the feet were above the head.
The mouth was held open by an iron clasp and the nostrils
plugged. A rag was placed down the throat. The mouth was
then filled with water. Swallowing took the rag down the
gullet and cut off breathing. When the victim was on the
point of suffocation, the rag was pulled up and the soft voice
of the Inquisitor appealed for a confession.

If the accused were adjudged guilty, he suffered the con-
fiscation of his goods. If penitent, he might be imprisoned for
life or at least placed under close surveillance. If impenitent,
he was burned at the stake, often after previous mutilation.
Penitents were required to wear the sanbenito, a single shape-
less, sulphur-colored garment, on Sundays and on all reli-
gious festivals. The only possible extenuation that can be
urged for these practices is that civil penalties were at that
time no less severe.

In the year 1488 the Inquisitors in Toledo handled 3,300
cases. Torquemada had to request the king to construct spe-
cial dwellings for the throngs of the accused since the dun-
geons were full.

Further incidents played into his hands. The converses
divined that he meditated their extinction and resolved on
retaliation. The most expedient method appeared to be to as-
sassinate the Inquisitors. A band of six formed a conspiracy.
One of their number was himself the son of a condemned
converse. Two Inquisitors were to be dispatched. The task
would not be easy because they were known to wear coats of
mail beneath their Dominican cowls. The plotters concealed
themselves in the church where the friars came at midnight
for Mass. On the night in question only one of the Inquisitors
appeared. The assassins debated whether to postpone their
coup until both could be caught. When the lone Inquisitor
went to a side chapel but a few yards distant, the opportunity

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 47

was not to be missed. The son of the converse drove his sword
through the coat of mail And the other Inquisitor died
shortly thereafter under suspicion of poison. The populace
was inflamed. The familiares unearthed several of the con-
spirators. Some fled to France; one took his life. Those who
were caught had their hands cut off on the steps of the ca-
thedral. They were half hanged, castrated, and quartered.
The attempt of the converses to protect themselves by rebel-
lion had failed.

Next a handful of converses and Jews sought to protect
themselves, not by the arm of man, but by the assistance of
the powers of darkness. In place of assassination came magic.
The whole story is to be reconstructed from the single dossier
of one of the accused, preserved in the files of the Inquisition.
The records begin in June of the year 1490 with the examina-
tion of a converted Jew, Benito Garcia by name, fifty years
of age. He had been returning from a pilgrimage to Com-
postela, and stayed at an inn where, for lack of space, he had
to share a room with some drunkards, who rummaged in his
bag and found a wafer which they took to be a sacred host.
The case was referred to the vicar. Under torture Benito con-
fessed that he had relapsed into Judaism and that at the house
of two Jews, Mose and Yuce Franco by name, he had eaten
meat on a Friday. He had declared the Corpus Christi to be
humbug and spat during the procession, but he confessed
nothing about the wafer.

He had incriminated two Jews. Strictly speaking, they
were not subject to the Inquisition, but they were investi-
gated. Mose Franco turned out to be dead. Yuce was a lad of
twenty. He was arrested. For good measure his father, eighty
years of age, was also taken into custody, unbeknownst to the
son. In prison Yuce fell sick and, believing himself to be on
the point of death, asked for a rabbi. Such a request com-
promised him in no way because he was a Jew and had never

48 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

been a Christian at all. The Inquisitors saw here a providen-
tial opportunity and introduced in the robes of a rabbi a con-
verso fully conversant with the dialect of the local Jews. He
inquired of Yuce for what reason he had been arrested. The
boy replied that he did not know, unless perchance because
of what had happened some eleven years previously, namely,
the mita of a nahar after the manner of the Otohays. These
three words were not Spanish but Hebrew. Mita means " kill-
ing." Nahar means " a boy/' and Otohays is a combination
of two words meaning " that man/' the expression used
among the Jews to signify Christ. In other words, eleven
years before there had been a killing of a boy after the man-
ner of Christ, that is to say, by crucifixion. The feigned rabbi
reported the conversation and Yuce was confronted with
what he had said. He then incriminated a family of converted
Jews of the town of La Guardia. Like himself, they were
named Franco, though not related to him. These Franco
brothers, he claimed, had crucified a boy on Good Friday.

The Inquisitors then pieced together the separate items
and constructed the charge that Benito had stolen a sacred
wafer and Yuce had participated in a crucifixion in order to
obtain the heart of a Christian boy. Heart and wafer were to
be used together for purposes of magic. Yuce denied any
complicity.

Then Benito and Yuce were placed in adjoining rooms
with a crack between. An Inquisitor was listening in. Yuc
began to strum on his guitar. Benito told him to stop lest he
disturb his father. This was the first intimation he had had of
his father's arrest. Yuce then asked Benito for what reason
he had been apprehended, and Benito related the story of
the discovery of the wafer at the inn. He had been subjected
to water torture. The Inquisitors he considered were worse
than Antichrist. If he ever got out, he would go to Judea.
Better die than be tortured. Let Yuce, when he recited the

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 49

prayer, " Helohay nesama" remember him. Yuce then began
plying him with questions about the wafer until Benito grew
reticent.

The Inquisitors who had tapped the conversation were con-
fident that Yuce was privy to the theft of the wafer. They
laid before him the report of all that he had said to Benito,
and extracted thereby the confession that he did know that
Benito and the Franco brothers of La Guardia, who like
Benito were converses, had stolen the wafer to employ it in
magic to protect them against the Christians. But the magic
had not been successful. Nothing more would Yuce confess.
After two months he made a reference to a human heart.
After another month he was promised immunity for his fa-
ther if he would confess more. And then he admitted that the
human heart had been taken from a boy who had been cruci-
fied. Then the father was shown his son's confession. He cor-
roborated the crucifixion and laid the responsibility upon the
Francos of La Guardia. He and his sons, who were Jews and
not conversos, had merely been present. The heart had been
extracted to make a spell and the body had been disposed of.

The next procedure was to bring prisoners together in
pairs. The Franco brothers of La Guardia were of course by
this time under arrest on the orders of " Frey tomas de Tor-
quemada." What one suspect had told about another was re-
lated to him in the hope that he would be angered and would
retaliate by telling something against the informer. In this
way Yuce came to be charged with having conducted the
Francos of La Guardia and Benito to a cave for a crucifixion.
He had himself opened the veins of the child and had de-
clared Christianity to be humbug.

The defense and the prisoner was allowed defense
pointed to discrepancies in the testimony and called in ques-
tion the participation of Yuce in view of his youth. The ob-
jections were overruled.

50 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Then came the torture. According to the record, on the sec-
ond of November in the year of our Saviour 1491, the In-
quisitors entered the dungeon and besought Yuce lovingly
and with all humanity to tell the truth. He should relate
whose child this was, how he was obtained, and who was the
first to start this business. If he would tell the truth, they
would deal with him mercifully. Then Yuce confessed that
fifteen days after the crucifixion they had made fetishes, but
the Inquisitors were sure that he was not telling the truth
and committed him to torture. He was roped to a ladder and
his arms pinned. He was assured that if they proceeded to the
torture it would be his fault, and not theirs, because he had
not confessed, that in any case they would treat him merci-
fully without effusion of blood or mutilation of members.
Then Yuce confessed that Juan Franco had obtained the
child at Toledo, having enticed him with candy, but whose
child he was he did not know. The purpose of the fetishes
was to obtain protection against the Inquisition, and the
child was crucified after the manner of Christ because if he
who represented Christ were destroyed, the power of Christ
would be destroyed. In other words, this was representative
magic.

The confessions were forwarded to Torquernada. He had
followed the progress of the case but had not hurried, since
he wanted the evidence to be unimpeachable. Nine months
had elapsed in eliciting this much. Torquemada submitted
the documents to seven of the most learned professors of the
University of Salamanca. They rendered the verdict that
Yuce and the others were all guilty. And now came the crucial
point. Could the Inquisition exercise any jurisdiction over
Yuce and his father, since they were Jews and not conversos
like Benito and the Francos of La Guardia ? The reply was
that in such a case the authority of the Inquisition extended
also to the Jews.

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 51

Invoking then the name of Christ, the judges pronounced
the sentence of death. The auto-da-fe took place on the six-
teenth of November, 1491. Certain of the converses returned
to the faith and were rewarded by strangling before burning.
Young Yuce and his aged father adhered resolutely to their
Judaism. Their flesh was torn by red-hot pincers before the
fires were lighted.

What shall we make of this story ? Some modern historians
have assumed that the charges were a pure fabrication, con-
cocted by the Inquisitors and corroborated by torture. Against
this may be said that, unless the entire deposition is false, the
first testimony as to the crucifixion came from the statement
of Yuce to the feigned rabbi, and the first admissions as to the
wafer were derived from his confidential conversation with
Benito. The Jewish historian Sabatini was so far impressed
by these facts as to concede the reality of the crucifixion. He
insisted only that it was not a case of ritual murder by the
Jewish community, but an instance of representative magic
practiced by a few Jews and converses. We need not be sur-
prised if some Jews were no more enlightened and no more
humane than many of their Christian neighbors. And we
may even be able to understand how among a people threat-
ened with extermination a few unbalanced spirits might sum-
mon the aid of the powers of darkness.

But they merely succeeded in supplying Torquemada with
the means of their complete undoing. He pressed upon Isa-
bella that the converses could never be held to the faith so
long as the Jews remained to seduce them. The unbelievers
must be banished from the land. Isabella hesitated. Ferdi-
nand hesitated. Well they might, because the Jews were the
tax collectors and the crown needed taxes. But Ferdinand be-
came more amenable when the immediate object of taxation
was removed. The great drain was the constant war to expel
the Moors from Spain. On January 2, 1492, Granada fell.

52 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The war was over and Ferdinand could afford to dispense
with the Jews. Their banishment was decreed after three
months. They could take with them only what they could
carry away. The leaders of the Jewish community appeared
before the king and queen to protest their former services
and to proffer their future contributions. As a token they
presented 30,000 ducats. The sovereigns hesitated. Torque-
mada advanced to the table. " Judas/' he cried, " sold his
Master for thirty pieces of silver. You would sell him for
thirty thousand." Holding aloft a crucifix, he flung it on
the table, saying, " Take him and sell him, but do not let it
be said that I have had any share in this transaction."

The edict of expulsion stood. The Jews disposed of their
goods, a house for a donkey or a vineyard for a piece of cloth.
The galleons of Columbus setting out for the New World
passed the ships taking the Jews into a new dispersion.

This is of course but a single instance from the whole story
of the Inquisition. After the fall of Granada the process that
had been applied to the Jews was extended to the Moors.
Later the Inquisition was to be employed against the Protes-
tants. But quite enough is here to illustrate the principles and
the procedures. The point to be emphasized is that this was
primarily religious persecution. The fact that orthodoxy
could be fused with nationalism must not obscure the fact
that friars preaching in the name of religion had created a
situation out of which the fusion could arise. Nor is perse-
cuting religion to be regarded as insincere. Dostoevsky mis-
represented the Spanish Inquisitor when he portrayed him
as cynically ready to burn even Christ should he return. The
Torquemadas were not cynics, but passionately sincere fanat-
ics. All of which should make abundantly plain that virtues
are not without their vices. A concern for truth can end in
inhumanity and love itself can be perverted into cruelty. This,
too, is obvious: that Christianity as such cannot be regarded

THE PEAK OF CATHOLIC PERSECUTION 53

as the panacea for all the ills of the world. It all depends on
what kind of Christianity. And whatever else may be added,
this certainly is an appalling reflection: that the barbarities
practiced in modern times to ensure conformity to the pro-
gram of a party are but refinements of the methods em-
ployed by those who invoked the name of Christ.

Ctoo

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE:
John

On the monument of the Reformation at Geneva stand in
stone four massive figures. The tallest and most imposing is
John Calvin, in life a frail and emaciated Frenchman, whose
colossal proportions are here justified only because his spirit
fashioned Geneva, divided Holland, convulsed France,
molded Scotland, and guided New England. Beside him

Monument of the Reformation at Geneva

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 55

stands his henchman, Theodore Beza, who, after Calvin, held
the citadel o Geneva begirt by foes. On one side stands Wil-
liam Fare!., of the red beard, of whom contemporaries said
that " no one bellowed more vociferously/ 5 and on the other
side John Knox, who intimidated a queen and turned the
Scottish nation from raiding cattle to raiding hell and rear-
ing a nation of saints. One could scarcely find in the six-
teenth century, apart from Luther, four more intrepid and in-
fluential figures, and they were all persecutors. John Calvin
was responsible for the execution of Michael Servetus at the
stake. Farel attended the execution. Beza justified the holo-
caust, and John Knox applauded.

At the far end of this monument of the Reformation stands
a figure who, if he had been in Geneva in the sixteenth cen-
tury, would have been drowned if not burned. He is the Bap-
tist and Seeker, Roger Williams by name, a champion of
religious liberty and of the separation of Church and State.
What is he doing flanking this phalanx of persecutors ? The
paradox of the monument is that it includes men who would
have destroyed each other had they met in life, but who
nevertheless are placed in a line of succession. And the line is
valid, as the sequel will reveal.

Another anomaly is that at the moment of its beginning
Protestantism was more intolerant than contemporary Ca-
tholicism. The Catholic Church is not monolithic, and in the
days of Torquemada the popes were more tolerant than were
the Inquisitors. When Luther emerged, he was, in temper at
least, vastly more intolerant than Pope Leo X. Luther was
aflame for the Word of God. Pope Leo X was titillated by ele-
gant tapestries. Catholicism again became deadly in earnest
only in the Counter Reformation. The basic reasons for the
comparative tolerance of the opening decades of the sixteenth
century lay, however, not in the flippant indifference of in-
dividual popes, but partly in a sense of security, inasmuch as

56 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

the menace of the Moors and the Jews had passed and the
menace of Protestantism had not yet emerged. In such an
interlude the philosophy of tolerance was able to flourish.

This was the age of the Renaissance. One of the strains in
that movement is called humanism. It was in part an attitude
to life,, aspiring to fulfillment rather than, renunciation. The
ideal was to encompass all departments and master all dis-
ciplines. Nothing was alien; all learning, all systems, and
even all religions should be studied and sympathetically un-
derstood. The pious pagans were esteemed as almost Chris-
tian saints and were not excluded from paradise. And Chris-
tianity was at times on the verge of losing its absolutely
unique place among religions. Coincidentally, the essence of
Christianity was attenuated, and defined as comprising little
more than those universal beliefs and moral maxims com-
mon to all peoples. Christianity tended to be expressed in
terms of the Fatherhood of God, the leadership of Christ, and
the brotherhood of man. These were of course later the slo-
gans of the Enlightenment and of liberal Protestantism. They
were first formulated in the age of the Renaissance.

Another aspect of humanism was free inquiry, particularly
with regard to historical documents, including those on
which rested the claims of the Church and of the Christian
religion itself. The textual and literary critics demonstrated
the spuriousness of many bulwarks of orthodoxy and theoc-
racy. The Apostles' Creed was shown not to have been ac-
tually by the apostles. The Donation of Constantine was ex-
posed as false. And many of the decretals buttressing papal
claims were demonstrated to have been fabricated. Even the
text of the Bible was shown to be incapable of restoration
with perfect assurance, and certain texts such as the one on
the three witnesses, the great proof text for the Trinity, was
proved to be an interpolation. The humanists demanded for
themselves freedom to conduct such investigations and

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 57

stoutly resisted interference. Humanism, whether within
Catholicism or Protestantism, was one of the great strands
in the fabric of liberty. Another was mysticism, which like-
wise flourished in this period, especially in the Rhine Valley
and the Low Countries. Mysticism views the end of religion
as the union of man with God. The devotee loses himself in
the abyss of the Godhead as the drop of water is merged with
the ocean. But this process is not easy, because there are alien
elements impeding the union which must first be eliminated
by a purgative process. The subduing of the flesh is at this
point a wholesome discipline and any suffering imposed from
without is to be welcomed. In this whole approach to religion
there are three points making for religious liberty. The first is
that the object of the quest is not the understanding of God
by some intellectual process but absorption into his Being.
Hence interest in speculative theology is diminished and
rigid orthodoxy becomes less a ground for persecution. Sec-
ondly, if suffering is an essential stage upon the way, persecu-
tion is never to be inflicted, but rather to be endured with
patience, if not indeed with joy and gratitude. The inference
is not far removed that a persecuting Church cannot be a
true Church, and the afflicted are by that very token to be
regarded as true Christians. Finally, in the third place, the
entire process of mystical absorption cannot be hastened or
helped by any external constraint. Force may elicit a confes-
sion to a creed. It can scarcely unite the believer with God.

The man in whom all these tendencies converged was Eras-
mus of Rotterdam, and he deserves mention here because he
was the father of so many of the liberal tendencies within Ca-
tholicism and Protestantism alike. In the early decades of the
sixteenth century his spirit prevailed. Even in Spain he en-
joyed an enormous vogue in the 1520'$. The reason was of
course in part that the Inquisition had done its work all too
well, and the rigors could safely be relinquished. Throughout

58 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Europe before the emergence of Luther the pressures were
relaxed. Reformers might criticize and scholars might probe
without throwing the Holy Office into hysteria.

The tolerance of Erasmus was based partly on rationalism.
He deplored even discussion, let alone constraint over matters
that cannot be known on this side of the Judgment Day.
Many problems, he thought, were commonly deferred until
the meeting of a general council, and it would be better to
defer them still further, " until no longer we see in a glass
darkly but behold God face to face." Among such questions
he would include the problem of the relation of the three
persons in the Trinity and the distinction between the nativ-
ity of the Son and the procession of the Holy Ghost. Specula-
tion in any case appeared to him inimical to piety. " The sum
of our religion is peace and unanimity and these can scarcely
stand unless we define as little as possible and in many things
leave each one free to follow his own judgment."

The ethical note also was prominent, Erasmus always
sensed a perversion of values in leniency toward clerical con-
cubinage and severity toward queries with regard to the con-
substantiality of the second member of the Trinity. " What
does it matter if there be no blasphemy of the tongue if the
whole life breathes blasphemy against God ? ... If the Beat-
itudes which bless the meek and the persecuted are called a
lie ? What blasphemy could be more detestable than this ? "

Again Erasmus, in keeping with the mystical tradition,
sharply differentiated the spiritual from the physical and situ-
ated religion in the realm of the spirit. For this reason most
of the controversies of his day appeared to him irrelevant,
because centering on things outward, which in the eyes of
God are of small significance. The chief heresy and the su-
preme blasphemy in his judgment was to turn the spiritual
into the carnal. To burn men simply for observing kosher
laws would be in his eyes a monstrous perversion of true re-

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 59

ligion and utterly ineffective in producing the right spirit,
which alone matters.

But if Erasmus deprecated theological hairsplitting, it was
not because he was not an intellectual. In the domain of liter-
ary studies he demanded the freedom of the scholar to carry
on his investigations without dogmatic presuppositions or
ecclesiastical interference.

Humanism and mysticism thus converged in him, and
from him they flow out into much of liberal Catholicism and
liberal Protestantism. On the other hand, one must not re-
gard him altogether as the enlightened liberal. He had a very
deep feeling for the authority and integrity of the Church,
and when he saw the structure buttressing the European
unities menaced by sectarianism, he was aghast and not un-
willing to take some restrictive measures. Against blasphe-
mous heresy that looked in the direction of sedition he would
use the sword.

Protestantism arose during the Erasmian interlude, when
the fires of the Inquisition smoldered and men might think
and men might speak. Those who spoke were affected by the
mood. Luther in his youth had been as intolerant as an In-
quisitor, and declared that he would have been willing to
bring a fagot for the pyre of John Hus. But when he found
himself suspected of heresy, he endorsed the Erasmian prin-
ciple that to burn heretics is against the will of the Holy
Spirit. And this statement was one of Luther's propositions
condemned by the Roman bull. He did not relinquish this
position even after the pressures became intense. His view
altered, however, when he passed from the status of a fugitive
to that of a builder of a Church.

After a year in exile at the Wartburg, he returned unau-
thorized to Wittenberg and commenced the construction of
what came to be known as the Lutheran Church. The first
problem was what to do with the Catholics and their serv-

60 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

ices. Luther's followers resorted to violence, intimidating and
mauling priests and the religious. All this Luther roundly de-
cried, " Of course there are abuses/' said he. " So also the sun
has been abused by being worshiped, but shall we therefore
pluck the sun from the sky? And men have gone wrong with
wine and women, but shall we on that account prohibit wine
and abolish women ? " His counsel was to correct the abuses
by patience and a process of education. Faith is too inward
and spiritual to be judged or forced by outward means. Con-
straint leads the weak to deny their convictions. Better to let
them err than force them to lie. The Mass actually continued
for three years after Luther's return to Wittenberg. Much
more disconcerting was the rise of sectarianism within his
own ranks. He was cut to the quick when he discovered that
the predictions of his Catholic opponents were being all too
abundantly fulfilled that one secession would lead to an-
other and the seamless robe of Christ would be reduced to
shreds. Yet Luther was extremely loath to countenance any
constraint. " Let the spirits fight it out/' was his advice.

It was not he who started Protestant persecution, but rather
Zwingli, and that may be all the more surprising because he
was a son of the Renaissance, a disciple of Erasmus, and very
cordial to the pious heathen. But the form of dissent that
arose in Zurich was not so much directed against dogmas,
with regard to which Zwingli might have been tolerant, as
against the very nature of the Church and its relation to civil
society. Here is another case where the eternal mingled with
the temporal. The Anabaptists (they preferred to call them-
selves Baptists) had a theory of the Church that necessitated
its separation from the State, because they claimed that the
Church should be composed only of heartfelt believers of
upright life, whereas the State should include the total body
of the inhabitants in a community. They could not endorse
the system whereby every child was by birth a citizen and by

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 6l

baptism a Christian, and the whole populace was deemed
Christian by virtue o a rite accorded to unwitting infants.
The Church must comprise only the regenerate. The Church
therefore would have to be a select community. But the State
should include everybody within a given district. Conse-
quently State and Church could not coincide. The symbol of
the Baptist system was the rejection of infant baptism and
the repetition of the rite in adult life, though for the Baptists
there was no repetition because infant baptism was no bap-
tism at all but only " a dipping in the Romish bath." The
question of baptism mattered vastly less in Zwingli's eyes
than the disintegration of a Christian society. He foresaw,
and rightly, as the outcome of their position the possible sec-
ularization of the State. The Church might in the process
be purged, but the community would be dechristianized.
Such abandonment of the world to the devil he could not
abide, and his answer was to invoke at once the arm of the
State. The Anabaptists were subjected to a law that originated
in the Christian Roman Empire against the 'ancient Dona-
tists, who claimed that baptism was invalid unless practiced
by themselves and therefore repeated baptism in case any
Catholic joined their ranks. Against this practice the death
penalty was decreed in the Code of Justinian. Not the canon
law of the Church of Rome, but the civil law of the Empire
of Rome provided the legal basis for Protestant persecution.
The Anabaptists were drowned in mockery of adult immer-
sion. This was in the year 1525.

Luther did not approve, and in 1527 he wrote: " It is not
right, and I am deeply troubled that the poor people are so
pitifully put to death, burned, and cruelly slain. Let every-
one believe what he likes. If he is wrong, he will have pun-
ishment enough in hell fire. Unless there is sedition one
should oppose them with Scripture and God's Word. With
fire you will accomplish nothing."

62 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

But in the year 1525 another incident occurred that shook
Luther powerfully. It was a further coincidence of religion
and social disturbance. The Peasants' War alarmed him tre-
mendously. Yet the Peasants' War by itself would never have
disposed him to become a persecutor had it not been for the
injection into it of a highly explosive religious idea by that
firebrand Thomas Miintzer, the first Protestant theocrat. The
great difference between Miintzer and Luther was that
Miintzer believed in the possibility of the Kingdom of God
on earth. Luther claimed that this is entirely unrealizable.
The world is and remains a devil's pigsty, which can be re-
strained from outrageous villainy by the sword of the magis-
trate but can never be converted into the Garden of Eden.
Not even the Church is a Garden of Eden, because the
Church is a field in which the tares are mingled with the
wheat. But Miintzer asserted that the wheat can be segre-
gated from the tares because now is the time of the harvest.
The wheat are the elect and they can be known. This is an-
other point that Luther denied. He believed very strongly
that there are elect and nonelect, but he saw no means by
which they can be infallibly distinguished. Miintzer had a
test, and it was the new birth, the descent of the Spirit, a
radical, datable conversion. People who have had such an ex-
perience know very definitely that they have had it and are
in a position to form a Church. More than that, they can
form a society. Here is the idea of a holy commonwealth,
the Kingdom of God realized upon earth. For Miintzer the
hour had struck for the saints to reign. Into their hands had
been placed the sword to smite the ungodly. Here is a form
of intolerance staggering in its dimensions, if a little handful
of saints are to put all the uncircumcised to the edge of the
sword. Miintzer tried to recruit his saints from among the
princes and failed, from among the humanists and failed,
then from among the peasants, who were already on the

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 63

rampage. Thus religious and social revolution coincided.
Miintzer unfurled the banner of the Peasants' Revolution in
the very sanctuary and then went out to lead the hordes to
slaughter in the name of the Lord of Hosts.

Luther was stupefied and then infuriated. He believed in
the elect, but also that their identity is known only to God.
He believed in the Kingdom, but that God would give it in
his own good time. He believed in the use of the sword, but
only in the hands of the magistrate ordained of God. Under
no circumstances did he believe that each man should be his
own avenger, and for social revolution to clothe itself with the
slogans of the gospel was to him utterly monstrous. He called
upon the princes for a ruthless suppression of the rebellion.

When it was all over, he was left in a state of distraught
nerves and ready, for the future, to suppress persons like
Thomas Miintzer before the situation got out of hand. Then
the Anabaptists began to infiltrate into his district. They did
not agree with Thomas Miintzer 's program of revolution,
but they did believe in the segregation of the saints and the
establishment of holy communities. They did disintegrate
the Church-State relationship, and in Luther's Thuringia
there were among their leaders some who had been associ-
ated with Thomas Miintzer. Luther's position gradually
veered. For a time he was silent. When the Diet of Speyer in
1529 decreed death for the Anabaptists throughout the Holy
Roman Empire, Luther made no immediate comment. But
in 1531 he was ready to countenance death for blasphemy
and sedition. Faith he would not constrain. Heresy in the
form of an incorrect opinion he would not molest. But open
reviling or overt rebellion must be suppressed. For a long
time there was no open rebellion on the part of the Ana-
baptists. They were as sheep for the slaughter. But in 1534
the worm turned, and a little group of fanatics reverted to
the program of Thomas Miintzer and forcibly seized the

64 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

city of Miinstcr in Westphalia. Their entire coup failed. But
the episode branded all Anabaptism with the suspicion of
revolution, however unjustified. In the year 1536 Melanch-
thon drafted a memorandum on the treatment of the Ana-
baptists, in which he distinguished the peaceful from the
revolutionary and demanded death for both varieties, and
Luther signed. He still held to his formula that only blas-
phemy and sedition should be punished, but he interpreted
as blasphemy a rejection of an article in the Apostles' Creed
and as sedition a mere refusal to participate in war or to
serve as a magistrate. Yet in later life Luther came back to
his earlier statement that banishment was sufficient as a pen-
alty, and of course imprisonment. There was an Anabaptist,
Fritz Erbe by name, who suffered incarceration for nine
years in the Castle of the Wartburg, where Luther himself
had been for a year in exile. Erbe died in captivity but Lu-
ther never expressed one word of sympathy, respect, or re-
gret.

The year of the Anabaptist memorandum was the year
when John Calvin published his Institutes, That is, his ca-
reer began when the Protestant position was already for-
mulated, and that explains in part why he never went through
the liberal period as Luther had done. The lines were already
sharply drawn as between Catholic and Protestant. Calvin
came from France at a time when one could no longer be a
liberal Catholic reformer, neutral as between Wittenberg and
Rome. In France the king and the high ecclesiastics would
march in solemn procession to the cathedral to attend the
celebration of the Mass, then dine sumptuously and top off
the day by watching the burning of heretics. John Calvin
escaped such a fate by flight. He came as a refugee to the
Protestant cities of Strasbourg and Basel, where also the lines
were sharply drawn as to the varieties of Protestantism and

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 65

dissenters could no longer expect here to find an abiding
place. John Calvin was twenty-six. He became the formu-
lator of an entrenched Protestantism and the inaugurator of
a militant Protestantism. His manifesto, published in Basel
in the year 1536, was the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin's Protestantism was more activist than Luther's,
partly because of the point of departure. Luther started with
the grace of God in Christ, which we cannot earn but can
only accept. Religion entails an initial act of passivity. Calvin
opens the Institutes, not with a proclamation of justification
by faith, but with the disclosure of the sovereignty of God.
He is the only Lord, the Everlasting, the Eternal, the Crea-
tor of the ends of the earth, before whom the nations are as a
drop in the bucket. Here and throughout his writings Calvin
never flagged in lauding the majesty of the Eternal. " Our
souls are but faint flickerings over against the infinite bril-
liance which is God. We are created, he is without beginning.
We are subject to ignorance and shame. God in his infinite
majesty is the summation of all virtues. Whenever we think
of him we should be ravished with adoration and astonish-
ment. . . . God has made the sun our servant and the moon
our chambermaid, and the very creatures will rise against us
in the judgment because we, having been irradiated by the
sun and the moon, nourished from the fowls of the earth
and enriched by all bounty, have by our ordures sullied the
glory of God. The chief end of man is to enjoy the fellow-
ship of God and the chief duty of man is to glorify God.
Observe," remarked Calvin, " it is not that we may be kept
alive on this earth that God saves us from our enemies, but
that we may be sustained by his grace. What is this life but
a passing shadow ? Let us then recognize God as our eternal
Saviour and let us so walk in his fear that we may expect
from him not only guidance for a brief moment but recep-

66 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

tion at the last to himself. The blessings of this life may be
enjoyed in so far as they minister to our salvation. Otherwise
they are a curse."

Ours it is to glorify God, to accept his judgments, not to
murmur at his dispensations, to receive without repining
whatever he may give. " The children of God must put a
check upon their affections so that they desire nothing which
is not pleasing to him. All our prayers should be grounded
in faith. We must fully accommodate our requests to the will
of God, and if in a burst of fervor we exceed this rule, then
we should add, * My God, thy will be done! ' Take the ex-
ample of a man who has a sick wife or child. He may cry
vehemently, * O my God, wilt thou not have pity on me? '
Such a man is at fault and should hasten to add: ' Alas, my
God, it is true that this is my desire, nevertheless thou re-
quirest that I render unto thee absolute obedience, that I be
humbled in thy hands. Therefore, Lord, dispose of me and
of all things mine according to thy will. It suffices me to
know that there is nothing better than to be held by thy
hand.'"

Such a view of God and man might end in absolute qui-
escence. The paradox of Calvinism is that the utter malle-
ability of man in the hands of God makes for an adamantine
rigor over against men, and the reason is that God is not qui-
escent. He has a work to do. He will accomplish it on earth
within the historical process. Here is the point at which Cal-
vinism, with all its pessimism as to man, becomes optimistic
as to history. Not that men are good, but God is great and
God has a plan. He will not achieve it through the immedi-
ate return of Christ to set up his Kingdom. Here again Cal-
vin diverged from Luther, and curiously at this point Luther
was closer to the Early Church and Calvin to the medieval
Church after Augustine. For the early Christians, and Luther
after them, expected the imminent return of the Lord, but

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 67

Augustine, and Calvin in his wake, projected the coming in-
definitely into the future. In that case the historical process
becomes the field of God's operation. Here in religious form
is the doctrine of progress.

In what way and through what instruments is God's pur-
pose to be accomplished? Through human instruments,
through his chosen, through the elect. Calvin was not hope-
ful because of any roseate picture of men, whom often
enough he compared to dogs and swine, but rather because
the elect, even though imperfect, are nevertheless chosen by
the Eternal to achieve a stupendous work on earth.

There arose once more the problem of how the elect are
to be known. Luther denied that they can by any means be
recognized. Miintzer found the distinguishing mark in the
new birth. The Anabaptists fastened on an upright life.
Zwingli discovered a test in the possession of a sound faith.
Calvin agreed with Luther that there is no absolutely in-
fallible test. Nevertheless there are presumptive signs ade-
quate for practical purposes. He selected three, and he did
not include the new birth. This was to return as a test in
New England Calvinism and to prove very much of a tor-
ment to sensitive spirits. Calvin did not suffer himself to be
distraught in this fashion. His tests were all comparatively
external and realizable. They consisted in (i) a confession of
faith; (2) a disciplined life; (3) participation in the sacra-
ments. Creed, deed, and sacrament these were the three.

If anyone qualified by these standards, he should assume
his election and stop worrying. To be constantly anxious
over one's salvation is unworthy and devastating. He who is
perpetually troubled about his destiny can never worship
God aright.

This was the faith that forged heroes to accept without
a murmur as God's will whatever should befall, to be utterly
unconcerned about oneself, to be wholly committed to the

68 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

implementing of God's program on earth. This ends in the
cry, "Onward, Christian soldiers!" "God with an out-
stretched arm delivered Israel of old and his arm is no whit
weakened today. God says to us, ' My children, you are weak
and your enemy is strong, but nothing laid upon you will
exceed your strength. Though the devil and the world rage I
will curb them. I will help you. Fear not.' " " Fear," said Cal-
vin, " can never be entirely overcome, but fear should never
impede us from calling upon God. How else shall we con-
front the world and the infinity of devils raging like lions ? "

This stupendous dream could not be realized simply by
writing an Institutes of the Christian Religion. It called for
concretion among men here on earth. The place proved to
be Geneva. The city was at the moment independent, having
thrown off the yoke of the duke of Savoy and the bishop, and
not yet having joined the Swiss Confederacy. William Farel,
the vociferous, had converted the city, but felt himself un-
equal to curbing the turbulence of the unyoked bullocks, and
commandeered the young theologian, John Calvin, much
against his inclination, to leave his studies in order to head
the incipient holy commonwealth. To recount here the whole
story of Geneva is beyond our limits. Suffice it to say that
after invitation, exile, and reinvitation, Calvin was able in
the end to fire a populace with his dream. Greater than Tor-
quemada, he imposed a grandiose concept, not on an impres-
sionable girl, but upon a hard-boiled citizenry, who became
quite as much imbued with the vision of a holy common-
wealth as himself. Geneva became une mile eglise, a city that
was a Church.

This end was attained through a selective process. Those
who did not subscribe to the constitution of the holy com-
monwealth had to leave. The Catholic religious orders de-
parted at the outset. The Mass of course ceased, and all public
practice of Catholicism. Catholics accepted the new regime

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 69

or migrated. Those excommunicated from the Church, if not
reconciled within six months, left the city. In the meantime
hordes of refugees flocked in, fleeing from persecution in
France, Spain, Italy, and even England. Geneva became by
inclusion and exclusion a city of the saints. Thus the Ana-
baptist ideal of a pure Church of convinced believers was
combined with the Catholic-Lutheran-Zwinglian pattern of
the Church coincident with the community. Only convinced
believers belonged to the Church. Everyone in the commu-
nity belonged to the Church because only convinced be-
lievers stayed in the community. Thus was the Church both
holy and catholic, comprising all Within the walls.

But what should be done with dissenters who arose within
the midst of the holy commonwealth not those whose
lives were impure so much as those who despised the sacra-
ments or rejected some article of the creed ? Recall that for
Calvin the creed admitted of no uncertainty. It was fhe epit-
ome of the will of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.
To be sure, not everything declared by God is entirely clear,
for the mountain was shrouded with thick darkness when
God declared himself unto Moses. But the Ten Command-
ments admit of no obscurity, and the saving articles of Chris-
tian redemption are neither dubious nor obscure. To reject
one of these is to give the lie to God.

What Calvin would do to such people nobody could doubt
who had read his commentary on the thirteenth chapter of
Deuteronomy, which presents the stoning of false prophets.
" This law," comments Calvin, " at first sight appears to be
too severe. For merely having spoken should one be so pun-
ished? But if anybody slanders a mortal man he is pun-
ished and shall we permit a blasphemer of the living God to
go unscathed ? If a prince is injured, death appears to be in-
sufficient for vengeance. And now when God, the sovereign
emperor, is reviled by a word, is nothing to be done ? God's

JO THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

glory and our salvation are so conjoined that a traitor to God
is also an enemy of the human race and worse than a mur-
derer because he brings poor souls to perdition. Some ob-
ject that since the offense consists only in words, there is no
need for such severity. But we muzzle dogs, and shall we
leave men free to open their mouths as they please ? Those
who object are like dogs and swine. They murmur that they
will go to America where nobody will bother them.

" God makes plain that the false prophet is to be stoned
without mercy. We are to crush beneath our heel all affec-
tions of nature when his honor is involved. The father should
not spare his child, nor the brother his brother, nor the hus-
band his own wife or the friend who is dearer to him than
life. No human relationship is more than animal unless it
be grounded in God. If a man be conjoined to a wife with-
out regard to God, he is worthy to be cast out among the
brute beasts. If friendship is contracted apart from God,
what is this union but sheer bestiality ? God wishes to denude
you of all love for your wife if she seduces you from him."

This language of Calvin's sounds appallingly like that of
the Communists, who place the party above every human tie.
The difference is that Calvin made the demand, not in the
name of a human institution or party, but in the name of
the Author of our being, whose will is our law and his glory
the end of our existence. If we would rise above the level
of the beasts, every human tie must be contracted only in
loyalty to him. Therefore no matter how dear, no matter how
near, we must cast off and chastise all who blaspheme the
name of the Creator. " He who has trampled under foot the
majesty of God is worse than a brigand who cuts the throat
of a wayfarer." And the God who spared not even the babies
of the Amalekites requires that we be inexorable. If this de-
mand appear to us cruel, " we must rest assured that God
would differ only those infants to be destroyed whom he

THE PEAK OF PROTESTANT INTOLERANCE 71

had already damned and destined to eternal death." Thus
the doctrine of predestination was summoned to steel men
against any tenderness of feeling, for why should man be
more compassionate than God ?

One wonders whether Calvin would have been quite so
obdurate if his holy commonwealth had not been so im-
periled. It was like the apex of a triangle jutting into Catho-
lic territory, perpetually menaced with extinction by a mili-
tary coup from the king of France or the duke of Savoy,
continually replenished by those who had only just escaped
with their lives, who left goods behind and often martyred
loved ones. And there were those who came for a period of
training before returning to probable death. Geneva lived in
all the tension of a wartime psychology. Those men steeled
themselves by taking as their model that Abraham who, at
the behest of God, refused not to lift his knife even against
his only son through whom he had been promised to be-
come the father of a great nation. In the Biblical story, as
Abraham raised his knife, the voice of an angel arrested him
and a ram appeared in the thicket. All too often in Calvin's
case there was no ram.

Cfjree

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION:

^Michael Servctus

The most celebrated case of Protestant persecution is the
burning of Michael Servetus at the stake for heresy at Ge-
neva. He was a Spaniard, born in the
early years of the sixteenth century
(1511), when the work of Torque-
mada was done and the Inquisition
had in a measure mitigated its rigors.
There were, indeed, still converted
Jews and converted Moors to be
watched, but they had learned either
to conform or to be exceedingly dis-
creet and the Inquisition was content
to tread softly. The converses had
their revenge by cultivating mystical
illuminist tendencies within Christianity. The Alumbrados
were later to suffer, after Protestantism had occasioned a re-
kindling of inquisitorial fires, but for the moment they were
indulgently treated.

Even more significant was the wave of Erasmianism which
flowed over the Pyrenees. There was a particular reason for
the vogue of Erasmus in Spain, apart from his general Eu-
ropean reputation. It was that the king of Spain, Charles, the
grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella, had been reared in the
Spanish dependencies, the Low Countries. He spoke Flemish
by preference and surrounded himself at court with persons

Michael Servetus

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 73

from The Netherlands. These circles were addicted to the
cult of the great Hollander, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and car-
ried with them their devotion when, in the train of the
monarch, they entered the Iberian peninsula. The popularity
of Erasmus was a part of the cultural interchange between
Spain and its dependencies. The views of Erasmus have al-
ready been noted his undogmatic piety, his rational and
ethical emphasis, his decrying of contention over the subtle-
ties of theological speculation.

Among the liberals at the Spanish court was the king's
confessor, Quintana, a Franciscan, who at one time had ex-
pected even more from Luther than from the pope. To the
service of . this man Servetus was attached. The reason could
hardly have been the liberalism of the king's confessor, be-
cause the family of Servetus appears to have been distinctly
orthodox. A brother was a beneficed priest, who joined with
his mother in the erection of an altar in their native town.
But any sort of post at court no doubt appeared advanta-
geous, and the family probably thought to facilitate the son's
advancement. The position was not onerous, and did not pre-
clude a period of university study. Servetus was permitted to
go to the University of Toulouse for the study of juris-
prudence.

That he had imbibed something already from the illumin-
ism of Spain and the Erasmianism of the court may be
inferred from tendencies manifest in his later work. A Span-
iard he remained, and was deeply preoccupied with the prob-
lem that had so long agitated his country of what to do with
the Moors and the Jews. The Inquisition had been tried, and
the problem had diminished in intensity but was not wholly
at an end, and certainly was not solved for Europe as a
whole. Servetus addressed himself to the more fundamental
question of why the problem existed at all. If God has re-
vealed himself in Christ and through the sacred Scriptures.

74 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

why should the Jews and the Moors be so obstinate in re-
fusing to accept God's gracious declaration? The obvious
answer was that the monotheism alike of Judaism and Mo-
hammedanism was offended by the Christian doctrine of the
Trinity: that God is of one substance, differentiated in three
persons. The unbelievers interpreted the doctrine as plain
tritheism, and some warrant was at hand for their assump-
tion in the artistic representations of the Trinity which por-
trayed God sometimes with one head and three faces and
sometimes even as three indistinguishable old men.

Servetus, revolving this problem, came to the University
of Toulouse, renowned for its orthodoxy, only to discover
that the very citadel of doctrinal rectitude harbored evangeli-
cals. Student groups were poring over the Scriptures. Serve-
tus discarded Justinian for the Gospels, and thereby to his
amazement discovered that the one essential tenet of Chris-
tianity required of the Moors and the Jews was not so much
as mentioned in the Bible. To be sure there is something
about the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, but the
word " Trinity " does not occur. There is nothing of the one
substance and the three persons. The relationship of the Son
to the Father is not described as consubstantial. There is no
reference to the procession of the Holy Ghost. Servetus was
perfectly right in his observation, because the Council of Ni-
caea had been driven reluctantly to the conclusion that the
teaching implicit in the New Testament could be safe-
guarded against Arian misinterpretation only if extra-Biblical
language were used, since the Arians would accept any Bibli-
cal terminology and place upon it their own construction.

The whole history of the matter was not apparent to Serve-
tus. The one point of crucial importance to him was this,
that the Moors and the Jews should not be alienated from
the fold by requiring of them subscription to a formula that
is absent from the Bible. At the same time Servetus was con-

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 75

corned to know for what reason the doctrine had originated
and whether it could be defended. To answer these questions
he addressed himself to the whole history of Trinitarian
speculation. He read mostly the late Scholastics, without
properly sensing their relation to previous periods of thought*
The earliest phase was that of the primitive Church, when
the need was felt to satisfy the Hellenistic theological urge
to explain the relation of Christ to God. The primitive Chris-
tians had experienced in Christ redemption from guilt, sins,
sinfulness, death, and the power of the devil. They were
clear that the Redeemer must have been man, to provide a
moral example, and at the same time God, if he was able to
overcome sin, death, and hell. At first they were content to
call him simply the Word of God or the Son of God. More
precise formulation came at the Council of Nicaea in 325,
with the teaching that Christ so participates in the being of
God that he may be described as of one substance or essence
with God. With the Father and the Son was associated the
Spirit, all participating in the being of God. In this sense all
are God, yet all are at the same time in a measure distinct.
They are not sufficiently separate to constitute three Gods,
nor sufficiently one to obliterate all differentiation. The doc-
trine of the Trinity was a formula devised to express the
complexity within the unity of God by defining the rela-
tionship of the Son and the Spirit to the Father.

After the doctrine had once been formulated, schools of
thought arose in the West in the Middle Ages with regard
to the degree to which it can be established as true. Saint
Augustine gave the first and the dominant answer, that the
doctrine cannot be demonstrated but can be illustrated, be-
cause man, having been made in the image of God, although
corrupted by the fall, yet retains at least analogies to the
Trinitarian structure of God in that the mind of man can be
differentiated psychologically into intellect, memory, and

j6 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

will. The analogy is not conclusive proof, but if the doc-
trine has already been revealed, we are able then in a
measure to comprehend by virtue of these comparisons* This
line of thinking runs from Saint Augustine straight through
Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The second view arose in the high Middle Ages, according
to which the doctrine can be not only illustrated but even
demonstrated. Richard of St. Victor in the twelfth century
originated this view. The demonstration was discovered
through the Neoplatonic conception of God as expansive be-
ing continually throwing oil emanations. The problem is to
stop them at three. Saint Richard here had recourse to the
Christian picture of God as love, and love, he said, requires
at least two persons, one to love and one to be loved. And
perfect love requires a third, to provide the possibility of ex-
cluding jealousy. All this doubtless sounds very farfetched.
Servetus certainly thought so. What it amounts to is this,
that the philosophic doctrine of God as expansive being was
checked by the Jewish-Christian view of God as personality.
In the whole process the Victorine school found an under-
girding for the orthodox doctrine that God expands up to
but not beyond the limits of personal life. This type of
thought is characteristic of those with mystical leanings in
the Middle Ages.

A third view held that the doctrine of the Trinity can
neither be illustrated nor demonstrated, but only believed.
The reason was the adoption of the nominalist philosophy,
according to which reality consists, not of great entities
called universals, but only of unrelated particulars. There is
no such thing as " chair " apart from this chair or that chair.
Extreme nominalism reduces reality to atoms. When this
philosophy is applied to the Trinity, the three persons, being
deprived of any relating universal, must of necessity become
three Gods, and this, said the nominalists, is precisely what

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 77

the doctrine entails from the philosophical point of view.
The Trinity therefore cannot be proved and cannot even be
illustrated but only accepted on the basis of the authority of
the Church. Philosophy and theology are thus considered to
be conflicting disciplines. Not that there are two varieties of
truth, but there are two sorts of logic, which end in contra-
dictions to be resolved only by an act of credence. This was
the type of thinking inaugurated by William of Occam in
the early fourteenth century and prevalent in Servetus' day.
Erasmus and Luther alike agreed that, philosophically speak-
ing, the doctrine of the Trinity entails tritheism.

At this point Servetus made his contact with Trinitarian
thinking. He accepted avidly the Occamist criticism without
appreciation of the philosophical background and interpreted
all the earlier development in terms of this outcome. But he
was not content like the Occamists to rest with double logic
and accept the authority of the Church, because the repercus-
sions of the Reformation had shaken him even in orthodox
Toulouse, and presumably also because he was relieved to
discover a valid way of facilitating the conversion of the
Moors and the Jews by removing an unnecessary impedi-
ment. A doctrine that is neither Biblical nor philosophically
defensible, argued Servetus, ought not to be made a sine qua
nan of Christianity.

When he came to the reconstruction of his own view of
God and of Christ, he landed in a state of rich confusion, be-
cause he considered the fall of Christianity to have occurred
at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and consequently would
accept only the Scriptures and the ante-Nicene writers as
normative for his own thinking. But they were not clear.
That was exactly why Nicaea had essayed a more precise
definition. Servetus developed a view compounded of the
ideas of Tertullian and Irenaeus and highly reminiscent of
a position that we now know to have been that of the heretic

78 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Paul of Samosata. Servetus destroyed immediately the doc-
trine of the Trinity by declaring that the Holy Spirit was not
a person at all, but simply the spirit of God indwelling in
man. With regard to Christ, a distinction, he contended, was
to be made between the pre-existent Word and the incarnate
Son. The Word was forever with God, but the Son was pro-
duced by the union of this Word with the man Jesus. The
Son therefore had a beginning of existence in time. The
Word was eternal but the Son was not eternal. Yet after the
union the Father and the Son were scarcely to be distin-
guished save as modes of divine activity.

But the terminology of Servetus was often inexact as he
moved from theology to lyrical rhapsodies about Christ.
" With Daniel," he said, " 1 see Jesus Christ coming on the
clouds of heaven. I see him in the chariot of Ezekiel and
riding among the myrtles of Zachariah. I see him on the
throne of Isaiah. He is more than the effulgence of the glory,
as Paul speaks of the Lord of glory crucified, he is the glori-
ous star of the morning, he is the light of God, the light of
the Gentiles. The splendor of his countenance illumines the
whole heaven and will illumine the worlds in generations to
come. He is the power of God by which the worlds were
made, and although the Word of Christ is to some foolish-
ness, to others it is the power of God. With marvelous power
he has subjected the world to his sway and will subdue it.
Without clamor of arms he leads captive the minds of men."

The position of Servetus could scarcely commend itself to
the orthodox because he had denied the affirmation so funda-
mental to Athanasius of the eternal, timeless generation of
the Son of God. If there were any change in the Son, then,
according to Athanasius, our salvation would be imperiled.
There was another point at which Servetus was even more
to offend John Calvin. It was in the appropriation from the
Greek theologians of the view that humanity is capable of

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 79

participation in divinity. Men can so share in the being of
God as themselves to become divine, and the significance
of the incarnation is that in Christ God and man were fully
conjoined. The significance of the sacrament of the bread
and wine is that by feeding upon Christ we can through him
attain divinity and immortality. " What is the mystery of the
incarnation/' exclaimed Servetus, " other than the mingling
of man with God ? Unless I believe this with regard to the
flesh of Christ I should have no hope, for we shall be made
sharers in the divine substance even in the flesh as now in the
spirit we are partners of the divine nature."

The combination of this view of the possible deification
of man with the current Catholic belief that man is capable
of doing good sufficient to merit reward at the hands of God
went far to complete the Renaissance doctrine of man. There
was one other ingredient, namely, the idea of the full-
orbed personality, the master of all skills and learnings. And
this Servetus well-nigh accomplished in his own person,
for he was a theologian, Biblical scholar, geographer, anat-
omist, and physician. His picture of man alienated Calvin
even more than his view of Christ. The union of humanity
and divinity was for Servetus an elevation of humanity, but
for Calvin a degradation of divinity.

Servetus was recalled in 1529 from his studies at Toulouse
by his master, Quintana, who himself had been summoned
to accompany Charles at his coronation as Holy Roman Em-
peror by the pope at Bologna. The withdrawal of the court
from Spain in the wake of the emperor was fraught with
consequences that contemporaries little divined. This marked
the end of the Erasmian period in Spain, though no doubt
it would have passed in any case, as it did elsewhere, under
the impact of the wars of religion. The works of Erasmus
were to be placed on the Index in Spain, and the censors
vented their spleen on his woodcut portrait by crisscrossing

80 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

with a pen and blackening the eyes to suggest a skull.

Yet even the Erasmians in the train of the emperor would
scarcely tolerate the position developed by Servetus. Con-
sequently he slipped away and went to the Protestant cities
of Basel and Strasbourg, there to publish his views. His book
on The Errors of the Trinity appeared near Strasbourg in
the year 1531. He had chosen wisely. Basel was the city
where Erasmus had spent his last days and where he was
buried. He had left behind him there a circle of liberals. And
Strasbourg was still extremely lenient toward Anabaptists.
Yet Servetus was to experience that not even these, the most
broad-minded of the Protestant cities, would harbor him. At
Basel he was told that if he were to be received as a Christian
brother, he must confess Christ as the eternal Son of God,
consubstantial with the Father; and Strasbourg, after a pe-
riod of hesitation, became equally firm. Melanchthon studied
his views and concluded that they were utterly unacceptable.
Servetus had hoped that the Erasmians might be favorable,
but Quintana was thoroughly shocked. After all, Erasmus
had only taught that so abstruse a doctrine as the Trinity
should not be discussed until the Judgment Day. He had not
said that it might be rejected.

Servetus would have been highly naive if he expected a
sympathetic hearing among the more orthodox Catho-
lics. When Aleander, Luther's old opponent at the Diet of
Worms, saw the book on The Errors of the Trinity, he de-
clared that he had never read anything more nauseating. He
proposed to notify the authorities in Spain to burn the book
and the effigy of the author al modo di Spagna. They scarcely
needed this instigation, for Servetus had the temerity to send
a copy of his book to the bishop of Saragossa, who denounced
him to the supreme council of the Inquisition. An order was
issued that a notice should be placarded in Servetus' native
place, summoning him to appear. But a postscript added tha

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION

81

the summons should be posted only at an hour when no one
would read it, lest he be warned not to return. Rather let a
confidential agent be employed to entice him back to Spain.
The one selected for this office was his own brother. A record
five and a half years later indicates that this envoy actually
made a trip to Germany but came back without success.

Portrait of Erasmus
Censored by the Inquisition

Where, then, should Servetus go ? The Protestant and the
Catholic lands alike were closed to him. For the first time
perhaps in history he thought of America as a possible place
of refuge for victims of religious intolerance. " With Jonah/'
he said, " I longed to flee ad novas insulas, to one of the new
isles." Were he to leave, however, he would be recreant to a

82 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

mission. He decided instead to preach repentance to the peo-
ple of Nineveh, yet only under an assumed name. He went
to France with the pseudonymn of Michael Villanovanus or
Villeneufve.

Of course he had to support himself and nearly everything
he did got him into further trouble. For a time he was estab-
lished at Lyons as a corrector of proof and an editor. In this
capacity he brought out a new edition of the Bible, earlier
edited by Pagnini. Servetus in the preface explained his the-
ory of prophecy, namely, that the prophets were not predic-
tors but were simply describing the events of their own time.
To be sure the Holy Spirit placed in their mouths language
too rich for the occasion in hand. And thus the link be-
tween the Old Testament and the New Testament is not
dissolved. Yet the argument for the truth of the Christian
revelation from the fulfillment of prophecy is undercut.
Likewise Servetus eliminated the allegorical chapter head-
ings of The Song of Songs, which turned an Oriental love
poem into a rhapsody of the Christian soul and Christ the
bride.

Next he edited the geography of Ptolemy. In typical hu-
manist fashion he was interested in men rather than in
fauna, flora, or topography. Unhappily, however, at one point
he did deal with the external features of the land and that was
in the description of Palestine, which he declared to be in-
deed a promised land but not a land of great promise. Serve-
tus, as a matter of fact, was not the author of this passage
which he borrowed from a prior edition, but he was accused
of giving the lie to Moses. To clear himself in the next edi-
tion he left the page completely blank, but even so he was
not to hear the last of this unfortunate remark.

Perhaps the vexations of publishing disposed him to seek
another means of livelihood. He turned to medicine and
studied in Paris, where he was a fellow dissector of cadavers

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 83

with Vesalius. In the course of his studies Servetus became
the discoverer of the pulmonary circulation of the blood.
This does not mean of course the complete circulation,
which was fully grasped only by Harvey, but only the cir-
cuit in the lungs. The older view of Galen was that the blood
originates in the liver and is used up in feeding the body
without ever returning to the point of origin. The blue blood
seeps through the wall of the heart and, having done so,
changes in color. Only a trickle goes to feed the lungs. Serve-
tus made three important observations. The wall of the heart
is impermeable. The artery that carries the blood to the
lungs is large enough for the entire blood stream, and the
change in color through aeration takes place in the lungs.
Thus he discovered the pulmonary circulation. This point is,
strictly speaking, irrelevant in a consideration of Servetus as
a heretic, but it is worthy of note to impress the point that
persecution may often enough liquidate a highly gifted and
serviceable individual.

After his medical training Servetus for twelve years prac-
ticed in the neighborhood of Lyons. He had not lost interest
in theology. The old ideas still filled him with missionary
zeal, but they were reinforced by two new currents. While in
Strasbourg he had come in contact with the Anabaptists and
had imbibed from them the concept of the Church as com-
posed only of convinced believers. He agreed with them that
baptism is desecrated by application to infants. He pointed
even to the example of Christ, who- was not baptized until
his thirtieth year. Since the orthodox gave baptism to chil-
dren in order to wash away original sin, Servetus held that
no unforgivable sin could be committed, at any rate not
until after the twentieth year.

From the Anabaptists he received also a belief in the im-
minent return of the Lord to set up his Kingdom. All specu-
lations as to the date employ the figure 1260, the number of

04 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

days spent in the wilderness by the woman in the book of
Revelation. The common procedure is to make the days into
years and add them to some date in early history that will
project the coming shortly ahead of one's own time. Serve-
tus selected the year 325, the year of the Council of Nicaea,
which marked for him the fall of the Church, and, by adding
1260 to this, arrived at the date 1585, within his own gen-
eration, as the time of the great renewal. Then would come
the complete restoration of the Church, the " restitution/'
another favorite Anabaptist term.

The second influence profoundly to bear upon Servetus
was that of the Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance,
then enjoying a great vogue among humanist circles in
France. The current fashion in this school to seek confirma-
tion of Christianity by precarious borrowings from the eso-
teric lore of the East disposed Servetus to copious citations
from the Jewish cabala, the Sibylline and Zoroastrian oracles,
and the wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus. Even more sig-
nificant for the thinking of Servetus was the interpretation
of light in terms, not of physics, but of metaphysics, as a
form infused into all objects rendering them capable of
luminosity. Servetus combined these ideas with Christology:
Christ is the light of the world. It is he, then, who confers
the light forms which transform clay into resplendent stones
and water into lustrous pearls, which in regeneration trans-
form the spirit of man and in the resurrection will transform
also his body. Christ, thus infusing all reality with the lumi-
nous, becomes himself a universal presence. One is reminded
of Luther's doctrine of the ubiquity of Christ. To Calvin
such thinking was completely alien. For him God is utterly
transcendent and Christ is seated at his right hand.

Servetus entered into correspondence with Calvin. The
two men were both profoundly religious. From the stand-
point of a secularized generation they appear highly similar,

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 85

but within a common framework of ideas the differences
were so great as to be resolved in that day only by death.
Servetus was drawn by the austere magnetism of Calvin and
sought to reassure himself by convincing this trenchant in-
tellect. Servetus initiated the correspondence and made no
secret of his identity, which he could scarcely have concealed
since he repeated in a measure the views already known
through the publication of his earlier work. Calvin at first
courteously replied until Servetus became both galling and
demanding. Calvin regarded him as an emissary of Satan to
waste his time, and to answer all questions with a single
throw sent him a copy of the Institutio which Servetus
adorned with insulting marginalia and returned. He sent
also a manuscript copy of a work entitled Restitutio, possibly
a play upon Calvin's title. Calvin retained the manuscript,
broke off the correspondence, and confided to a friend in
Lyons that if Servetus came to Geneva he would not get out
alive if Calvin's authority prevailed. This was in 1546.

Servetus reworked his manuscript, and in 1553 published
it secretly at his own expense through a concealed press near
Lyons. One thousand copies were struck off. One fell into
the hands of a Protestant in Geneva who had a Catholic
cousin living in Lyons. They had often debated the relative
merits of their faith, and the Catholic had reproached the
Protestant with destroying the discipline of the Church. The
arrival of Servetus' book provided an opening too good to
miss. The Protestant wrote to his Catholic cousin that
whereas he reproached the Protestants with a lack of disci-
pline, the Catholics in Lyons were tolerating a heretic who
compared the Trinity to Cerberus, the three-headed hound
of hell (this was true), and disgorged all possible villainies
against the eternal generation of the Son of God. Such views
were not only heresy but such detestable heresy as to abolish
the entire Christian religion. This man wrecked all the

86 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

fundamentals of the faith. He denied infant baptism. The
man was Michael Servetus, masquerading under the assumed
name of Villeneufve. The printer was named Arnollet.

This was news in Lyons, because the Restitutio appeared
only with the initials " MSV," standing for Michael Servetus
Villanovanus but cryptic to the uninitiated. In the circle of
Calvin, who had the manuscript, the identity of the author
was not difficult to decipher. How the printer was known
eludes us. The Catholic cousin promptly laid the disclosure
before the Inquisitor, who conducted an examination, but
fruitlessly because Servetus had already disposed of all in-
criminating evidence. The informer then wrote back to Ge-
neva requesting some tangible proof. The following letter
from the Protestant cousin discloses the sequel and brings
John Calvin into the affair:

"My dear cousin:

"When I wrote the letter which you have communicated to
those whom I charged with indifference, I did not suppose that
the matter would go so far. I simply meant to call your attention
to the fine zeal and devotion of those who call themselves the
pillars of the Church, although they suffer such disorder in their
midst, and persecute so severely the poor Christians, who wish to
follow God in simplicity. Inasmuch as this glaring instance had
been brought to my notice, the occasion and subject seemed to me
to warrant mentioning the matter in my letters. But since you
have disclosed what I meant for you alone, God grant that this
may the better serve to purge Christianity of such filth, such
deadly pestilence. If they really want to do anything, as you say,
it does not seem to me that the matter is so very difficult, though
I cannot for the moment give you what you want, namely, the
printed book. But I can give you something better to convict him,
namely, two dozen manuscript pieces of the man in question, in
which his heresies are in part contained. If you show him the
printed book he can deny it, which he cannot do in the case of
his handwriting. The case then being absolutely proved, the men

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 87

of whom you speak will have no excuse for further dissimulation
or delay. All the rest is here right enough, the big book and the
other writings of the same author, but I can tell you I had no
little trouble to get from Calvin what I am sending. Not that he
does not wish to repress such execrable blasphemies, but he thinks
that it is his duty rather to convince heresies with doctrine than
with other means, because he does not exercise the sword of jus-
tice. But I remonstrated with him and pointed out the embarrass-
ing position in which I should be placed if he did not help me,
so that in the end he gave me what you see. For the rest I hope
by and by, when the case is further advanced, to get from him a
whole ream of paper, which the scamp has had printed, but I
think that for the present you have enough, so that there is no
need for more to seize his person and bring him to trial. . . .

" Geneva, March 26."

What actually was sent was a body of the manuscript let-
ters of Servetus and a copy of the Institutio containing Serve-
tus' contemptuous comments. Thus Calvin collaborated with
the Inquisition. Servetus was again summoned and con-
fronted with his handwriting. He examined it closely. It had
been written so long ago he was not sure whether it was
his. But on a more careful examination he thought that it
was. Then he admitted that when he had been in Germany
some twenty-five years ago a book was published near Stras-
bourg by a certain Spaniard named Servetus. His views ap-
peared plausible, and, being curious as to their validity, Vil-
lanovanus had submitted them for criticism to Calvin, who,
perceiving the questions to be those of Servetus, assumed his
correspondent to be Servetus, to which the correspondent re-
plied that although he was not, yet for the sake of the dis-
cussion he was willing to assume the role. " On those terms,"
said Villanovanus, " we interchanged until the correspond-
ence became heated and I dropped it. For the last ten years
there has been nothing between us, and I affirm before God

88 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

that I have no desire to dogmatize or to assert anything con-
trary to the Church and to the Christian religion."

But Servetus well realized that his position was becoming
precarious, and, committed to prison, promptly sent a valet
to call in his debts outstanding. For exercise and the needs
of nature he was permitted access to a walled-in garden on
application to the jailer for the key. One evening Servetus
carefully surveyed the terrain. At the far end of the garden
was a flat roof abutting on the edge of the wall. The next
morning Servetus rose at four as the jailer was starting out
to dress his vines. The prisoner wore his velvet nightcap and
fur bathrobe, which in the dusk concealed a full costume be-
neath. The jailer, though he was to be gone for several hours,
confided the key. Servetus, when he was sufficiently distant,
disposed of the velvet nightcap and bathrobe in the garden,
scaled the roof and thence the wall, and let himself down
without mishap on the other side. Before the alarm was
given, some two hours later, he was well beyond the city gate.

Two months subsequently the secret press at which his
book had been printed was brought to light. The printers, on
being examined, professed complete ignorance of the Latin
language, which they had set letter for letter. The Inquisition
closed the case by confiscating all the available property of
Servetus and by consigning all recoverable copies of the Res-
titutio to the flames. Only three survive today. One is at
Vienna, one at Paris, and one at Edinburgh. The author was
condemned to be burned at a slow fire until his body was re-
duced to ashes. In his absence all details were executed upon
his effigy, which was first strangled and then consumed.

Some four months after the flight certain brothers from
Lyons attending church at Geneva on a Sunday morning rec-
ognized Michael Servetus in the congregation and reported
his presence to John Calvin, who immediately lodged against
him with the town council a capital charge of heresy. Why

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 89

had Servetus thus walked into the mouth of the lion? This
question, which is genuinely puzzling, has provided the
ground for a conjecture which seeks to exonerate Calvin
from religious intolerance on the ground that the menace
of Servetus was political: He had come to Geneva because
he feared nothing since he was in league with Calvin's po-
litical opponents, the so-called party of the Libertines, who
were plotting a coup for his overthrow and exile. Servetus
before his detection had actually been in Geneva for a month
conniving with the conspirators. He chose a most auspicious
time for his arrival, inasmuch as Calvin's position at the mo-
ment was highly tenuous. He had excommunicated a leader
of the Libertines and a trial of strength was pending. If Cal-
vin failed, he would undoubtedly again go into exile.

Contemporary evidence for this interpretation is extremely
scant. There is nothing to support the claim that Servetus
had been ambushed in Geneva for a month, and his own
statement went unrefuted in the courtroom that he had
arrived on foot the night before, had taken lodging at the
Inn of the Rose, had requested the innkeeper to engage a
boat that he might sail to Zurich, whence he proposed to
make his way to Italy and practice medicine at Naples.

Calvin's position actually was precarious, but if Servetus
had really understood the situation, he would have derived
from this little comfort because the town council in matters
of heresy had been rigorous enough during Calvin's previous
banishment. One can only infer that Servetus did not under-
stand the situation, and if he misjudged the council, in all
likelihood he may also have misjudged Calvin, never dream-
ing that he would go to such lengths.

This much may be conceded with regard to his relations
with the Libertines, that some of the conflicting contempo-
rary testimony indicates that the Libertines did seek the re-
lease of Servetus after he had been brought to trial. But this

QO THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

they might well do in order to embarrass Calvin, without
having been engaged in any previous machinations or collu-
sion with Servetus for the overthrow of the Genevan regime.
One further argument is adduced, that during his trial
Servetus was at times brazen to the point of recklessness.
Why should a man who had dissembled in France have been
so impudent at Geneva if not that he counted on help ? The
question admits of no easy answer, but this must be taken
seriously, that Servetus was passionately earnest in his ex-
pectation of vindication from heaven. He had indeed set the
date for the Second Advent in the year 1585, but, as he felt
the power of Antichrist closing in upon him, he may have
forgotten his chronology, and perhaps even he may have be-
lieved his death to be a necessary prelude to the denouement,
for he had written earlier in a private letter: " I know that I
shall die on this account, but I do not falter that I may be a
disciple like the Master. He will come, he will certainly
come. He will not tarry/ 5 One thing is plain. Calvin brought
no political charges against Servetus and the public prosecu-
tor sought to convict him only of immorality, not of sedition,
and in any case failed. The counts on which Servetus was
condemned were entirely theological.

Calvin's action certainly calls for as much explanation as
that of Servetus. One can understand why he would not
tolerate dissent within Geneva, but why should he detain a
man who was simply passing through and had hired a boat
to depart the next day ? Geneva frequently disposed of the
unassimilable by banishment. Why not let this man banish
himself? The answer could only be that Calvin did not
equate Christendom with Geneva. He still thought in uni-
versal terms, and it is significant that the statute under which
Servetus was condemned was of course not that of the canon
law of the Catholic Church; but neither was it, save for de-

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION gi

tails, the law of Geneva. It was the law of the Holy Roman
Empire, the Code of Justinian, that proscribed the penalty
of death for a denial of the Trinity and a repetition of
baptism.

During the trial all Servetus' indiscretions and misde-
meanors were adduced to discredit him. The description of
Palestine was interpreted by Calvin as giving the lie to
Moses. Servetus replied that he had not composed the pas-
sage, and in any case it was simply a description of the pres-
ent-day condition of the Holy Land. Calvin believed his de-
nial of the authorship to be a plain lie. Calvin was perfectly
outraged by the treatment of the Old Testament prophecies.
Even the great fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, so commonly re-
ferred to Christ, was by Servetus interpreted as applying to
Cyrus. Calvin characterized this view as " a bold corruption
of a signal prophecy."

Much more serious was the clash over the doctrine of man
in relation to God. Servetus believed that Calvin's doctrine
of original sin, total depravity,, and predestination reduced
man to a log and a stone. Calvin believed that Servetus' doc-
trine of the deification of humanity degraded God and made
deity subject to the vices and infirmities of the flesh. Here
more than anywhere else was the conflict between the Ren-
aissance and the Reformation.

On the subject of the Trinity, Servetus was inclined to be
somewhat concessive. He said that he did believe in the Trin-
ity, that is, in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, three
persons in God. But he interpreted the word " person " dif-
ferently from the moderns, by which he meant that he took
" person " to mean simply a mode of the divine manifesta-
tion. He went on to say that he applied the terms " Trin-
itarian " and " atheist " only to those who placed a real dis-
tinction in the divine essence, which is of course precisely

92 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

what the orthodox doctrine does. In other words, Servetus
admitted that he repudiated the teaching of the Nicene
Creed.

On the subject of infant baptism he was positively abusive:
" It is an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the
destruction of all Christianity." He freely admitted that he
could not regard as mortal any sin committed before the
twentieth year.

The trial on both sides was conducted without amenities.
When Servetus asked for a lawyer, which the Inquisition
would not have denied, he was told that he could lie well
enough without one. Servetus often railed at Calvin, whom
he called Simon Magus, on the supposition that Simon origi-
nated the doctrine of predestination. Servetus petitioned the
court for a change of raiment, declaring that his clothes were
torn and the lice were eating him alive. He remonstrated
against being judged by the law of Justinian, for Calvin
would concede that in the days of Justinian the Church was
already degenerate. Servetus was even bold enough to de-
mand that Calvin himself be brought to trial for having be-
trayed him to the Inquisition, and on the charge of being a
false accuser and as a magician following Simon Magus.
"Let Calvin be not merely condemned but exterminated
and driven from your city. His goods should be adjudged to
me as compensation for what he has caused me to lose." The
council did not deign a reply.

During the course of the trial a courier came from France
requesting that Servetus be surrendered to the Inquisition.
Servetus fell on his knees, begging to be judged in Geneva.
He exonerated the jailer from any complicity in his escape.

The council evidently felt a measure of insecurity as to its
course because advice was sought from the Swiss Protestant
cities. All recommended severity. Zurich felt that Servetus'
denial of the possibility of a mortal sin before the twentieth

THE VICTIM OF PROTESTANT PERSECUTION 93

year was subversive of morality, "especially in these days
when the young are so corrupted." But none recommended
the death penalty. The reason was that every city had at
least a small dissenting minority. Yet the general tenor was
so severe that Geneva felt warranted in proceeding.

One must remember that the sentence was pronounced,
not by John Calvin, who was only an accuser and not even
a prosecutor, but rather by the town council, a body of lay-
men. The verdict dropped all the charges save two, and those
two are exactly the ones visited by death in the Code of
Justinian, namely, the denial of the Trinity and the repudia-
tion of baptism. The sentence read:

" And we syndics, judges of criminal cases in this city, having
witnessed the trial conducted before us at the instance of our
lieutenant against you ' Michel Servet de Villeneufve/ of the
country of Aragon in Spain, and having seen your voluntary and
repeated confessions and your books, judge that you, Servetus,
have for a long time promulgated false and thoroughly heretical
doctrine, despising all remonstrances and corrections, and that
you have with malicious and perverse obstinacy sown and divulged
even in printed books opinions against God the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit, in a word, against the fundamentals of the
Christian religion, and that you have tried to make a schism and
trouble the Church of God by which many souls may have been
ruined and lost, a thing horrible, shocking, scandalous, and infec-
tious. And you have had neither shame nor horror of setting your-
self against the divine Majesty and the Holy Trinity, and so you
have obstinately tried to infect the world with your stinking
heretical poison. . . . For these and other reasons, desiring to
purge the Church of God of such infection and cut off the rotten
member, having taken counsel with our citizens and having in-
voked the name of God to give just judgment . . . having God
and the Holy Scriptures before our eyes, speaking in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we now in writing give final
sentence and condemn you, Michael Servetus, to be bound and

94 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

taken to Champel and there attached to a stake and burned with
your book to ashes. And so you shall finish your days and give an
example to others who would commit the like."

On receiving the news Servetus was at first stunned, then
cried out in Spanish, " Misericordia, misericordial " When
lie recovered his composure, he sent for Calvin, who came to
him in prison. Servetus begged his pardon for the scurrility
used during the course of the trial Calvin told him to beg
God's pardon. If he would but return to reason, Calvin of-
fered to do everything to reconcile him to the servants of
God. When Servetus proved unamenable to remonstrance,
Calvin withdrew from the heretic. Servetus addressed to the
council a request that he might be executed by the sword
rather than at the stake, lest in the extremity of his anguish
he should recant and lose his soul. Calvin supported this re-
quest, which was denied.

William Farel, who happened at the moment to be in Ge-
neva, accompanied Servetus to the stake, exhorting him on
the way to repudiate his errors. Servetus was silent. He was
bound to the stake with an iron chain, his book was attached
to his arm, a stout rope was wound four or five times about
his neck. From the flames he was heard to pray, " O Jesus,
thou Son of the eternal God, have pity on me! " Farel said
that if he had been willing to confess Jesus, the eternal Son
of God, he might have been saved. He put the adjective in
the wrong place.

We are today horrified that Geneva should have burned a
man for the glory of God, yet we incinerate whole cities for
the saving of democracy.

PART

THE TOLERATION CONTROVERSY
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

THE REMONSTRATOR:
Sebastien Qastcttio

The case of Servetus became a cause celebre. Some feel that its
significance has been grossly exaggerated. Why should the
execution of one man be regarded as
so much worse or so much more im-
portant than those of thousands who
suffered equally and quite as cruelly?
The answer is simply that the Serve-
tus case became more celebrated be-
cause it was the point of departure
for the toleration controversy within
Protestantism. Hitherto the voices sOnuten Castdho
raised on behalf of liberty had been

few and little regarded. Sebastien Castellio by his attack
brought the issue into prominence, provoked replies and
counterreplies, and set going an agitation that runs in a direct
line to the English Act of Toleration.

Castellio exemplifies within himself the conflicts of Prot-
estantism. He was enough of a Calvinist to migrate on his
own volition from France to Geneva and to place himself at
the service of the Reform. He was at the same time in many
respects more of an Erasmian. From collaboration with Cal-
vin he passed to acrid criticism, yet he never ceased to have
the clear-cut decisiveness that was more characteristic of Cal-
vin than of Erasmus.

98 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Castellio had spent his youth at Lyons, before the period
of Servetus' activity. He was one of those exuberant hu-
manists who reveled in the classical revival and so distin-
guished himself in Latin and Greek composition that his
comrades altered his name of Chateillon to Castalio, after
the nymph Castalia, whose fountain flowed from the foot
of Parnassus. The form Castellio came, however, to be pre-
ferred and is that by which today he is commonly known.
His formative years fell like those of Servetus in the liberal
interlude when a Catholic could still laud the Bible as
" fairer than c The Romance of the Rose ' " without incur-
ring the suspicion of Lutheranism. But the days of am-
biguity were abruptly ended when Cardinal de Tournon
burned three Lutherans at Lyons in the year 1540. Some of
the Catholic liberals submitted to the Church with a formal
gesture and a shrug and thereafter went neither to Mass nor
to prison. Like Montaigne, they believed that either to die or
to kill for an idea is to place too high a price upon a conjec-
ture. Others like Margaret of Navarre, the king's sister, sol-
aced themselves by mystical piety which could allegorize the
superstitions of the crowd.

Some were so converted to the Reform that for them the
only choice lay between death or exile. Of such was Sebastien
Castellio. As to what moved him, we know even less than
we do in the case of Calvin. The sight, perhaps, of some hardy
spirit refusing to uncover or bow at the passing of a Catholic
procession, the fervor of Huguenot psalm-singing, some word
from the Bible that refused to be dislodged, or perhaps the
cry of a Lutheran martyr at the stake forever reverberating in
memory. Whatever the occasion, Castellio made the choice
and fled from the confines of France.

The place to which he directed his steps was Strasbourg.
The reason can hardly have been the same as in the case of
Servetus ten years earlier. At that time Strasbourg was re-

THE REMONSTRATOR 99

nowned for liberalism toward dissent, in 1540 rather for lib-
eralism restricted to mediation between the Lutherans and the
Zwinglians. Quite possibly the greatest attraction was the pres-
ence of John Calvin, at the moment himself an exile from Ge-
neva. In Calvin's home Castellio found lodging. He was then
twenty-five years of age. When the plague smote the city,
Castellio acquitted himself manfully in caring for the sick,
and received from Calvin a tribute of praise. In 1541, Calvin,
having been invited to return to Geneva, requested Castellio
to accompany him and to assume the headship of the acad-
emy. He accepted with enthusiasm.

Calvin had lofty views of education. He desired to establish
a school where Protestant boys would be educated in the an-
cient tongues as tools, but not primarily in the ancient litera-
ture, pagan as to its content. Castellio was heartily in accord
with the plan that would combine classical Latin with Bibli-
cal stories, lest youth be corrupted by the obscenities of Ter-
ence, Plautus, or Ovid. Here was another example of the
perennial conflict of Christianity with secular culture. Castel-
lio sought to meet the situation by composing a booklet en-
titled Sacred Dialogues, consisting of dramatizations of the
Bible stories in Latin and in French in parallel columns. The
work was to enjoy an immense vogue, less probably in France
than in Germany, England, and the United States there,
of course, in the Latin version. One hundred and thirty-three
editions have been identified. There is a copy in the Yale Li-
brary with the inscription, " Bought at Boston, 1759, David
Eli, his book."

A collection of Bible stories retold for children is scarcely
the place to which one would naturally turn for a manifesto
of religious liberty. Yet here it was that the themes subse-
quently so dear to Castellio were first voiced. He was particu-
larly fond of those episodes in the Bible that exhibited kind-
ness, such as Abraham's entertaining of the angels, and was

100 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

especially indignant over any manifestation of cruelty, as in
the case of Pharaoh's attempt to exterminate the male chil-
dren of the Hebrews, or the plot of Joseph's brethren to dis-
pose of their brother. Here, in English translation, is Castel-
lio's version of these two themes. The first is entitled " Moses
in the Bulrushes":

MOSES' MOTHER: Thus far we have escaped and reached the
river. Now we must expose the little boy so that Pharaoh will not
know that we have kept him against his order and will. We have
run great risk in hiding him these three months, but it is better to
incur danger and even to lose one's life than to let such a beautiful
child be killed. Oh, the cruel king, to command that they destroy
all the boy babies! How many have been killed by his order just
as they came into life! Who has ever heard of such cruelty? To
strangle the babies on the threshold of life! O my darling little
boy, your poor mother must leave you here in the papyrus! I
carried you, bore you, and hid you these three months. I would
hide you longer if I could. How bitter! Must I leave you without
hope of seeing you any more? What will become of me and of
you, my boy, whom I leave here? But since we cannot do what
we wish, we have to wish what we can. I did right to hide you.
Now I leave you to the mercy and care of God. Good-by, my
darling, good-by, my little son.

THE SISTER: Mother, I will stay here, if you like, to see what
will happen.

MOTHER: That is good, and I will return home.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: Here is the river where we have come
to bathe. Maidens, you stay here while I will go with the attend-
ant to that lovely little hiding place. But what is that papyrus?
Maid, go and see. It looks like an ark.

MAID: So it is, and it is covered with pitch.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: Bring it here. Open it. Oh, the poor
little fellow, and he cries! It goes right through me. This is one
of the Hebrew children.

THE SISTER (to herself) : I begin to have good hope of saving

THE REMONSTRATOR IOI

the baby. I will go near. (To Pharaoh's daughter) God bless you.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: What did you say?

THE SISTER: Would you like a Hebrew nurse for the baby?

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: I should. Go and bring her.

THE SISTER: She will be here at once.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: How fortunate that I came! I have a boy
whom I will bring up for my own. Nothing better could have
happened. I am not afraid to offend Father in something so kind
and good. It is a crime to strangle the little babies. Isn't he a dar-
ling! How well-formed! Isn't it wicked to kill such boys!

THE SISTER: Here is the nurse.

PHARAOH'S DAUGHTER: Will you take care of this boy and bring
him up for me ? I will pay you.

MOTHER: That I will.

The second example is " Joseph and His Brethren ":

SIMEON: Here comes that dreamer. Let's kill him and throw
his body into some cave.

LEVI: But what shall we tell Father?

SIMEON: That a wild beast ate him. We will see what will
come of his dreams.

REUBEN : It is a crime to stain our hands in the blood of a boy,
and a brother at that. Don't do it. You cannot suggest anything
worse for us or for our father.

SIMEON: When did you begin to be so tender? Do you want us
to let him live who predicts in his dreams that all of us, even
Father and Mother, will bow down to him? Doesn't he deserve
rather to go to hell with his dreams?

REUBEN: Brother, if it's going to be, who are you to stop it?
And if it is not going to be, why are you afraid? [Observe the
arguments against persecution drawn from predestination.] Does
it seem to you so wicked that a callow lad should dream? What
harm is there in dreams? [In other words, the points controverted
are not so important after all] But if you are so set and will not
yield, here is a dry well. At least do not lay hands on him. Put
him down the well. That will not be quite so bad. [Just as banish-

102 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

ment was often to be proposed by the liberals because not quite
so bad as death.]

SIMEON : You mind your own business. We are going to make
away with him.

JOSEPH : God bless you, brothers.

LEVI : We'll show you how God will bless you. You dream that
your brothers worship you and then you salute them so politely.
Let's strip the pet of his rainbow coat.

JOSEPH : What are you going to do to me ?

LEVI : Kill you.

JOSEPH: Don't.

SIMEON : We will.

JOSEPH: My brothers, for God's sake, for Father's sake! He will
die of grief. Don't. What have I done? What has taken hold of
you ?

SIMEON : You waste time. Let him down.

REUBEN : I am leaving. I can't stand this.

JOSEPH: Where am I going? I shall die! Father, Father, what
sad news will you have of your boy! In what grief will you drag
out your days! Judah, help me, pity me, pity Father!

LEVI : Let's sit down and have a bite to eat.

JUDAH: I see some merchants coming. What good shall we have
of our brother's blood ? Let's sell him to the Ishmaelites over there,
and lay no hands on our brother, shed no blood, for he is our
brother of the same seed. Come, listen to me.

LEVI : He is right.

SIMEON : But perhaps

JUDAH: Don't worry. You will be rid of him as well by sale as
by slaughter.

LEVI : True, and we shall make something on the sale which we
shall lose if we kill him.

JUDAH: Merchants, want to buy a fine boy?

MERCHANTS: Let's see him.

JUDAH: Pull him up. They'll take him.

JOSEPH: Now I am going to die. They are bringing me up to
kill me.

JUDAH: Don't be so frightened. You aren't going to be killed but

THE REMONSTRATOR 103

sold. Merchants, look at him. He is well built.

MERCHANTS: Yes, he is handsome and bright. How much do
you ask for him?

JUDAH : Thirty pieces of silver.

MERCHANTS : Done. Here is your money

Very instructive is a comparison of the way in which Cal-
vin handles these passages. He scathes, of course, the unparal-
leled severity of Pharaoh, not because killing babies is itself
so monstrous, for Calvin fully condoned the slaughter of the
babies of the Amalekites at the divine behest. Pharaoh's deep-
est offense lay in his intent to frustrate God, and the moral
of the whole story is that Providence and not chance directed
Pharaoh's daughter to the very spot that enabled her to res-
cue the savior of his people. Likewise in the case of Joseph's
brethren. They were unquestionably incited by diabolical
fury, and had they been possessed of a grain of humanity
could not have sat down to eat after putting their brother
down the well But the main point is that unwittingly and
unwillingly the brothers were instruments of Providence for
their own ultimate salvation.

Why should men react so differently to the same Biblical
passage ? Why should one center on the wickedness of cruelty
and the other on the power of God to circumvent its effects ?
Why does one shudder at inhumanity as such and the other
inquire for what purpose it is being exercised ? One wonders
whether it is ultimately a matter of temperament, and that is
only another way of inquiring whether after all it may not be
predestination. Some are tough and some are tender. Some
shrink not only from bloodshed but from any infliction of
pain, and would sooner dissimulate than hurt. Others are of
stouter fiber. If this be true, the arguments used by this side
or that are immaterial. One fights against this conclusion, and
with reason, because sometimes arguments have made con-
verts, and the periods of history do exhibit such advances and

104 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

such retrogressions in the practice of liberty as to suggest
something more at work than merely temperament.

But to come back to Castellio. The plague broke out in Ge-
neva, The town council requested the ministers to send as a
chaplain to the hospital one of their number other than Cal-
vin. One went, and died. A successor was requested. The min-
isters replied that they recognized this service as their duty,
" but God had not given them the grace, the courage, and the
constancy to go to the hospital and they begged to be excused.
They prayed God would give them greater strength for the
future." Sebastien Castellio volunteered, but his offer was not
accepted because he was needed at the school and in any
case was not ordained.

Then arose a circumstance that gave him a particular rea-
son for seeking ordination. He married and his stipend was
insufficient. The Council, unable to raise his wages, proposed
that in addition to the school he assume a church, to which
a salary would be attached. For this ordination was necessary.
But the ministers rejected him on two counts: because he
denied Calvin's allegorical interpretation of the descent of
Christ into hell, and because he repudiated the inspiration of
The Song of Songs in the Old Testament Castellio there-
upon resigned from the school and asked for a letter of rec-
ommendation to a post elsewhere. Calvin gladly acceded,
and in the name of the ministers gave him a letter testifying
that he would have been unanimously elected to the pastor-
ate save for the two points of doctrine.

" The chief dispute," the letter continued, " was about The
Song of Songs. He said that it was a lascivious love poem in
which Solomon described his indecent amours. We told him
that he should not be so rash to despise the perpetual con-
sensus of the Church Universal, There was no book of doubt-
ful authenticity that had not been debated, and those books
that we now receive without a question were at first dis-

THE REMONSTRATOR 105

puted. But this book had never been openly rejected by any-
one. We told him that he should not trust to his own judg-
ment, especially when he advanced nothing that had not
been obvious to everyone before he was born, and we pointed
out the similarity of this book to the Forty-fifth Psalm.

" When this did not weigh with him, we consulted what
we should do. We were all agreed that it would be dangerous
and would set a bad example if he were admitted to the min-
istry on this condition. To begin with, people would be not a
little offended if they heard that we had ordained one who
openly rejected and condemned a book accepted as Scripture
by all the churches. Further, the door would be opened to
adversaries and detractors who seek to defame the gospel and
disrupt the Church. Finally, we should be without an answer
for the future to any who wanted to repudiate Ecclesiastes or
Proverbs or any other book, unless we wanted to debate
whether or no the book were worthy of the Holy Spirit.

" That no one may suppose there was any other reason for
Sebastien's leaving, we wish to attest wherever he goes that
he gave up his position as schoolmaster of his own free will.
He has so conducted himself that we deemed him worthy of
the ministry. He has been rejected, not because of any blem-
ish in his character, nor because of any failure to accept the
fundamentals, but simply for this reason that we have men-
tioned. The ministers of Geneva signed in the name and by
the mandate of all, John Calvin." And Calvin showed a genu-
ine concern to find a place for Castellio somewhere else.

Here, then, was a man possessed of more courage than any
of the ministers, yet denied ordination to the ministry on ac-
count of two admittedly minor doctrinal points. The contrast
was all the more glaring because the ministry at Geneva re-
tained some who in matters of sex were undisciplined and in
matters of finance irresponsible. Calvin was greatly exercised
over the situation, but not disposed to go to extremities of

106 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

discipline when he had none better with whom to replace the
offenders. The task of building up a reputable Protestant min-
istry within one or even two decades was formidable. The
alternatives were either to tolerate the tares or to reduce the
Church to a winnowed conventicle. When the need for
trained and upright candidates was so acute, the marvel is the
greater that Castellio was turned down. The explanation is
simply that a religious community built around an idea can
less readily tolerate a rejection of the idea than a failure to
live up to it.

Castellio went to Basel, still redolent with the spirit of Eras-
mus even if Servetus had been dismissed. The problem of
ordination, which had occasioned the departure from Geneva,
was not again raised. Castellio remained for life a layman.
But the problem of financial support was all the more strin-
gent. He tilled the earth, carried water for the gardeners, har-
pooned the logs that drifted down the Rhine, and engaged
in tutoring and in correcting proof for Oporinus, the famous
publisher of Basel.

The residue of time and strength was devoted to classical
and Biblical studies, with the aim of rendering the Bible into
a Latin not offensive to the humanists and into a French sa-
voring of the soil. The vernacular version should wherever
possible avoid words of immediate Latin derivation because
foreign terms obscure the stark vigor of Christ's demands. He
calls upon a would-be disciple to take up his cross. If the Latin
word " cross " be used, many will readily consent because the
term has so familiar a ring. But render the passage, " If any-
one would come after me, let him carry the rope for his own
lynching" that strikes home. Castellio went rather far,
however, in making the Bible indigenous when he turned the
officers of Israel into marshals, seneschals, bailiffs, and gen-
darmes. All in all, his work was marked by high competence
and distinction. The Latin version has necessarily become a

THE REMONSTRATOR IO7

curiosity because Latin has ceased to be a spoken tongue, and
the French, of course, has been superseded.

Only the preface to the Latin version is still read. It was in
the form of a dedicatory epistle to Edward VI, the boy king
of England, and constituted a plea for religious liberty. Here
again a comparison with Calvin is instructive. The Insti-
tutes begins with a dedication to Francis I, the king of France,
who was besought to exercise clemency in religion, not be-
cause constraint as such is wrong, but because the Calvinists
were right. Castellio adduced other considerations. The Scrip-
tures, he claimed, " are full of enigmas and inscrutable ques-
tions which have been in dispute for over a thousand years
without agreement, nor can they be resolved without love,
which appeases all controversies. Yet on account of these enig-
mas the earth is filled with innocent blood. We certainly ought
to fear lest in crucifying thieves justly we crucify Christ un-
justly. If we suffer Turks and Jews to live among us, the
former of whom scarcely love Christ and the latter dearly
hate him, if we suffer detractors, the proud, envious, avari-
cious, immodest, drunkards, and like plagues, if we live with
them, eat with them, and make merry with them, we ought
at least to concede the right to breathe common air to those
who confess with us the same Christ and harm no one, who
are indeed of such a temper that they would rather die than
say or do anything other than that which they think they
ought to say and do. Of all men this sort is the least to be
feared because he who would rather die than say what he
does not feel is not open to bribery and corruption. I venture
to say that none are more obedient to princes and magistrates
than those who fear God in simplicity and obey him to the
extent of their knowledge. On controverted points we would
do better to defer judgment, even as God, who knows us to
be guilty, yet postpones judgment and waits for us to amend
our lives."

108 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Castellio's achievements in the field of scholarship were not
without their recognition. In the month of August of the
year 1553 he was made a Master of Arts at the University of
Basel and thus became eligible for a teaching post which
shortly thereafter was conferred upon him. He was thirty-
eight years of age, a humanist with an international reputa-
tion, and now so comfortably situated that he might look
forward to another quarter of a century of tranquil literary
labors. So might it have been if in October of that same year
Geneva had not burned at the stake Michael Servetus.

Castellio, profoundly indignant, took counsel with like-
minded spirits on how best to launch an effective protest. The
decision was to issue an anthology of opinions, ancient and
modern, against persecution, in which the earlier or incau-
tious utterances of contemporary persecutors were skillfully
interlaid between the statements of genuine and persistent
liberals in order to create at once an appearance of unanimity
and to provide an occasion for embarrassment. Luther and
Calvin were side by side with Sebastian. Franck and Sebastien
Castellio. But Castellio's name did not appear save at the' head
of the excerpt from the dedication of his Bible to Edward VL
The collection as a whole was attributed to Martin Bellius,
who signed the dedicatory epistle. Other pseudonyms were
Basil Montfort and George Kleinberg. The recent discovery
of a lost manuscript of Castellio puts to rest at last all the con-
jectures of his contemporaries and of the moderns as to the
authorship of these portions. He was responsible for; the
whole. The place of publication likewise was fictitious, osten-
sibly Magdeburg. Beza surmised that it was Magdeburg on
the Rhine and he was quite right, for the title of the book has
been discovered in a list of the publications of Oporinus of
Basel. The identity of the author was not so readily deter-
minable, and although Castellio was speedily suspected,, the
pseudonym was accepted and the term Bellianism was used

THE REMONSTRATOR

to denote the advocates of religious liberty. The work bore
the title Concerning Heretics, Whether They Are to Be Per-
secuted.

A lively duel ensued, the more so because Calvin had al-
ready entered the lists. Murmurs of disapproval prompted
him at once to essay a justification in the tract, A Defense of
the Orthodox Faith Against the Errors of Michael Servetus*
To this work Castellio replied in the Contra Libellum Calvini
(" Against Calvin's Book "), which, however, was not pub-
lished until 1612, in Holland, long after his death. Beza at
once undertook to refute Concerning Heretics in a work with
the same title appearing in the same year, 1554. Castellio
wrote a rejoinder both in French and in Latin, but that work
has not yet been published and was only recently discovered
by a Russian refugee among the papers of a Dutch Bellianist
in the Library of the Remonstrants at Rotterdam. A collec-
tion of theological tracts entitled Four Dialogues was per-
mitted in Basel, but not until 1578, after the author had long
been dead. One of the most significant of his works, the
treatise On the Art of Doubting, has found itself curiously in-
volved in the struggles of our own time. A Frenchman in-
tended to edit it but was deterred. An American entertained
plans of doing it, but delayed. An Italian wrote to the Ameri-
can of his own purpose to undertake it until he learned that
a German professor in Heidelberg was about to begin. Then
came word to the American that a young woman in Berlin
had the task actually in hand. The American informed the
professor in Heidelberg and the young woman in Berlin of
their mutual plans. The professor withdrew in her favor, but
when she had finished, she was unable to publish because of
Hitler's racial laws. Then the Italian came to the rescue and
brought out the work on the other side of the Alps just before
Mussolini succumbed to Hitler.

Castellio's days were embroiled in controversy. The min-

110 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

isters at Basel were not eager to molest him, yet were not de-
sirous of any open breach with Geneva. One of them wrote
to Beza advising him not to stir up Castellio, who was in-
nocuously engaged in editing classics. The advice went un-
heeded, and he was at last brought to trial in Basel. The out-
come would scarcely have been worse than banishment, and
in all likelihood he would have migrated to Poland had not
death intervened in 1563.

Concerning Heretics begins with the parable of the White
Robe. It is couched in the form of a dedicatory epistle to Duke
Christoph of Wurttemberg, and opens :

" Most Illustrious Prince, suppose you had told your sub-
jects that you would come to them at some uncertain time
and had commanded them to make ready to go forth clad in
white garments to meet you whenever you might appear.
What would you do if, on your return, you discovered that
they had taken no thought for the white robes but instead
were disputing among themselves concerning your person ?
Some were saying that you were in France, others that you
were in Spain; some that you would come on a horse, others
in a chariot; some were asserting that you would appear with
a great equipage, others that you would be unattended.
Would this please you?

" Suppose further that the controversy was being con-
ducted, not merely by words, but by blows and swords, and
that one group wounded and killed the others who did not
agree with them. * He will come on a horse/ one would say.

" * No, in a chariot/ another would retort.

"'You lie. 5

" * You're the liar. Take that.' He punches him.

" * And take that in the belly.' The other stabs.

" Would you, O Prince, commend such citizens ? Suppose,
however, that some did their duty and followed your com-
mand to prepare the white robes, but the others oppressed

THE REMONSTRATOR III

them on that account and put them to death. Would you not
rigorously destroy such scoundrels ?

" But what if these homicides claimed to have done all this
in your name and in accord with your command, even
though you had previously expressly forbidden it? Would
you not consider that such outrageous conduct deserved to be
punished without mercy? Now I beg you. Most Illustrious
Prince, to be kind enough to hear why I say these things.

" Christ is the Prince of this world, who on his departure
from the earth foretold to men that he would return some
day at an uncertain hour, and he commanded them to pre-
pare white robes for his coming, that is to say, that they
should live together in a Christian manner, amicably, with-
out controversy and contention, loving one another. But con-
sider now, I beg you, how well we discharge our duty.

" How many are there who show the slightest concern to
prepare the white robe ? Who is there who bends every effort
to live in this world in a saintly, just, and religious manner
in the expectation of the coming of the Lord ? For nothing
is there so little concern. The true fear of God and charity are
fallen and grown cold. Our life is spent in contention and in
every manner of sin. We dispute, not as to the way by which
we may come to Christ, which is to correct our lives, but
rather as to the state and office of Christ, where he now is and
what he is doing, how he is seated at the right hand of the
Father, and how he is one with the Father; likewise with re-
gard to the Trinity, predestination, free will; so, also, of God,
the angels, the state of souls after this life, and other like
things, which do not need to be known for salvation by faith
(for the publicans and sinners were saved without this knowl-
edge), nor indeed can they be known before the heart is pure
(for to see these things is to see God himself, who cannot be
seen save by the pure in heart, as the text says, ' Blessed are
the pure in heart: for they shall see God '). Nor if these are

112 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

known do they make a man better, as Paul says, * Though I
understand all mysteries, and have not love, it profiteth me
nothing.' This perverse curiosity engenders worse evils. Men
are puflfed up with knowledge or with a false opinion of
knowledge and look down upon others. Pride is followed by
cruelty and persecution so that now scarcely anyone is able to
endure another who differs at all from him. Although opin-
ions are almost as numerous as men, nevertheless there is
hardly any sect that does not condemn all others and desire
to reign alone. Hence arise banishments, chains, imprison-
ments, stakes, and gallows and this miserable rage to visit
daily penalties upon those who differ from the mighty about
matters hitherto unknown, for so many centuries disputed,
and not yet cleared up.

" If, however, there is someone who strives to prepare the
white robe, that is, to live justly and innocently, then all
others with one accord cry out against him if he differ from
them in anything, and they confidently pronounce him a
heretic on the ground that he seeks to be justified by works.
Horrible crimes of which he never dreamed are attributed to
him, and the common people are prejudiced by slander until
they consider it a crime merely to hear him speak. Hence
arises such cruel rage that some are so incensed by calumny
as to be infuriated when the victim is first strangled instead
of being burned alive at a slow fire.

" This is cruel enough, but a more capital offense is added
when this conduct is justified under the robe of Christ and is
defended as being in accord with his will, when Satan could
not devise anything more repugnant to the nature and will
of Christ! Yet these very people who are so furious against
the heretics, as they call them, are so far from hating moral
offenders that no scruple is felt against living in luxury with
the avaricious, currying flatterers, abetting the envious and
calumniators, making merry with drunkards, gluttons, and

THE REMONSTRATOR 113

adulterers, banqueting daily with the scurrilous, impostors,
and those who are hated of God. Who, then, can doubt that
they hate not vices but virtues ? To hate the good is the same
as to love the evil. If, then, the bad are dear to a man, there
is no doubt but that the good are hateful to him.

" I ask you, then, Most Illustrious Prince, what do you
think Christ will do when he comes ? Will he commend such
things ? Will he approve of them ? "

This passage comes close to epitomizing Castellio's whole
position. It brings to the fore the idea destined to play an
enormous role in the entire struggle for religious liberty,
namely, the distinction between the essentials and the non-
essentials of Christianity. Fundamentalism arose in the six-
teenth century in the interests of reducing the number of the
fundamentals, that persecution might be allayed. Castellio
in the above passage did not enumerate what they were, but
he definitely indicated what they were not. His refusal to in-
clude any judgment with regard to the location of Christ's
body after the resurrection touched upon a moot point be-
tween the Lutherans and the Calvinists, for Luther regarded
the body of Christ as ubiquitous, needing only to be dis-
closed, not to be conjured upon the altar, whereas Calvin
held that Christ, being at the right hand of the Father, can
be present only spiritually in the sacrament. The assigning
of the Trinity, predestination, and the nature of the afterlife
to nonessentials, elicited a blast from Theodore Beza, who
ejaculated: " Bellius says that publicans and sinners were
saved without these beliefs. O unheard-of impudence! Saved
by him on whom they had not called. Did they call on him in
whom they did not believe ? Did they believe in him whom
they had not known ? If Christ is not in heaven, how can he
be our high priest? If he be not coeternal and consubstantial
with the Father, how can he be our Saviour ? "

The question of the essentials entailed, of course, the prior

114 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

question, essential for what? And the answer was always
that essential referred to salvation. Here Castellio, with the
Erasmians, introduced a rational consideration, that nothing
can be essential for salvation that cannot be known, and
much in Christian teaching cannot be established with ab-
solute certainty, particularly the matters that are most con-
troverted. Calvin and Beza promptly dubbed Castellio an
academic, that is, a skeptic, and charged that he would reduce
the whole of Christianity to conjecture. He replied by reviv-
ing an ancient distinction between faith and knowledge as
representing two levels of certainty. In accord with a venera-
ble tradition associated with the name of Thomas Aquinas,
Castellio held that faith and knowledge are mutually ex-
clusive. That which is known is no longer believed and that
which is believed by definition is not yet known. Another
and equally persistent tradition, congenial especially to the
mystics, held that, since the vision of God is possible in this
life, he may be at the same time known and believed, be-
cause faith and knowledge are not mutually exclusive but
are rather variant modes of apprehending God at the same
time. Calvin stood perhaps unwittingly in this line, and
went even beyond his predecessors in equating faith with
knowledge, assurance, and certitude. That was why he could
not be deterred from constraining others through the fear
of making a mistake. Under such circumstances to take no
action to curb death-dealing error appeared to him to be
culpable negligence. And Beza declared religious liberty to be
" a most diabolical dogma, because it means that everyone
should be left to go to hell in his own way."

Such assumptions of certainty Castellio flatly challenged.
In the preface to his Bible he had already contended that
Scripture is fraught with enigmas. The very fact of contro-
versy is itself the proof of uncertainty. " All sects hold their
religion according to the Word of God and say that it is cer-

THE REMONSTRATOR 115

tain. Calvin says that his is certain, and they, theirs. He says
they are wrong and wishes to be judge, and so do they. Who
shall be judge ? Who made Calvin the arbiter of all the sects,
that he alone should kill ? He has the Word of God and so
have they. If the matter is certain, to whom is it certain ? To
Calvin? But why does he then write so many books about
manifest truth? There is nothing unknown to Calvin. He
talks as if he might be in paradise and writes huge tomes to
explain what he says is absolutely clear.

" In view of all this uncertainty we must define the heretic
simply as one with whom we disagree. And if, then, we are
going to kill heretics, the logical outcome will be a war of
extermination, since each is sure of himself. Calvin would
have to invade France and other nations, wipe out cities, put
all the inhabitants to the sword, sparing neither sex nor age,
not even the babes and the beasts. All would have to be
burned save Calvinists, Jews, and Turks, whom he excepts."
At this point Castellio was not fair, because Calvin did not
contemplate a crusade and did not insist that every Church
conform to the pattern of Geneva. He too distinguished the
essentials and the nonessentials and would correct a slight
superstition with patience and only when religion was
shaken to the foundations would have recourse to the ex-
treme remedy.

But Castellio returned to the charge that the points at
which the extreme remedy was invoked were precisely the
least certain because the most controverted. " No one doubts
that there is a God, whether he is good and just, whether he
should be loved and worshiped, whether vice should be
avoided and virtue followed. Why? Because these points are
clear. But concerning Baptism, the Lord's Supper, justifica-
tion, predestination, and many other questions there are capi-
tal dissensions. Why ? Because these points are not cleared up
in Scripture."

Il6 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The moral is to wait. "We should imitate Judas Mac-
cabaeus who, not knowing what to do with the altar of sacri-
fice, laid aside the stones until a prophet should arise to tell.
Let us wait, lest we pull up the wheat with the tares, which
has so often happened when the martyrs and the Son of God
were put to death under the color of religion. Let us wait,
just as, when night falls upon the field of battle, fighting
ceases lest by striking at hazard friends be killed instead of
foes. Since, then, so much is doubtful and entangled, with-
hold fire until the day dawns and the forces are better disen-
gaged, that in the darkness and confusion you do not that
of which you will have afterward to say, ' I did not in-
tend to/ "

Castellio, as a matter of fact, was not a skeptic, but he was
a rationalist. In his judgment there are two sources of knowl-
edge. One is sense experience and the other is revelation.
Neither is beyond the need of correction, and the office falls
to human reason. The senses obviously are not infallible, be-
cause a stick half immersed in water appears bent and a
mountain in the distance seems to be blue. Reason therefore
must interpose control and it is competent to do so because
not vitiated by the Fall of man. The tree from which Adam
ate was the tree of knowledge, and we are not to turn it into
a tree of ignorance. Thus Castellio turned the story of the
Fall into a myth of progress. After the manner of the En-
lightenment he waxed lyrical in praise of reason: " She is, so
to speak, the daughter of God. She was before letters and
ceremonies, before the world was, and she is after letters and
ceremonies, and after the world is changed and renewed, she
will endure and can no more be abolished than God himself.
Reason, I say, is a sort of eternal word of God. According to
reason Jesus Christ himself, the Son of the living God, lived
and taught. In the Greek he is called Logos, which means
4 reason ' or * word. 5 They are the same, for reason is a kind

THE REMONSTRATOR IIJ

of superior and eternal word of truth always speaking."

Reason thus became for Castellio a principle of continuous
revelation, and this explains why he had no sense of depart-
ing from the Christian revelation when he called upon rea-
son to resolve Scriptural riddles. Nor was he an apostate in
distinguishing different levels within Scripture or even in ad-
mitting positive discrepancies. When told that if these were
true the authority of Scripture would be undermined, he re-
plied that if the inference were correct the statements were
not therefore false, but he would not admit the inference, be-
cause authority does not reside in a few passages pressed into
a rigid conformity, but in the tenor and body of the whole.
" My confidence," he said, " in the authority of sacred au-
thors is confirmed when I see them so intent upon the salva-
tion of .men as to be unconcerned for words. Their reliability
is thereby manifest. Those who tell the truth do not strain at
words. It is precisely liars who aim at a particular verbal con-
sistency to hide their deception." Castellio did not fully per-
ceive that he was undoubtedly introducing a subjective factor
into Biblical interpretation, and no doubt this was why he
was the more ready to repudiate the passages condoning per-
secution in the Old Testament as contrary to the mind of
Christ.

Alongside of the rational in Castellio lay a strong ethical
emphasis:

" Now I know well that my detractors are accustomed to
say that one must look not at the life, but at the doctrine, and
that my life is hypocrisy. There are even some who say that
to live well is the peculiarity of heretics. ... I answer that
it is a great shame for those who wish to condemn others to
so live that their life is worse than that of those whom they
condemn. . . . Shall it be said that the spirit of the heretics
has more power than that of the Christians ?

" This man you say is a heretic, a putrid member to be cut

Il8 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

off from the body of the Church lest he infect others. But
what has he done? Oh, horrible things! Yes, but what? Is he
a murderer ? an adulterer ? a thief ? No. What then ? Does he
not believe in Christ and the Scriptures ? Certainly he does,
and would rather die than not continue in his belief. But he
does not understand them correctly, that is, he interprets
them differently from our teachers. . . . This is a capital of-
fense to be expiated in the flames."

Castellio would say not merely that deeds are more impor-
tant than creeds, but that deeds must be the test of creeds. The
layman cannot pass judgment on the arguments of the medi-
cal sects, but he can tell which one cures the most. So he can
evaluate the theological sects by observing which one best
cures vices, and changes the greatest number from drunk to
sober, from intemperate to continent, from greedy to gener-
ous, making them patient instead of impatient, kind instead
of cruel, instead of impure, chaste. Sound doctrine is that
which makes men sound. The doctrine of the persecutors
must be bad because their lives are bad.

Good deeds, moreover, are the condition of right creeds.
These obscure religious matters can be known only by the
pure in heart. The Scriptures can be rightly understood only
by Christ's disciples, and they are his disciples who obey him
and have love. This point was made all the more insistently
by Castellio because he believed in the possibility of moral
perfection. He did not claim to have attained it, but he did
demand that the gospel be taken seriously, and he held that
the new man in Christ is able to overcome sin, provided he
strive as assiduously as he would to learn German or French,
music, dancing, or cards. When critics scornfully demanded,
" Show us a perfect man," Castellio witheringly retorted,
" Such men are generally obscure and unknown, but if I
knew one I would not point him out, because the question is
like that of Herod who asked the Wise Men to report to him

THE REMONSTRATOR IK)

the whereabouts of the newborn King of the Jews that he
also might worship him."

A controversy with Geneva over the moral requirements of
Christianity must appear anomalous in view of the repute of
the Calvinists for rigorism comparable to that of monastic
asceticism. The difference was in part the one already noted
between the relative weight of the doctrinal and the moral.
But there was also a divergence as to the outward and the in-
ward in morality. A religious society that exacts from its
members a pattern of behavior is almost bound to center on
that which can be readily determined. Thus the Genevan
consistory declared that " a minister should be deposed for
heresy, cardplaying, and dancing, but a fraternal admonition
would suffice were he guilty of scurrility, obscenity, and
avarice." To this scale of vices Castellio applied the test of in-
wardness. " Why," he asked, " does Calvin not bring about
the death of hypocrites and the avaricious ? Or does he think
that hypocrites are better than heretics ? He claims that her-
etics destroy souls. So do the envious, the avaricious, and the
proud. But if Calvin wished all the proud to be punished by
the magistrate, none would be left to punish the magistrate
himself."

Because righteousness for Castellio was so inward, the
criterion of morality became subjective. He defined con-
science as loyalty to that which one believes to be right, even
though objectively one may be in error. If a boy follows a
man supposing him to be his father, the intention need not
be corrected but only the opinion. To say what one believes
is to tell the truth, even though one may be mistaken. Serve-
tus was put to death for telling the truth. Had he been will-
ing to recant and speak against his conscience, he might have
escaped. He was executed because he would not lie. He per-
ished because he said what he thought.

Scarcely anything in the teaching of Castellio was more

120 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

radical than this. He relativized conscience. Few in his day
agreed or even understood. Not until the late seventeenth
century on the eve of the Enlightenment did his position
come to prevail. In his own day the almost universal view
was that conscience, to have any validity, must be grounded
on truth. Error had no rights. Castellio did not counter by
saying that mere conviction makes one correct, i>ut he did in-
sist that loyalty to conviction is an elemental necessity, be-
cause " I must be saved by my own faith and not by that of
another." If a man recant, his soul is destroyed and his moral
fiber undermined. Castellio could cite examples of men who
lived blamelessly so long as they were loyal to their convic-
tions, but who, after recantation, suffered a complete moral
disintegration. Therefore, " to force conscience is worse than
cruelly to kill a man."

Castellio's position at this point has come to be the com-
mon coin of liberalism. The danger implicit in such relativ-
ism is that truth itself will follow the way of conscience. The
slogan has frequently come to be that one idea is as good as
another so long as it be sincerely held. Not until recent dec-
ades have we been brutally taught that sincerity in the service
of a pernicious idea only makes it all the more frightful. How
hard it is to remedy one abuse without incurring another!

A further element in Castellio's thinking, likewise Eras-
mian in tone, was a sharp distinction of the spiritual from the
carnal. The reason why the sword of the magistrate is inap-
propriate in religion is that religion is spiritual and the sword
carnal, and incapable therefore of creating or even under-
standing religion. " Religion resides not in the body but in
the heart, which cannot be reached by the sword of kings
and princes. The Church can no more be constructed by per-
secution and violence than a wall can be built by cannon
blasts. Therefore to kill a man is not to defend a doctrine. It
is simply to kill a man." Certain things persecution can do,

THE REMONSTRATOR 121

but they are the wrong things. The magistrate can constrain
men to recant and thus turn heretics into hypocrites. The
number in the Church is thus increased, but the quality is
not improved. " I say that those who have regard to numbers,
and on that account constrain men, gain nothing, but rather
lose, and resemble a fool who, having a great barrel and a
little wine in it, fills it up with water to get more, but instead
of increasing the wine, he spoils what he had." The gospel
was forced on England under Edward VI, but the accession
of Mary revealed how few were genuinely persuaded. " The
Jews in Spain, who have been baptized by force, are no -more
Christians than before."

Again, coercion may completely defeat its own end by
simply advertising heresy. Calvin complains that the views of
Servetus are spreading. " He has only himself to blame. There
was no mention of the first book of Servetus and the later
could be sold like the others without disturbance, but now
that the man has been burned with his books, everybody is
burning with a desire to read them." Castellio knew a man
who had been converted to the views of Servetus by the ex-
tracts from his works that Calvin included in the refutation.
The Protestants flourished " like drops of dew at break of
day " when they suffered persecution, which served merely to
make seven for one.

Another and still more serious consequence of persecution
is that it may provoke sedition. The common claim was that
heresy would disturb the body politic. On the contrary, an-
swered Castellio, " seditions come rather from the fact that
they want to force and kill heretics rather than to let them
live without constraint, for tyranny engenders sedition."

Closely akin to the spiritual is the mystic approach, accord-
ing to which the way of salvation is the bearing of the cross,
the crucifixion of the old man. The way to God is the way
of suffering. It follows of necessity, therefore, that although

122 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

those who suffer may not be martyrs, certainly those who in-
flict suffering cannot be saints. Castellio declared that to " as-
sert one's faith is not to burn a man, but rather to be burned."
Calvin and Beza called the heretics wolves. Castellio replied:
" The mark of the wolf is to eat raw flesh. Therefore they are
not the wolves who are killed, but rather those who kill."
" The just have always been killed." " From the foundation
of the world the truth has always been persecuted by the
great and renowned." " He who is according to the flesh
persecuted him who is according to the Spirit." Christ, the
apostles, and the martyrs were persecuted, and such has al-
ways been the fate of simple and true Christians.

Castellio's spiritualization of religion had unhappily also
its pitfalls. His fear of the externalizing of Christianity
brought him to the verge of dissolving the visible Church. In
a tract as yet unpublished he declared: " They are of the true
Church who have heard the voice of the Shepherd and obey,
who have the true sacraments, who have gone into the laver
of redemption and experienced the new birth. They are new
creatures, baptized with fire and in the Spirit. They have
truly eaten of the flesh of Christ and drunk of his blood,
having put off the old man of sin and put on the new. This
Church is unknown to the Calvinists because, being taken up
with their visible and carnal Church and impeded by its
visible marks, they are not able to consider and see the spir-
itual Church. In this regard they are like the ancient Jews
who were so immersed in the shadows and ceremonies of the
law that they could not see the end of the law in Christ. But
the children of this celestial Church recognize it just as chil-
dren recognize their mother, and they know no less their
brothers than the carnal know their own. And not only do
they recognize each other, but strangers also mark them by
the fruits of charity and of the spirit which are proper to those
who fear God. Thus they are discerned as the disciples of

THE REMONSTRATOR 123

Christ, and not by exterior sermons and sacraments, which
are common to the good and to the bad. Our Lord said, ' By
this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another.' Those who are in this Church recognize
it as a musician recognizes music and sings in accord."

In this passage Castellio comes close to reducing the
Church to an invisible fellowship. Surely that is a high price
to pay for liberty! The centuries have demonstrated that it
is an unnecessary price, but radical diseases require drastic
cures. Perhaps in his day no lesser word would have sufficed.

Finally, in Castellio there was an element of abiding valid-
ity rooted in his faith in the mercy of God and the compas-
sion of Christ. The Christian God is a God of mercy and for-
giveness. If, argued Castellio, " before the sacrifice of Christ
God had compassion on guilty Nineveh, how much more
now on innocent babes ! God draws, attracts, urges, invites,
and persuades. The imitation of this heavenly Father leads
us to love our enemies and to err on the side of mercy. Christ
likewise was so meek that to seek a warrant from his example
for putting to death heretics with the sword is like trying to
discover a case of a lamb eating a wolf ." The preface of the
tract Concerning Heretics ends with an impassioned apostro-
phe to Christ:

" O Creator and King of the world, dost thou see these
things ? Art thou become so changed, so cruel, so contrary to
thyself? When thou wast on earth, none was more mild,
more clement, more patient of injury. As a sheep before the
shearer thou wast dumb. When scourged, spat upon, mocked,
crowned with thorns, and crucified shamefully among
thieves, thou didst pray for them who did thee this wrong.
Art thou now so changed ? I beg thee in the name of thy Fa-
ther, dost thou now command that those who do not under-
stand thy precepts as the mighty demand be drowned in
water, cut with lashes to the entrails, sprinkled with salt, dis-

124 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

membered by the sword, burned at a slow fire, and other-
wise tortured in every manner and as long as possible ? Dost
thou, O Christ, command and approve of these things ? Are
they thy vicars who make these sacrifices ? Art thou present
when they summon thee and dost thou eat human flesh ? If
thou, Christ, dost these things or if thou commandest that
they be done, what hast thou left for the devil ? Doest thou
the very same things as Satan ? O blasphemies and shameful
audacity of men, who dare to attribute to Christ that which
they do by the command and at the instigation of Satan! "

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE:
T)avid Joris

Bellianism as a term would never have gained currency had
there not been Bellianists. Castellio had disciples and collab-
orators. Two of them will be noticed
here because they represent variant
emphases in the theory of liberty and
because they exemplify in their lives
certain of the fruits of persecution.
The first, David Joris, was a Hol-
lander and an Anabaptist of a very
eccentric variety. He is of interest
chiefly as an example of the mystical
approach to tolerance and likewise
because in his behavior he demon-
strated the thesis of Castellio that per-
secution can all too readily turn a heretic into a hypocrite.

Joris was born in Holland in the early years of the six-
teenth century (1501-1502) when the Low Countries were a
Spanish dependency. The political tie between Spain and The
Netherlands made possible mutual influences in reverse di-
rections. Through the Flemish court at Madrid the liberal-
ism of the Brethren of the Common Life and Erasmus was
disseminated in the Iberian peninsula. Through the Spanish
court at The Hague heresy was closely watched and severely
restricted in the Low Countries. But thereby a rift was created

David Joris

126 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

between the occupying power and the native administration
which out of national resentment would often abet heresy.
In consequence at the same time auto-da-fes multiplied and
heresy increased. From the point of view of the Catholic pow-
ers the variety mattered little. Lutheranism and Anabaptism
were alike subject to fire and water. The first burning of
Luther's books began in the Low Countries and the first Lu-
theran martyrs were here to suffer. Coincidentally Anabap-
tism found the way prepared by the simple Biblical human-
ism of Erasmus and the Brethren, and by the 1530'$ Holland
had come to be a land of three religions, Catholicism, Lu-
theranism, and Anabaptism, to which Calvinism as a fourth
was about to be added.

Joris grew to manhood in a period of exceptional ferment,
because only in The Netherlands could one find such a jux-
taposition of an intensely orthodox foreign administration in
clash with a populace widely addicted to Protestantism of the
most radical type. Joris was a strapping young fellow,
squarely built, impressive in person, red-bearded, artistically
gifted, a painter of stained-glass windows by trade. After
commissions in France and England, he married in 1524 and
settled in Delft. He was then twenty-two or twenty-three
years of age. The Lutheran agitation enlisted his ardor and
he began to distribute scurrilous sheets against the pope as
Antichrist. He would affix them to church doors or leave
them in the confessionals. Once on Ascension Day, when a
solemn procession marched from the Church of Our Lady to
the New Church, he cried out against the abomination. He
was condemned by the local court to a mild penance, which
the court at The Hague increased to fine, whipping, tongue-
boring, and three years of banishment.

His zeal was only the more inflamed, and he passed speed-
ily from Lutheranism to Anabaptism when one of the Ana-
baptist martyrs at the stake called out to him by the name of

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 127

" brother." The Anabaptism of The Netherlands at the time
of his adherence had assumed highly ecstatic forms. The
movement was already ten years old and the soberer leaders
had been liquidated. The direction fell in consequence to less
balanced spirits, and in any case placidity does not well sur-
vive a decade of the dragnet. Hunted and hounded, the little
flock dreamed of vindication at the hands of the Lord, and
the Apocalypse provided the imagery for the unfolding of the
world drama when Antichrist should be overthrown and
the one hundred and forty-four thousand apostles should go
forth in the power of the Spirit to usher in the reign of the
saints. Human agents were indispensable as precursors and
prophets of the great day. Soon the woods were full of Enochs
and Elijahs, all of them Spirit-filled, able through dreams
and visions to declare the mind of the Lord.

Into this maelstrom Joris was drawn. He was ecstatic over
the new day, when, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew having been
rejected, the Holy Ghost was talking Dutch. He knew well,
however, that tribulation was the prelude to the Great Day
and the saints must expect to suffer. In one of his hymns he
sang:

" All the godly must drink
From the chalice of bitterness, * pure red wine/
But the dregs shall God give to the godless to drain.
They shall spew and shall belch and fall into death without end.
Understand, ' dear Christian.
Hold fast. God's honor spread.
Be ready ever to die.' "

At the same time one should be ready for the Great Day.
Joris sang:

" Are you ready ?
O I am ready.
Are your clothes white?
Are your feet washed?/'

128 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The mood grew ever more tense. In the town of Miinster
in the year 1535 the saints succeeded in obtaining control of
the government. The New Jerusalem was established, with
several novel features. One was the avowal of vengeance
rather than of meekness toward the Babylonian abomination.
Now was the hour to gird on the armor of David, who by
slaughter should prepare the way for the peaceful Kingdom
of Christ. The second innovation was the introduction of
polygamy, on the ground that it had been permitted in the
Old Testament to the patriarchs and never abrogated in the
New Testament. When Paul said that a bishop should be
the husband of one wife, he implied that others might have
more, A third novelty arose among the Dutch Anabaptists of
going naked as a sign. This particular aberration had nothing
to do with sex. It was an imitation of the example of the
prophet Isaiah, who for six months went naked as a testi-
mony to the doom of Jerusalem. Similar manifestations were
later to occur among the early Quakers and in recent times
among the Dukhobors. The practice was of one stripe with
the act of a Dutch Anabaptist who took a live coal from off
the hearth and touched his lips after the manner of Isaiah,
except that, unlike the prophet, he was not able to say, " Here
am I ; send me," because for two weeks he was speechless.

The New Jerusalem at Miinster was of short duration. The
city fell and the leaders were put to the sword. Then the Ana-
baptist movement in The Netherlands was confronted by the
necessity for clarification. A conference to that end was held
in the early fall of 1535 at Bocholt, where Joris proved to be
the most influential figure. The discussion brought to light
two opposing parties. There were the Covenanters of the
sword, who still adhered to polygamy, chiliasm, and revolu-
tion. They ravaged the land, carrying off cattle, rooting up
trees, trampling grain, plundering churches, burning villages,
and hanging the inhabitants. On the other side were a sober

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 129

group who maintained their persistent repudiation of revo-
lution, polygamy, and millenarianism. They were Anabap-
tists in their insistence on adult baptism, austere deportment,
strict discipline, and the rejection of war and capital punish-
ment. Of this group the leader was Menno Simons, the
leader of the Mennonites.

Joris undertook to mediate. He stood with the Mennon-
ites in his complete rejection of revolution. The saints should
bear the cross and suffer injustice. The problem of polygamy
was handled by a periodization of history. The first period
was that of the Old Testament patriarchs marked by polyg-
amy, the second that of the Son in the New Testament char-
acterized by monogamy, and the third would be the age of
the Spirit distinguished by celibacy. Thus the patriarchs were
not condemned and polygamy was not condoned. As for
nakedness, Joris averred that he had no urge to make of him-
self a spectacle before the lewd but, if one were impelled by
the Lord, he could not gainsay him. In other words, this was
a form of testimony to be adopted only under direct inspira-
tion. Joris was at one with the Covenanters, however, in his
vivid expectation of the imminence of the Great Day of the
Lord. He differed from all the parties in displaying already
certain mystical tendencies that were to enable him in the
end to spiritualize and allegorize the beliefs and programs of
all the parties. Perhaps that was why he was able at Bocholt
to reconcile for the moment groups so diverse. The agree-
ment between such irreconcilables was, however, of necessity
but short-lived. The significance of the conference was rather
that it marked a parting of the ways and that it brought Joris
into prominence.

Shortly thereafter he received a prophetic call to come for-
ward himself in a messianic role. The immediate occasion
was a rhapsodic letter from a female admirer, who addressed
him in these terms: " May the Lord who inhabiteth eternity

130 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

. . . increase and fulfill in thee that which he has begun. I
thank my Father and glorify my Saviour for the gift of grace
in thy wisdom which comes down from above through an
exalted spirit and a wonderful counsel of God to the honor
and glory of his most holy name and the sanctification of his
people. Blessed be thou in the Lord, my brother. Faint not
to complete what thou hast begun in the house of the Lord.
Be thou the fan in his hand to prepare for him an acceptable
people that he may speedily come to his temple. . . . There-
fore, O valiant knight of Israel, beloved of the Lord, look
well to his vineyard. The Lord will increase thy strength and
wisdom in whom he is well pleased. He has made thee a
watchman in his house, a shepherd for his flock. Thou art the
most godly among those whose names are written. As the
rain refreshes the earth and the dew the flower of the field
and makes the scent sweet to man, so do thy warnings, teach-
ing, and instructions, though simple and plain, give men life,
showing them the way to the perfect wisdom of God in
which they grow up to the full stature of the man in Christ
Jesus our Lord. O how excellent art thou among others! "

On the receipt of this letter, Joris declared: " The glory of
the Lord shone round about me eight or ten days thereafter.
The brilliance in my eyes I cannot describe. It was no out-
ward light, but with inward vision I saw the children of God
coming in radiance, and before them and before me the un-
godly princes and the mighty fell down in great anguish. . . .
Then I came to myself and saw that I stood on my feet, I
heard many voices and saw dreams and visions. From that
moment I had to write furiously, for the words would come
to my mouth three or four times more rapidly than I could
pen them."

The result of these visions was the assumption of a new
messianic role. " Hitherto," said Joris, " I have been ashamed
of everyone. Now I am ashamed of none, be he kaiser or

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE

king." For himself, he claimed to be the third David. The
first was David the king; the second, Christ the Son of David;
and the third, David Joris. The greatest is he who is in the
middle, who has already killed Goliath so that nothing re-
mains for the the third David but to cut oft his head. The
first David was a type, the third an ambassador.

Yet Joris was accused of exalting himself above Christ. He
certainly indulged in some high-flown pretensions, as, for
example, when he wrote: " Come hither and hear me. Come,
I say, you who thirst for the water of life. Come to the foun-
tain of wisdom in the highest. Behold I, David, who have
been awakened by God's grace in the last time in the faith,
shall set before you the eternal truth and declare the right-
eousness of my God according to the promises from heaven
upon earth before the face of the firmament. The truth shall
abide firm and unchangeable in eternity and be found from
death unto life. Consider this." And again : " I, David, have
power with my spirit to judge you in the Lord according to
the Spirit and to bless and curse according to the truth . . .
to forgive or retain sins, to bind and to loose by the Lord in
heaven. Yes, at the right time to slay with the rod of my
mouth, which is the eternal word of the power of God. These
are hard thunderclaps, are they not ? " A good many thought
they were. Precisely what was meant is, however, difficult to
assess since Joris may have been laying claim to nothing more
than the word of the apostle (I Cor. 6:3), "Know ye not
that we shall judge angels ? " At the same time Joris did de-
mand of fellow Anabaptists that they give him implicit cre-
dence, and they found themselves driven to insist on testing
the prophets by the norm of the written Word. To this Joris
opposed the inward word, and there his mysticism came into
play, so that the role of the third David was transmuted into
that of the purgative stage of the mystic and resembled there-
fore greatly the mission of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah.

132 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

" The victory," he wrote, " or the resurrection in spirit and
truth is against no flesh and blood outwardly, but inwardly
against the unrighteous and perverted spirit and all lying,
which brings forth through enmity of God nothing but evil,
death, and darkness, which must become naught. . .
Wherefore the struggle and the victory are spiritual and can
neither begin nor end save in love and through love and
with love. . . , This victory seems at first to be defeat, this
power to be weakness. The reason is that he who has de-
served no enmity, disquiet, trouble, or labor, must suffer in
the strife, and must endure disquiet, trouble, and labor. He
must pay what he does not owe. He must be weak and de-
spised although he is godly, strong, and worthy of honor, for
he cannot receive the name until he has shown himself a
servant to those in need. Therein must his glory, honor,
power, victory, and truth appear and be found."

Soon for Joris the blowing of the trumpets in the last day
was reduced to an inner experience and " death, the devil,
hell, and damnation/' he said, " take place in a man and not
outside." If such mystical tendencies had been dominant at
the beginning, he could scarcely have founded a sect. But
even at the outset he was vague. His fulsome language
attracted tender spirits who discerned in him a seer and
prophet, a new David in the spirit of Elias. A following
gathered and a sect was formed.

Blesdijk, a lad of sixteen, later to be Joris' son-in-law, testi-
fied: " Among the writers from the time of the apostles until
now there is none who has so touched my heart, so power-
fully drawn me from the love of vanity, self-wisdom, arro-
gance, and impurity to the true wisdom which is the fear of
God, to simplicity, chastity, and righteousness as this one
writer has done. Many others can testify that we have been
led through the service of this man from darkness to light,
from the love of ourselves to the love of God." Some of the

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 133

disciples were men of means, who placed their substance at
Jons' disposal and thus enabled him to bring out his first ex-
tensive publication, the massive Wonder Eoo\ of 1542. The
title page bore the combined figure of a lion and a lamb, de-
signed no doubt by Joris himself. The reference was to the
book of Revelation 5: 5, 6, where the book sealed with seven
seals is opened by the Lion of the tribe of Judah and by the
Lamb that was slain.

Joris' activity all this time, one must remember, was clan-
destine and every movement fraught with danger. Those
who attended Anabaptist conferences did not expect to die
in bed. After the birth of his first son in 1535 he sought refuge
for wife and child in Strasbourg, but in vain. An attempt to
reach England was frustrated by a storm. When his wife

David Jorii Lion and Lamb

134 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

again became pregnant, he left her with his mother in Delft
and sought employment here and there, suffering several
near betrayals at the hands of travelers. Sometimes he found
no shelter and walked throughout the night. Once he es-
caped from a town through the kindness of a servant, who
packed him in a basket like a dog, covered him with skins,
and dropped him into a boat. Worry, privation, and severe
fasting weakened his health.

In 1538 the court of The Hague decreed that should he be
caught he should be hanged before his own door, and a price
of one hundred gulden was placed upon his head. In that
same year his own mother was beheaded because of her con-
fession that her son was as true in his teaching as were the
prophets and the apostles. His wife and daughter were ban-
ished from Delft and thirty-one followers were executed.
Joris himself continued as a fugitive, saved on one occasion
by the descent of a heavy fog and on another by the failure of
a servant in an inn to provide a candle.

One is not amazed that the head of an underground re-
ligious association, wandering for five years with a price on
his head, should have been an advocate of religious liberty.
The arguments that he adduced in favor of liberty differed in
their emphasis from those of Castellio, with whom the ethi-
cal and rational considerations predominated rather than the
mystical. With Joris the reverse was true. Occasionally he
could say that we " ought not to strive and condemn one
another over the relation of the persons in the Trinity about
which we do not have perfect light and assurance of the
truth." And there was at times an ethical note as when he
protested against the incongruity of shedding the innocent
blood of those who have committed no offense other than to
reject war and the oath, " Whereas nothing is done against
the idle, frivolous, drunkards, adulterers, double-dealers,
gamblers, swearers, and revilers,"

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 135

The approach of Joris was, however, prevailingly mystical.
Basic was his picture of God as impartial and unrestricted,
extending his grace to all creatures and refusing to be bound
by all man-made lines of land or sect: " How may we recog-
nize those who truly follow Christ ? Are they a nation called
and separated from a city or land in Europe, Asia, Africa, or
the New World? Are they a particular sect or order? To
this I would answer: They are neither a nation nor sect nor
people from any city or land. Christians were called from
Christ, religious orders from their founders such as Augus-
tinian, Franciscan, Dominican, et cetera. But the way is not
here. Rather, it consists in a firm faith in love and patience."
The object of the religious quest was union with this bound-
aryless God, to be God with God himself. And the way of
union is the way of inward transformation through a re-
enactment in personal experience of the incarnation and
passion of Christ, neither of which is of any avail unless thus
inwardly appropriated. " What does it help me to know that
Christ was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and born of the
Virgin Mary, if he be not born in me ? " " If you have missed
the nature and spirit of the love of Christ, all the outward
physical blood of our Lord Jesus will not help you, however
firmly you believe that it has been shed for you. Listen to this,
you slaves of the letter, who teach that we are justified by a
faith which consists in holding firmly that Jesus Christ died
for us."

That being the case, faith cannot be assent to an article,
but only an experience of the spirit. "The faith of Jesus
Christ is in no word spoken with the tongue, but in the
eternal, true, pure, and divine work and spiritual nature of
God against all flesh and is intelligible only to him who has
received it. Faith does not consist in any special articles or
spoken words, but in the true, eternal, living God and his
Christ. No one can speak of the true faith if he is not found

136 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

in it. Can anyone witness of that which he has not seen and
heard?"

If faith is thus defined, the customary tests of orthodoxy
are demolished, the common objects of religious controversy
are eliminated, and the competence of the magistrate in re-
ligion is destroyed.

The customary tests are the Creeds, the Bible, and the
Spirit. With regard to the Creeds, Joris wrote: " Faith is dis-
played by the power of the Spirit and the truth, not by the
recital of Biblical history, nor by the miracles of the apostles
and prophets, nor by the outward cross of Christ, nor by his
incarnation, death, resurrection, and Second Coming for
judgment. The devil believes all this. But what good is it
apart from the Spirit of Christ ? If a man believes in the Holy
Trinity, is baptized in outward water in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, if he believes in the twelve arti-
cles of the Holy Creed and can recite the larger and smaller
catechisms like an angel, yes, if he can remove mountains,
gives his goods to the poor, and his body to be burned, apart
from the love of the truth it profits him nothing." There is
no value in repeating the Lord's Prayer and the Creed accord-
ing to the letter, no, not even in Dutch. Joris had ceased to
be exuberant because the Holy Ghost was talking Dutch.

The Bible became nebulous as a test because its value re-
sides only in the eternal Word. " This book which is so won-
derfully written inwardly and outwardly is no visible book
written by the hand of man, but it is living, eternal, and
potent. No one is worthy to discover, open, teach, confess, or
read it. Yet this book of life is not in itself obscure or hidden,
but it is a sevenfold light shining in the faces of men and
angels. No one can open the seals save the Lamb, the Lion
of the tribe of Judah. The eternal living word lies not in the
power of men but of God. Otherwise men could save them-
selves through the Bible, the written Scripture which is

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 137

called the word of God, though Paul called it the dead letter.
He who has the eternal word of God in his heart needs noth-
ing else. If we had not only the whole Bible, but also all the
words delivered by the Holy Ghost through the fathers,
apostles, and prophets from the beginning of the world, these
could not make a new creature."

Joris himself very frequently appealed from the Creeds
and the Bible to the Spirit and thereby introduced the possi-
bility of a new intolerance such as that of the Miinsterites,
who grasped the sword under divine inspiration. But Joris
had checks for the extravagances of the Spirit and they were
derived in Erasmian fashion from the mind of Christ as well
as from the prevalent teaching of the mystics that suffering
is the way to God. Persecution, said Joris, " is contrary to the
holy faith of Jesus Christ and to the apostolic teaching of the
Holy Church, for the Holy Church is not that which perse-
cutes but that which suffers persecution." Religious con-
troversies were cited by Castellio to prove that the issue
must be uncertain, but by Joris to demonstrate that the dis-
putants must have a bad spirit. " Some claim," he wrote,
" that Christ is a human God, others that he is a divine man ;
some give him two natures, some one; some believe that
Christ became flesh spiritually from the Spirit; others that
he received his flesh from Mary, and others hold both to
be true; some believe that he ascended to heaven with the
same body which he had on earth and they condemn any
doubter as a heretic worthy of death, but others say that
Christ rose with a glorified body. In a word they are all
divided and persecute one another with bitterness. What does
it all prove ? Simply that they do not have the true faith and
love, but a bad spirit."

Then who is a heretic? Castellio had said that according
to the current definitions the heretic would be simply the one
with whom we disagree. Joris undertook to define the real

138 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

heretic as the one who lacks the new birth, " who is proud
toward God, who for a single error in an article of belief will
deprive another of his goods and honor and even his life."
The objects of religious controversy were relegated by Cas-
tellio to the nonessentials, because uncertain and unimportant
in comparison with a good life. Joris arrived at the same con-
clusion by contending that for the most part the contro-
verted points dealt with externals, whereas the inward alone
mattered. For Joris neither water baptism nor exile and
martyrdom were of avail without the spirit: " One may ob-
serve Baptism and the Lord's Supper, preaching, marriage,
and all the rest of the sacraments and miss the eternal truth.
Why? Because the Kingdom of God does not lie in outward
things." The church does not consist of wood and stone, but
the Lord Almighty is their temple and the Lamb is their
light. Those who serve God worthily are themselves a holy
temple or house of God in the spirit according to the truth.
They have no need for outward sacraments. The outward is
of so little importance that it is permissible even to attend the
papist churches, though we should do so only with a heavy
heart, for " how shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange
land?"

The inwardness of religion destroyed likewise the compe-
tence of the magistrate in matters of faith. Joris' political
theory was very similar to that of Luther save for the stronger
emphasis on the separation between the two kingdoms. The
sphere of the magistrate is restricted by Joris much more ex-
clusively to the external. " Wherefore," exclaimed Joris, " you
noble and elect men in Christ Jesus, consider in what faith
consists. If it is in earthly temporal outward things, you are
right to permit the magistrate to drag men in or drive them
out, but if faith consists in heavenly eternal things, then the
heart cannot be forced. Let the magistrate confine himself
to goods and houses and leave faith to the proper judge and

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 139

to the proper time. Better to die a thousand deaths than to
kill a believing Christian or a righteous soul If it be said that
only heretics are destroyed I answer that the upright have
always suffered along with Christ as heretics. Leave the
tares. God alone has jurisdiction in the spirit over soul and
body. Men have jurisdiction only over the body, but the new-
born man of God from heaven judges and knows all things
and is judged of none."

Constantly Joris reverted to the theme so congenial to the
mystics that suffering is a part of the purgative stage in the
process of union with God. Hence the true Christian must
expect to suffer, and although the deepest suffering is inward,
the outward may be an aid and may definitely be expected.
" No one can have a real true faith, love, and firm trust in
Christ who has not suffered and died to himself." The Chris-
tian must expect to follow Christ " in his shame as well as in
his glory, in his cross as well as in his exaltation, outwardly
as well as inwardly, according to the flesh as well as accord-
ing to the spirit."

Joris made more continuously than Castellio the point that
the true Church is bound to be a persecuted Church. " The
true Church kills no one, but rather suffers. The persecutors
kiss costly crosses while in their hearts they affix Christ to the
cross. God's chosen people will be found as roses among
thorns, as sheep among wolves. There is one Church that slays
without mercy or consideration of conscience, and another
that is scattered to the four winds, banished, condemned, and
downtrodden as most abominably heretical and unworthy to
mingle with the good. Are there then none who love the
Lord? Oh, yes. And who may they be? They are those who
are despised and rejected, publicans, sinners, and Samaritans,
who love their neighbors."

The negative mark of the Church for Joris was suffering;
the positive mark was love which finds expression in meek-

140 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

ness, gentleness, and lowliness. This spirit excludes not only
persecution but even abusiveness: "Let us stop reviling the
pope and the monks, and if the end cannot be attained with-
out contention, leave it to God." What words are these from
one who in his youth had had his tongue bored because of
scurrility against the pope and the monks! Joris was in part
reproving himself when he exclaimed: "What makes men
so bitter against one another ? The cause is a false heart and
a proud spirit. No one ought to take offense at another,
despise and judge, let alone persecute and kill in the name of
Christ. I have in mind the various sects as of Cephas, Barna-
bas, Apollos, Paul, Peter, and James as well as the Papist,
Lutheran, Zwinglian, Philipist, Calvinist, and Anabaptist,
not to mention the hundreds of Catholic orders. There are
diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. If anyone knows more
than others he ought not to curse them. He who has the most
love, grace, peace, and mercy has the best faith.

" How comely and beautiful is love! How excellent is she
before God and his angels as she comes in her majesty in
festive peace on the last day, as she appears more radiant than
the sun! Then shall she be praised and honored above all
others, for in her is the world redeemed and all men made
blessed. Who understands this? Consider love, for she is
known neither by angels nor devils nor men. Her children
are without father and mother in the flesh, like the Son of
God in eternity. They are brought forth by the living word
of faith in the will of God by the Holy Spirit to his glory and
to a vision of eternal truth. Be mindful of this.

" God himself is love, for love is his life, his desire, his
honor and glory, a crown of exaltation and beauty from his
eternal holy wisdom for a light to the angels. She is the most
holy and beautiful tabernacle of God's eternal unseen being,
his holy heaven, the seat or throne of the honor of his high

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 1%l

majesty, his own glorious being and body, adored and
crowned, blessed above all, triumphant in eternity.

" O how beautiful is her generation, how noble, how excel-
lent are her children, obtained through love and affection!
Her memory is imperishable, for she is known by God and
by men. When she is present she attracts all loving hearts
through the affectionate glow of her being, and draws them
to follow her, and when she is absent men have a desire and
yearning for her. In eternity is she crowned and held in honor
for in the strife of the pure she has overcome. Love is among
the first, yet is she the last of the three. God has made faith for
a way. Hope leads through Christ to the truth, but for life
the Holy Spirit has revealed love, the most beautiful and abid-
ing being of God in eternity, for whom through the glory of
his countenance all things were made, both seen and unseen,
for joy and eternal happiness in heaven and peace on "earth."

Joris was very far from enjoying peace on earth. Word
reached him that his wife had been arrested and his daughter
was left alone in a strange city. He was prompted to give
himself up in the hope of saving them, but the wife through
the sudden death of a magistrate obtained release and found
her daughter. Under cover of a heavy fog early one morning
Joris joined them.

" How long, O Lord, how long ? " he must have exclaimed.
Death, perpetual hiding, or exile were the only possibilities,
and even exile was not available to a place which would suf-
fer an open profession of the cult of the third David. Why
not, then, go into hiding? The inward cross after all is more
important than the outward. Noah hid himself in the ark,
Jacob put on the clothes of Esau, the Lord told his disciples to
go into the chamber and shut the door and forbade casting
pearls before swine. Why not make a cloister of one's own
heart, and seek to win by persuasiveness and meekness rather

142 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

than by bluster and controversy ? Thus persecution without
and mysticism within induced Joris to abandon an open
witness.

But where should he go? An inquiry revealed that Ana-
baptists at Basel were not molested if they kept quiet and did
not disturb the peace or disseminate strange doctrines, if they
attended church and conducted themselves in a Christian
manner. In April of the year 1543, David Joris presented him-
self, accompanied by his large family and a considerable
colony of followers. He announced himself as Jan van
Brugge, a fugitive for the gospel. Which gospel he did not
say. He was imposing of person, with sparkling eyes and a
reddish beard. His deportment was grave and pleasing. Both
he and his companions were dressed with taste. Basel ac-
cepted them and even conferred citizenship upon several, in-
cluding Joris himself. The refugees were no doubt the more
cordially received because they were not beggars but brought
with them considerable household goods, beds, towels, pil-
lows, red Catalonian blankets, elegant clothes of divers colors,
feather hats and caps, caldrons, kettles, silver platters, bowls,
tankards and pitchers, and some thirty or forty thousand
liters of wine. And there was enough in coin to purchase no
little property in Basel.

The household lived comfortably. Joris himself was occu-
pied in turning out innumerable mystical meditations in
Dutch which continued to be printed in The Netherlands.
The earlier part of the day was devoted to writing and the
remainder to romping hilariously with the children, visiting
the somewhat scattered members of the colony, and painting
the charming landscapes about Basel. Joris was reported to
be fervent in prayer, unwearied in exhortation, captivating
in teaching. Relations with the Baselers were on the whole
friendly. Two of Joris' children married into Basel families.
The Netherlanders ingratiated themselves by their generosity.

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 143

Among others Joris came to know Sebastien Castellio, who
submitted to him for criticism the preface to the Latin trans-
lation of the Bible.

Then came the news of the execution of Michael Servetus.
When Geneva asked the counsel of the Swiss cities, Joris
undertook to compose his own reply. It was written in Dutch
and in all probability never so much as reached the court.
Here is a portion:

" Most noble, just, worthy gracious, dear Lords, now that
I, your friend and brother in the Lord Jesus Christ, have
heard what has happened to the good, worthy Servetus, how
that he was delivered into your hands and power by no
friendliness and love but through envy and hate, this news
has so stirred me that I can have no peace until I have raised
my voice as a member of the body of Christ, until I have
opened my heart humbly before your highnesses and freed
my conscience. I trust that the learned, perverted, carnal, and
bloodthirsty may have no weight and make no impression
upon you, and if they should ingratiate themselves with you
as did the scribes and Pharisees with Pilate in the case of our
Lord Jesus, they will displease the King of Kings and the
teacher of all, namely, Christ, who taught not only in the
Scripture according to the letter, but also in divine fashion,
that no one should be crucified or put to death for his teach-
ing. He himself was rather crucified and put to death. Yes,
not only that, but he has severely forbidden persecution. Will
it not then be a great perversion, blindness, evil, and darkness
to indulge in impudent disobedience through hate and envy ?
They must first themselves have been deranged before they
could bring a life to death, damn a soul forever, and hasten
it to hell. Is that a Christian procedure or a true spirit? I say
eternally no.

" Noble, wise, and prudent Lords, consider what would
happen if free rein were given to our opponents to kill her-

144 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

etics. How many men would be left on earth if each had this
power over the other, inasmuch as each considers the other
a heretic ? The Jews so regard the Christians, so do the Sara-
cens and the Turks, and the Christians reciprocate. The
papists and the Lutherans, the Zwinglians and the Anabap-
tists, the Calvinists and the Adiaphorists, mutually ban each
other. Because of these differences of opinion should men
hate and kill each other? . . . 'Whoso sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed,' as Scripture says. Let
us, then, not take the sword, and if anyone is of an erroneous
and evil mind and understanding let us pray for him and
awaken him to love, peace, and unity. . . .

" And if the aforesaid Servetus is a heretic or a sectary be-
fore God . . . we should inflict on him no harm in any of his
members, but admonish him in a friendly way and at most
banish him from the city, if he will not give up his obstinacy
and stop disturbing the peace by his teaching . . - that he
may come to a better mind and no longer molest your terri-
tory. No one should go beyond this. . . ."

The advice, of course, went unheeded, and in the mean-
time Joris himself was insecure even at Basel because dissen-
sion was breaking out in the colony and threatened to reach
such proportions as to incur exposure.

His son-in-law, Blesdijk, became disquieted by Joris' aban-
donment of an open witness. Blesdijk had been intrigued by
the flaming outlaw in The Netherlands, living in cellars and
garrets and holds of ships and proclaiming great wonders
from before the face of the Lord. Now the austere prophet
had become the genial patriarch, painting pictures and romp-
ing with the children beyond the decorum befitting his age.
Worst of all, the third David was basking under his vines
and fig trees while his followers still confronted the Philis-
tines in The Netherlands. Was all this in accord with
the teaching of Scripture? Was Joris after all the Lord's

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 145

anointed? And if he were not, had Biesdijk deceived con-
verts ? Their souls weighed heavily on his conscience. He con-
fronted " the old gentleman " with the question of his mes-
sianic role. Joris freely conceded that he had claimed too
much, and in the second edition of the Wonder Eoo\ he had
already softened the expressions that had given offense be-
cause of personal pretensions. These admissions spelled for
Biesdijk the dissolution of the sect. Other members of the
colony, however, still regarded Joris as the Messiah biding
his time. Neither party shared the mysticism of Joris which
enabled him to spiritualize all the externals of the Great Day
of the Lord. Among his following the strife was acute.

In the meantime a traveler from The Netherlands, staying
at Inn of the Stork, reported that Joris was no nobleman but
a heretic. The news reached the Baseler mother-in-law of
Joris' son and she went straight to Frau Joris, who had been
ill for some time. The shock hastened her death within a
few days. Joris too was in a critical condition and outlived his
wife but briefly. His last hours were filled with lamentations.
" No one is true. If only the in-laws would agree . . . What
wonders I have gone through this night! I have traveled
through the heights of heaven and the depths of hell. The
Lord strengthen you." Then the apocalyptic note returned:
" The day, the day, the day will reveal all things. Every heart,
every heart shall be made manifest. Oh, it is too much you do
to me! It is too much."

After his death the dispute in the colony became more rife.
Van Schor, who had been Joris' secretary for fifteen years,
sided with Biesdijk and was banned by the rest. He left and
took service with a doctor in the city, who naturally desired
to know the reason for his leaving. Then Van Schor " let the
bung out of the barrel," claiming that he had left because
Joris had concubines. Van Schor was then asked why in that
case he had stayed so long, and he replied that he had only

146 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

just found it out, which seems odd in the case of one who had
been a member of the family for fifteen years. Some thirty
years after Joris' death the story had become quite circum-
stantial that he had a bigamous wife Anna and by her two
children. Strange that in all the investigation that followed
the disclosure of the sect, none of this came to light. Anna
was, however, a real person, and is known to have married
someone else in 1548, And there is among the Joris papers a
letter to her husband saying that the father would not be
satisfied with the provision made for the children. The
father in question may be Joris. But still it remains strange
that Blesdijk, when examined, did not make this accusation
and that the story, if true, should have been so long in com-
ing to light.

Van Schor removed the bung very completely from the
barrel by informing not only his employer but also two mem-
bers of the town council, one of the ministers, and several
others. But no one was disposed to take any energetic action.
As a matter of fact, several persons in Basel had long known
or suspected the truth and refrained from troubling such ex-
cellent and generous people. The ministers called in some of
the Jorists, but could learn nothing from them, and the case
lagged from spring until fall. Then the Honorable Boniface
Amerbach, sworn advocate of the city of Basel, intervened.
An odd person was he to prosecute heresy, for he was the
executor of the estate of Erasmus, and on earlier occasions
had shielded liberals from fanatical pressures. But now he
was exercised " for the honor of Christ and for the honor of
Basel," whose reputation would suffer abroad were it indif-
ferent to so notorious a case of heresy.

This was in November, but not until March of 1559 was
any serious action taken. Then eleven of the men in the
colony were imprisoned and their quarters searched. A chest
of papers was discovered and two portraits of Joris. The pa-

THE HERETIC AS HYPOCRITE 147

pers yielded enough to warrant the arrest of Blesdijk, who
admitted that Jan van Brugge was Joris. The other suspects
feigned ignorance of anything amiss. One son-in-law said that
to be sure he had married Joris' daughter, for she was pretty
and he was twenty-two. One of the sons pleaded ignorance
and youth. He was thirty-five. The women were examined at
home and all averred that they had come to Basel simply be-
cause the gospel was there better preached.

But the charge of Van Schor and Blesdijk that Joris was
the outlawed Anabaptist, the third David, the head of the
sect of the Davidists, was all too abundantly confirmed by
the discovery of the books and papers. The university faculty
were consulted as to whether Joris might be exhumed and
whether relatives should be punished. The answer was that
in accord with the Roman law a dead heretic should be dis-
interred and burned, but relatives if innocent were not to be
molested. All the members of the university were required
to attest their abhorrence of Joris' errors. Castellio wrote that
he repudiated " the articles which are said to be excerpted
from the works of David Joris."

The auto-da-fe took place on the thirteenth of May. The
crowd was so huge that one would not have supposed the
city could hold so many. Sebastien Castellio stood among
them. A box 9' X 5' X 6' was filled with Joris' books. A
pole carried his portrait. His body was removed from the
coffin and affixed to a stake. " The old gentleman " was still
recognizable with his red beard. On his head was a velvet
bonnet trimmed in red as well as a crown of rosemary. A
long toga covered his body. The flames reduced all to ashes.

The action against the Jorists was mild. They were re-
quired to make public abjuration in the cathedral of the
errors of David and to subscribe to the Basel confession. The
church was packed. The minister preached on the parable of
the Good Shepherd, and the congregation sang the i3Oth

148 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Psalm. The Jorists sank upon their knees as the absolution
was pronounced and the minister extended to each the right
hand of reconciliation. After the singing of the Apostles'
Creed the assembly was dismissed in peace.

When one of the ministers reproached Bern for burning
a heretic, the retort was, " If Basel would burn her heretics
alive, she would not have the trouble of digging them up.'*

One can imagine Sebastien Castellio walking home on that
thirteenth day of May and reflecting upon the singular dem-
onstration of the truth of his contention that persecution can
turn a heretic into a hypocrite.

Sty

THE HERETIC AS EXILE:

Bernardino Ochino

A second associate of Castellio's who was significant for the
problem of religious liberty was Bernardino Ochino of Siena.
His life illustrates how inadequate was the counsel some-
times proffered by the liberals that banishment be substi-
tuted for death as the penalty for heresy. Joris had made this
suggestion to the Genevans. In that particular instance Serve-
tus would have been well satisfied to be released. But in
cases where the fox had no hole and the bird no nest per-
petual wandering could make death appear as a release. The
case of Ochino was not quite so drastic because his five exiles
were distributed with interludes of respite. Yet in the end
protracted insecurity beclouded his spirit. He is of interest
also for himself as a Franciscan, a representative of that order
which in the Middle Ages was most disposed to criticize
Crusades and of that branch of the order which derived the
rule of Saint Francis directly from the Holy Spirit without
papal mediation.

Ochino had turned the half-century mark when he first
came into prominence as the general of the Capuchins, a
newly founded branch of the Franciscans. The Capuchins
were in the tradition of the Spirituals and the Fraticelli, the
radical followers of il Poverello, insistent on following liter-
ally his devotion to Lady Poverty. Like him,, they would beg,
travel barefoot, sleep in the open or in the crudest of shelters,
devote themselves to the care of the lepers, preach the gos-

150 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

pel; denouncing vice, warning of impending doom, despis-
ing all meretricious rhetoric, yet rising to the level of poetry
in lyrical rhapsodies on the wounds of Christ. Ochino had
been a member of the Observant Franciscans and at first
opposed the formation of the new branch lest the with-
drawal of the ardent should impede the reformation of the
whole. Only when disillusioned with regard to the possibil-
ity of a comprehensive reform did he join the secession. His
zeal and his endowments were such that in a few years he
was elected as the general of the Capuchins. This was in the
year 1538, when he was fifty-one years of age.

Already he had been preaching for twenty-five years, yet
only now began his phenomenal career as the Savonarola of
his generation. He was the perfect exemplification of the
medieval saint, austere, emaciated, frail, and venerable, with
the rapt and ethereal look of a Moses descending from the
Mount, the glory still haloing his countenance. With a white
beard flowing over his coarse brown cowl, and his feet bare,
the general tramped the thoroughfares of Italy from the
foothills of the Alps to the shores of Sicily. His sermons were
marked by chaste diction and vibrant emotion. There was
no blatant striving for effect but the artistry of melodious
words cumulating in musical crescendos. His ravishing voice
and Sienese pronunciation melted his hearers. Dolcezza was
the word that described his speech.

So great was his popularity that the pope had to regulate
his engagements. Huge throngs assembled hours in advance
of his coming. On one occasion he requested the sacristan
not to ring the bell because he was too ill to preach. The
sacristan replied that he had already done so, but in any case
the bell made no difference because the church had been
crowded since midnight, with some people even perched
upon the roof. At Naples, the emperor Charles "particu-
larly delighted to hear Fra Bernardino of Siena, the Cap-

THE HERETIC AS EXILE

151

uchin who preached in the Church of San Giovanni Mag-
giore with such spirit and devotion as to make the stones
weep." At Venice, Cardinal Bembo declared that so saintly
a man he had never seen. The power of Ochino's word at
Naples unloosed purses and collected five thousand scudi for

Bernardino Ochino

charity. At Perugia, a society was founded to care for or-
phans. At Faenza, feuding factions were reconciled. In
Rome, at two o'clock in the morning, an assembly gathered
including twelve purpled cardinals. When the service ended
at six o'clock, the preacher was scarcely able to finish his
sermon because of the tears of the audience.

152 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

The popularity of Ochino was certainly not due to flattery.
At Venice, lie took as his text John 8:59, " Then took they up
stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of
the temple." "As I came into the pulpit reciting the Ave
Maria I thought to myself of the meaning of this word, that
Christ ' hid himself.' I reflected that he has veiled his face in
order not to look upon the abominations of false Christians
who fifteen days before the celebration of his Passion have
not mended their ways. Your pomp and your pride have
caused Christ to hide himself. Go to Rome, visit the chan-
cery, and you will find that Christ has hidden himself and
gone out of the temple. Visit the district of ill fame in this
city, that veritable hell, and you will find that Christ has
hidden himself and gone out of the temple. Go up and down
the length of poor Italy and you will discover how many in
the course of thirty or forty years have died without remorse
for wars which have made widows and orphans and de-
molished cities. Christ has hid himself and gone out of the
temple. And you, my Venice, how many preachers and not
merely myself have declared in your city, not philosophy or
fables, but the pure Word of God and of Christ, alive and
true; how many have spoken of your salvation and of the
correction of sins, and you are just the same as you were.
With what truth, charity, and love, with what labor and
vigils have I besought you, and without fruit. I am confident
that if in Germany, if in England, yes, if among the Turks
and the Jews, I had so spoken there would have been a
greater response. Nevertheless I still hope to see good and
sincere Christians, and I can tell you this, that if you do not
mend your ways I will testify against you at the judgment,
and all those on the left hand who have not had your oppor-
tunities will rise against you, but I beg you and pray you
with all my heart through Christ that in these few days you
prepare yourselves by discipline and penitence, by a living

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 153

love and a firm resolve, no more to offend Christ. Put off
the old; put on the new. If you will not be as Nineveh you
will be as Sodom. Strive and labor to improve and may God
inspire you."

Denunciation and exhortation were not, however, the
staple of his preaching so much as the way whereby the crea-
ture might be lifted to the vision of the Creator and the
Christian dissolved in adoration before the Crucified. " Let
us consider the creatures," said Ochino, " how in them as in
a mirror are reflected all the divine goodness, wisdom, power
and beauty, love, and every perfection. And let us make of
the creatures a ladder by which to ascend to the divine
beauty. Behold the exquisite loveliness of flowers and fruits,
rise to the contemplation of the light of the stars and the ce-
lestial bodies, look upon the beauty of the soul when clothed
with virtue and adorned with spiritual gifts of light and
grace, gaze with the eyes of the mind on the blessed and
angelic spirits commencing with the angels, ascending to the
archangels, from choir to choir up to the seraphim. And if
one can glimpse the Mother of God in her beauty, this will
reward every effort. Lift yourselves in loving thought, I will
not say to the divinity of Christ but only to his gracious hu-
manity, and behold his sacred wounds and his great love, for
although God in creating and conserving the world has dis-
closed a drop of his power, goodness, justice, mercy, and
wisdom, yet by joining himself to man and dwelling among
us for thirty-three years in profound humility, conversing in
love, teaching the way of salvation, dying for us a shameful
death, behold in this not a drop merely of his goodness and
mercy but an infinite sea.

" Let us, then, contemplate Christ upon the cross and put
away all vanities and hold converse only with persons steeped
in the divine love, whose words, when they speak of Christ,
are flames of fire which deeply stir. If, then, there enter into

154 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

you some harmonious sweet and -gracious sound, some me-
lodic voice or angelic song, your spirit will lift you up to
contemplate the harmony of the celestial hierarchy of the
three divine Persons."

Ochino was beloved and cherished by all sensitive spirits,
and those who did not model their lives after his words yet
loved to hang upon his lips. How much more warmly was
he welcomed by the like-minded who in divers ways culti-
vated the interior life and sought to follow in the footsteps of
the Redeemer! Such a circle gathered at Naples at the villa
of a Spanish nobleman, Juan de Valdes. Naples was at that
time a Spanish dependency, and the currents which because
of the political connections flowed from The Netherlands
to Spain were transmitted likewise from Spain to Naples.
Valdes was a disciple of Erasmus and the mystics of the
North. His One Hundred and Ten Divine Considerations
are suffused with inward piety. " Is the only difference," he
demanded, " between Christians and Moors that we abstain
from meat during Lent and that we observe the Sabbath and
the holy days ? " The monastic vow appeared to him to
afford no better way to salvation than the matrimonial. Nor
was dogma the distinguishing mark of the Christian for
Valdes. When questions were put to him about such prob-
lems as free will and predestination, he would reply: " What
is that to thee ? follow thou me." He was so inebriated with
the love of God that he could see no need for any propitiation
of an offended deity, and explained the death of Christ as ne-
cessitated only by man's faulty notions. For since man is im-
peded from returning to God through the belief that the
sinner cannot be received until after expiation, therefore
God, to allay such fears, has made the superfluous sacrifice.

Valdes was a man of great saintliness and charm, whose
villa on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples was fre-
quented by choice spirits, men and women of the aristocracy.

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 155

After his death one of the circle wrote to another: "Mon-
signor, I confess that Florence is lovely within and without,
yet the amenity of Naples, the site, the shores, the eternal
spring afford a higher degree of excellence. The entrancing
gardens, the laughing sea, a thousand vital spirits which well
up within the heart! I well know that you have often in-
vited me to return, but after all where should we go now
that Senor Valdes is dead ? " Ochino was drawn to him, and
Valdes was the occasion of his first mutation. For in the eyes
of Valdes, Christianity did not consist in going barefoot or
in drinking only water. Ochino, under his influence, began
to preach that true religion is not exhibited in costumes but
in customs, not in clipping one's hair but in pruning one's
vices, not in prayer with the lips but with the heart, not in
obedience to men but to God.*

Inevitably a doubt arose in the mind of Ochino as to
whether his own literal imitation of the poverty and garb of
Saint Francis was after all a genuine following of Christ
And at that moment Protestant works were infiltrating into
Italy under pseudonyms. Calvin, for example, was Alcuino.
Ochino was given a dispensation by the pope to read and
refute such works, a perilous permission because Valdes had
not imbued his disciple with that mysticism which could
cultivate the interior life within any framework. Ochino,
grown dubious as to the pattern of his own behavior, was
not so disillusioned as to question the possibility of discover-
ing the correct imitatio ChristL The problem was to answer
the question, "What doth the Lord require of thee? " Per-
haps Luther, perhaps Calvin, had the answer. Ochino began
to relax the rigor of his Franciscan devotions. In his sermons
he was noted to be speaking always of Christ and no longer
of San Geminiano. In private he was disseminating Lu-
theran tracts.

Why, then, did he not come out with an open profession

156 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

of Lutheranism ? Cowardice is not the answer so much as a
mingling of uncertainty and hope. He was not yet fully sure
of himself, and he entertained the dream that all Italy might
be converted to the Reform and a reconciliation effected be-
tween Rome and Wittenberg. The very same motive that in-
duced him to remain for some time with the Observants be-
fore going over to the Capuchins impelled him to wait in
this instance, and his hopes were not entirely fatuous. There
was a very imposing body of Catholic liberals who envisaged
drastic reform and were willing to make overtures to the
Protestants. Cardinal Contarini was the leader of this party.
He would subscribe even to justification by faith. His stand-
ing was such that in 1541 he was sent as a representative
from Rome to the Council of Regensburg, the last occasion
when Catholics and Protestants met together in the hope of
accord. Calvin was present. But the hope of any mediation
collapsed. Contarini returned to Italy, broken in spirit and
in body. In 1542 the Roman Inquisition was established and
in 1545 the Council of Trent began.

At this juncture a preacher was imprisoned at Venice sim-
ply for having expounded Saint Augustine's doctrine of
grace. Ochino could not contain himself and broke into an
apostrophe: " O Venice, thou queen of the sea! If thus thou
dost cast into prison those who declare unto thee the truth,
what place is there left for the truth? " The papal nuncio
thereupon suspended Ochino from preaching and shortly
thereafter he received a summons to Rome. A few years be-
fore he might have supposed that he was being invited to
the purple. Now he had reason to surmise the stake. He
started with foreboding to Rome, and passing through Bo-
logna called upon the dying Cardinal Contarini. Ochino
claimed that the cardinal had counseled flight. The accuracy
of this assertion has been contested, but whatever the cardinal
said, there can be no question that his death marked the end

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 157

of the liberal era in Italy. Thereafter the choice for many
of the Reformers lay between making a cloister of their own
hearts after the manner of Joris, or of going to the stake or
into exile like Calvin and Castellio from France. Highly dis-
traught, Ochino continued to Florence, where he fell in with
a fellow friar already resolved on flight This example was
decisive. Ochino reversed his direction.

From the heights of the Alps he looked back upon his na-
tive land, where he had labored for more than half a cen-
tury. He was fifty-six. Behind him lay the sunlight playing
upon the Bay of Naples, the silhouette of Siena against an
evening sky, daybreak over Fiesole, conversations on heav-
enly themes with distinguished men and artistocratic women,
churches packed and throngs in tears, the pope, the emperor,
and a dozen cardinals hanging upon his words all this be-
hind. Before him lay bleaker lands and unknown tongues,
struggling refugee congregations, and all the insecurity of
religious revolution. Never again could he experience the in-
toxication of swaying multitudes*

In 1542 he arrived in Geneva, where he was to be harbored
for the next three years. Calvin was charmed with the ven-
erable exile, and all the Reformers rejoiced in the acquisition
of a celebrity so renowned. The Council at Geneva assigned
to him the Church of the Italian Refugees. Ochino was
equally charmed with Geneva. Here he discovered the pat-
tern of Christian perfection missed by the Capuchins. The
Protestants had abandoned monasticism in order to make
every Christian a monk in disciplined deportment. Geneva
was characterized by preaching of the pure word of God
from the sacred Scriptures, daily prayers, public and private;
instruction for old and young in the catechism; strict repres-
sion of sexual irregularities; prohibition of gambling; such
charity as to eliminate the need for begging; no criminal
prosecutions because no homicides. Here all superstition had

158 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

been eradicated. In the churches there were no organs, no
candles, no relics. Every trace of idolatry had been purged.

Even the doctrine of Geneva, Ochino found himself able
to endorse. The Franciscans had so emphasized the wounds
of Christ that to attribute all man's salvation to his suffering
and nothing to human merit was not too far a step. In that
case predestination naturally followed. To a Franciscan, be-
lieving in the possibility of the vision of God while on earth,
Calvin's view that God may be both known and believed at
the same time was not difficult. Hence faith could be equated
with certitude. Ochino testified to the reality of his con-
version by emitting a blast against Antichrist, the tone of
which may be inferred from the cartoon (page 165) on
the title page of the Spanish translation; On the more posi-
tive side he averred that there is no need to make a pilgrim-
age to Rome or Compostela, but only through faith to come
to God, and there is no purgatory other than Christ crucified.

In every respect Ochino appeared to be a thorough Cal-
vinist. Yet Calvin mistrusted him. A long examination on
the score of doctrine disclosed no deficiency. But when the
proposal was made that the sermons of Ochino should be
translated, Calvin was of the opinion that they would be
more useful if left in the original. Precisely where the dif-
ference lay is not too clear, though Calvin may well have
had his reservations with regard to Ochino's lyrical exuber-
ance. The chief divergence is probably to be sought in
Ochino's view of the operation of the Spirit. Calvin held, of
course, that the Scripture must be corroborated and appro-
priated through the Spirit, but Ochino spoke of the Spirit
as if it might be independent of Scripture. He claimed that
his flight from Italy had been due to " the counsel of God
and the direction of the Holy Spirit." Such an expression
savored all too much of Thomas Miintzer and the Miin-
sterites. Calvin did not feel altogether easy.

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 159

But no avowed breach was responsible for Ochino's de-
parture from Geneva. The reason appears, as initially in the
case of Castellio, to have been financial Ochino got married.
He explained his course in accord with the usual Protestant
claim that marriage is a remedy for sin, which sounds fan-
tastic in the mouth of one who had been chaste until nearly
sixty. The real reason was that any convert from the Catholic
clergy or monastic orders was almost constrained to marry
as a demonstration of sincerity. Ochino's wife was a refugee
from Lucca who had heard him preach at home in the me-
teoric days. Financial stringency was increased by the arrival
of a daughter. Presumably because Geneva could not sup-
port his household, Ochino left for Augsburg in Germany.

On the way he spent some time in Basel and there formed
a friendship with Sebastien Castellio.

Augsburg in 1545 received the penniless pilgrims and pri-
vate benefaction tided over the emergency until the town
council assigned to Ochino the Church of St. Ann. Here he
resumed in a limited way his dazzling eloquence, preaching
in Italian to a congregation of two hundred Germans, who
understood him because they were of the great banking
houses of Welser and Fugger and had served several years of
apprenticeship in the branch offices at Venice. To have now
the Savonarola of his time as their private chaplain was a
source of gratification. Ochino became the lion of the aristoc-
racy. He was consulted on questions of state and employed
to decipher intercepted papal letters.

The religious situation in Augsburg acquainted Ochino
for the first time with a pattern of diversity in a single com-
munity. The Catholic monastic orders still retained a foot-
hold and the great banking magnates were not eager for a
break with Rome drastic enough to imperil financial col-
laboration. The Lutherans were dominant and the Zwing-
lians also were represented. More significant for Ochino's de-

l6o THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

velopment was the presence of a fourth group representing
an element in Protestantism still further to the left, namely,
the Schwenckfelders. They took their name from a Silesian
nobleman of courtly manners and Christian demeanor who
spent his life traveling about Germany in the interests of
pietism, within whatever Church it might be. He had even
Catholic adherents. His ideal was to leaven all lumps rather
than to form a new lump. But, being cast out, he came to be
the founder of a sect. With Ochino he exchanged tracts.
They had in common a fear of that learning which quenches
the spirit, a distrust of externalism, and an openness to lead-
ings of the Spirit, together with an urge to revive the apos-
tolic pattern of Christianity. Schwenckfeld complained of
the externalism and the intolerance of the established forms
of Protestantism. Ochino began therefore to wonder whether
Calvinism after all represented the perfect school of Christ
and the apostles.

Then came war. The emperor Charles V, after having
been impeded by conflicts with the French, the Turks, and
the pope from taking action against Luther and the Protes-
tants, at length in the very year of Luther's death, 1546,
found his hands free. The emperor came to Regensburg and
there waited for his Italian and Spanish troops to assem-
ble. The Protestants sprang to arms under a general famed
in the Turkish war, Sebastian Schertlin von Burtembach.
Within eight days 12,000 men were gathered under his ban-
ners. He wished to strike at once, but the Protestant Con-
federation objected to his various proposals lest they provoke
new enemies. The emperor was left to assemble 34,000 foot
and 5,000 horse. Schertlin had in the meantime brought to-
gether 35,000 foot and 6,000 horse, but his advantage was
wasted by delay. His forces began to dissolve and the Prot-
estant cities started to make peace separately.

Augsburg prepared for a siege. Ochino justified resistance

THE HERETIC AS EXILE l6l

along the lines already laid down by Luther, that a lower
magistrate may resist a higher. Augsburg manned its de-
fenses and all the people prayed. The Schwenckfelders
prayed for the Lutherans. One wonders whether the Lu-
therans prayed for the Schwenckfelders. But defense proved
hopeless. The emperor demanded as the price of milder
terms that the city deliver up the general, Sebastian Schertlin
von Burtembach, and the preacher in whose words at Naples
he had so delighted, Bernardino Ochino of Siena. The Prot-
estant notables and the Catholic magnates tried to purchase
his safety, but the emperor was adamant. The city gave the
two a chance to escape. Schertlin with thirty horse rode out
to Constance. Ochino, leaving behind for the time being
wife and child, followed upon his heels. Once more he was
an exile.

Basel afforded again a temporary shelter. There was an-
other occasion to talk with Sebastien Castellio. Then came
an invitation to go to England. The bill of the English agent
in charge of the passage is extant, allowing a pair of hose
for Ochino and a nightcap of velvet, garters of silk ribbon,
a supper and breakfast in London, and freight for shipping
books. The total for Ochino, a friend, and servants was 126
js. 6d., with a request for more to bring over his wife.

England at the moment of Ochino's arrival was more
Protestant than at any other time during the sixteenth cen-
tury. The king was the boy Edward VI, to whom Castellio
had dedicated the preface of his Bible. The real ruler was
the boy's uncle, the Duke of Somerset. At no time in
that century was England less subject to foreign inter-
ference or more open to foreign influence. The refugees
for religion were numerous and from many lands Ger-
many, Spain, Poland, France, Holland, Italy, and Scotland.
The German congregation in London numbered 5,000; Lu-
theran, Zwinglian, and Calvinist influences alike were felt;

1 62 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

and Archbishop Cranmer entertained dreams of an ecu-
menical Protestantism to be achieved by summoning to Lon-
don an evangelical counterpart to the Council of Trent. Me-
lanchthon, Bullinger (Zwingli's successor), and Calvin were
urged to come.

In such circles Ochino was warmly received. He was made
a prebendary of Canterbury for life, without obligation of
residence and with an additional stipend from the king. He
began preaching again to the Italian colony in London. The
imperial ambassador informed Charles V that Ochino's elo-
quence had deserted him now that he had become a heretic
and that soon he would have no adherents save the Duchess
of Suffolk and the Marquis of Northampton. The duchess,
by the way, an ardent Protestant, was the daughter of a
Spanish lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon. The mar-
quis was the brother of Catherine Parr, the widow of Henry
VIIL But these were by no means the only adherents. Ochino
was again the lion of the aristocracy. One of his works was
translated into English by Ann Cooke, the mother of Fran-
cis Bacon. It bore the title: " Certayne sermons of the ryghte
famous and excellent? clerl^ master Barardine Ochine, borne
within the famous unwersitie of Siena in Italy, now also an
exyle in thys lyfe, for the faithful testimony of lesus Christe.
Faythfully translated into Englyshe. . . . Imprinted at Lon-
don by John Day: dwelling over Aldersgate beneth S. Martins.
These books are to be sold at hys shop in Chepesyde, by the
Little Loundnit at the sygne of the Resurrection/' Another
who turned Ochino from Italian into Latin was the Princess
Elizabeth. In long discussions over predestination Ochino
came to admire her subtle intellect. In after years when the
Puritans feared she would suffer in the churches the relics of
the Amorites a plea was sent to Ochino, then in Zurich, to
remonstrate, since his influence with her was great.

The situation in England confronted Ochino with some-

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 163

thing new. At Geneva lie had seen a Church State, a holy
commonwealth, a select community based upon the Word
of God. At Augsburg he had witnessed four religions side
by side with a moderate Lutheranism in the ascendant In
England he was to watch the birth pangs of a national
Church. The prevailing theory was Erastian, that the State
might determine the form of religion. The Reformers did
not perceive into what dilemmas they would be thrown if
the State should return to Rome, nor did Ochino foresee the
peril. Without reserve he set himself to the service of the
Reform and composed a work which curiously survives only
in English and Polish translations. The English bore the title
A Tragedy or Dialogue of the Unjust U surfed Primacy of
the Bishop of Rome, and of All the Just Abolishing of the
Same, Made by Master Barnardine Ochino, an Italian, and
Translated Out of Latin Into English by Master John Ponet,
Doctor of Divinity. "Never Printed Before in Any Language.
Anno Do. 1549. The work began with a passage that may
have provided the model for the opening of Paradise Lost.
Lucifer and Beelzebub were in conference as to how to re-
gain that shred of dominion left them by the Fall but ut-
terly lost through the redeeming work of the Son of God.
They hit upon the " witty invention " of elevating the bishop
of Rome into the pope, that Christ might be undone by his
own vicar. The realization of this plan through the theocracy
of the late Middle Ages was of course recounted. The whole
point was, however, that Antichrist was now being over-
thrown and Christ's Kingdom restored through the reforma-
tion commenced by Henry VIII and in process of glorious
completion by his son, Edward VI. The question of course
then arose as to the means by which the work should be
achieved. The very concept of a national Church predicates
the assistance of the civil arm, yet the protector Somerset
would not go to extremes. There were no executions for

164 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

heresy under his regency. He has been described as " one of
the most obstinate optimists in English history who believed
he could almost dispense with the ax and the gallows."
Ochino highly approved of so tolerant a policy, and placed
in the mouth of young Edward the words: " If we mind to
overcome Antichrist in short space we must first go about to
drive him off the hearts of men; for as soon as he hath once
lost his spiritual kingdom in men's consciences, he shall
forgo by and by all the rest of his jurisdiction without any
great difficulty. But to drive him out of the hearts of men,
it is not needful to use sword or violence. The sword of the
Spirit, that is, the Word of God, is sufficient, whereby Christ
overcame and conquered his enemy Satan in the desert"

But the protector Somerset did not last long, nor did his
successor, because the boy king Edward sickened and died.
He was followed by his half sister, the Princess Mary, the
daughter of Catherine of Aragon. Then England by the
crown was taken back to Rome. The leaders of the English
Church went to the stake; the foreigners were suffered to de-
part. Ochino was again an exile. He arrived at Geneva on
October 27, 1553, the day of the execution of Michael Serve-
tus. Ochino protested. Calvin was displeased.

While seeking relocation, Ochino had twice previously
found a temporary abode in Basel. For the third time it was
true, and for the third time association was renewed with
Sebastien Castellio. Ochino was with him in the very year
when he brought out the treatise Concerning Heretics. But
Ochino was busying himself with something else. He was of
one mind with Erasmus that satire is a more Christian and
more effective weapon than the sword, and for that reason
he brought out in Basel a collection of anecdotes designed to
ridicule many of the beliefs and practices of the Church of
Rome. Here are a few examples:

Two Roman nobles were accused of rejecting prayers to

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 165

the saints. The first justified himself on the ground that one
should pray only to Christ. He was sent to the stake. The
second justified himself on the ground that one should ad-
dress oneself only to the pope. He was made a bishop.

A village priest once addressed a petition to the cardinals
in the form of a litany. They told him to speak distinctly and
respectfully. He answered that he was only speaking to them
as they spoke to God.

A Roman was asked why Rome is considered the holiest
city. " You would admit/' he explained, " that the richest city
is the one that draws all riches from others to itself. So Rome
is the holiest because she deprives all others of holiness."

The pope was asked why he had appointed only one man
to three bishoprics. " So that only one will be damned/' he
retorted.

A converted Jew continued to keep his accounts with

A Cartoon: O chinos "Image of Antichrist" the Pope, Receiving
His Commission from Satan

l66 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Christians in Hebrew. When they objected to the use of an
unknown tongue, he answered that if he had to trust them
to pray for him in Latin, they would have to trust him to
keep accounts with them in Hebrew.

A friar declaiming against those who ate meat in Lent
pointed out that for having eaten meat on Friday Christ was
crucified and the disciples persecuted. If God did that to his
own Son, what will he not do to you ?

Such persiflage was more diverting than lucrative, and
Ochino was relieved when an invitation came to become the
pastor of a congregation of Italian refugees in Zurich. The
situation there was very tense. These refugees consisted of
ninety-three heads of families, and their dependents, who
had migrated from the Italian-speaking city of Locarno in
southern Switzerland. They had adopted the reform after
the decree of Kappel in 1531, which forbade Protestant mi-
norities in Catholic cantons. The entire Swiss Diet was now
called upon to enforce the terms and penalize the converts.
Zurich absolutely refused. The other evangelical cantons
were willing to concur in banishment, lest otherwise the
Catholics might inflict the death penalty. Zurich was ada-
mant The outcome was banishment, and the emigrees then
presented themselves at the gates of that city which had so
stoutly championed their right to espouse the true faith.
Zurich took them in. She was well aware of the risk, but
manned her walls and at the same time trod softly to avoid
needless provocation. She was soon to discover that to save a
lamb from the lion may be easier than to live with him after-
ward. The Italians were too prolific and too enterprising.
They bought grain on the Zurich market, disposed of it at
a profit in Italy, used the proceeds to purchase trinkets in
Italy, and then sold them at a price undercutting the rate in
Zurich. Local merchants were irate. The town council there-
fore parceled the Italians out among the guilds and con-

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 167

ceded to them a church with services in their own tongue
only until such time as they could learn the Zurich dialect.
Ochino was called to be the pastor of this group.

The situation was quite unprecedented for him. He had
been previously the lion of the aristocracy and now he was
the spokesman of unwelcome guests in an atmosphere where
an indiscretion might provoke an open war within the con-
federacy. For that reason all the ministers in Zurich were
required to act in unison. Such submission to regulation was
difficult for Ochino. He was a prima donna, an incorrigible
individualist, who had just been diverting himself by ribbing
the papacy. Installed in Zurich, he embarked upon a series
of publications, some of them presumably composed earlier,
at any rate quite oblivious of the existing tensions. The first
was a tract on purgatory, in which an interlocutor inquired
why, if the pope were able to release souls from purgatory,
he did not empty the place. The answer was that some eggs
had to be left in the nest. The tract appeared in Italian, Latin,
and German. To the town council these gibes at the pope at
such a juncture appeared irresponsible. Ochino believed that
Antichrist should be resisted only with the pen. The Zurich
fathers were ready in an extremity to resist with the sword,
but they were not minded to have the extremity precipitated
by the pen, and they pointed out to Ochino that his tract
would incense the Catholic confederates. All copies were
called in.

Ochino mended his ways, and sought to do a service to
the Zurichers by defending their view of the Lord's Supper
against a rabid Lutheran, who held that the body of Christ
in the elements is eaten with the teeth even by unbelievers.
Ochino not only refuted this view, but in so doing pointed
out that Luther advanced in many respects from one position
to another and very probably would have arrived at Zwing-
li's view of the Lord's Supper if Zwingli had not done so first.

l68 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

This thrust so angered one of the Lutheran princes that he
canceled his contribution to the support of Ochino's con-
gregation.

Colleagues were of the opinion that Bernardino had not
treated the subject with proper dignity. He tried again,, and
this time, to relieve Zurich of any responsibility, published
his book at Basel. He dealt once more with the sacramen-
tarian controversy, and this time relegated the whole dispute
to the area of nonessentials, because " the penitent thief was
saved without having taken Communion, without having
thought about the Lord's Supper, without ever having con-
sidered whether the body of Christ was or was not in the
bread, and his blood in the wine. The one thing needful is
to believe with a warm faith and in spirit to taste and feel
that Jesus is Christ the Son of God, who out of the highest
love died for us. God is everywhere but his presence is of no
avail if we be not enamored- of him. And what good is the
presence of the body of Christ unless we feel it in faith which
is not attached to places ? "

The relegation of the Lord's Supper to the adiaphora was
pleasing to no party, and even less were the Swiss pleased by
the next tract emanating from Basel, on the problem of pre-
destination. The treatment is suggested by the title, Laby-
rinth, and from the dedication to Queen Elizabeth, who her-
self was fond of saying that grace may be resisted when it is
not irresistible. Ochino set forth four dilemmas involved in
predestination and four in free will, and then extricated him-
self from the first four and then from the second four, and
ended just where he began. The difficulties of course with
predestination lie in the realm of morals and the difficulties
for free will in the area of theology. If man's destiny and, to
some extent at least, his behavior are determined in advance,
what meaning can there be in morality, but if he is a genu-
inely free agent, how can God foresee and control the course

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 169

of events? Ochino made use of the classical explanations that
foreordination applies, not to conduct, but to salvation. The
point is not that man cannot do this or that, but rather that
nothing he does will alter his destiny. The whole discussion
was marked by ingenuity and ended again with the theology
of the penitent thief, "who was saved without the least
thought as to the freedom or the servitude of his will. If it
were necessary to believe in freedom, Augustine would be
damned, and if in predestination, then Chrysostom would
be a heretic. The safest way in view of such doubt is to strive
for the good as if we were free and give all the glory to God
as if we were not. God has placed us before Christ the cru-
cified, the heavenly bread of life, and the sweet truth of the
gospel, with all its riches and benefits. There is no need for
us to inquire how these gifts are bestowed. Enough that we
thank God and use them well, giving unto him all glory and
honor through Jesus Christ our Saviour."

This book too was published in Basel.

Then came a volume of sermons that declared that all
Protestants agreed in regarding " the doctrine of the papists
as pestiferous. If one looks at the Reformed Churches in Ger-
many, Switzerland, France, and elsewhere, one observes that
some call themselves Zwinglians, some Lutherans, and some
Anabaptists and some Libertine, and so on. Between them
are great dissensions, with discord, detraction, infamy, and
calumny, hate, persecution, and innumerable ills, for each
Church holds the other as heretical. One can only infer that
they do not have the true gospel, because Paul said that God
is not a God of division but of peace. These dissensions show
that they are anti-Christian and diabolical, for Christ prayed
that his disciples might be one. It may be replied that there
is agreement as to the essentials, but Paul required of the
PhiHppians that they be of the same mind and love toward
each other. These Churches cannot be truly evangelical be-

lyO THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

cause the Evangel bears fruit in love."

A committee of the Zurich ministers waited upon Ochino
and remonstrated with him for eluding the Zurich censors by
publishing at Basel. He should print no more books unless
approved by their deputies.

In the year 1563 merchants from various parts gathered at
Basel in the Inn of the Ox and began to discuss the religious
situation. " The Niirnbergers," said one, " allow everyone to
keep his own faith."

" That's because they don't know where they are," said
another.

" But at Zurich," charged a nobleman from Baden, " there
are most heretical sects."

A Zuricher sprang to the defense and demanded evidence.

" A book," replied the German, " has just been published
here in Basel by Bernardino Ochino, who lives in Zurich. It
contains most offensive and unchristian things, including a
defense of polygamy."

" I am bound in honor," said the Zuricher, " to report that
to my lords."

" If you don't believe me," said the German, " I can take
you to the printer's. The book is in Latin. Six hundred copies
were struck off and a number have gone to Wittenberg. The
Basel authorities on learning of it stopped the sale until
further notice."

The book was indeed by Bernardino Ochino. It had been
translated into Latin by Sebastien Castellio and bore the title
Thirty Dialogues, and there was one on polygamy. Into the
mouth of one of his interlocutors Ochino had placed a de-
fense of polygamy drawn from a German tract originally
composed to justify the bigamy of Philip of Hesse. Ochino
himself undertook to refute the arguments and did so well
enough until he came to the very end, where the conclusion
was that polygamy should not be allowed unless in response

THE HERETIC AS EXILE IJI

to a special revelation from God. This was the device com-
monly used to exculpate the patriarchs in the Old Testament,
and would have been innocuous if Ochino himself had not
on occasion pretended to divine inspiration. The whole ques-
tion was rendered the more dubious because this dialogue
was dedicated to the king of Poland, who at the moment was
in the predicament of Henry VIII of having had no issue, in
this instance by his deceased wife's sister. Annulment might
have been granted by the pope if not impeded by the house
of Hapsburg. Ochino seemed to be hinting at bigamy as the
solution.

Other passages also were offensive. There was one on the
subject of religious liberty. Ochino, like Castellio, distin-
guished nonessentials from essentials. No one, he said, should
be punished for an error in the nonessentials, and if the
Apostles' Creed contains the essentials, then all those who
have been punished for heresy in the last forty years have
suffered needlessly. But even in the case of the essentials there
is the further qualification that the offender must recognize
the article in question to be essential. For that reason a denial
of the Trinity should not be punished unless the heretic him-
self first grants the belief to be indispensable. In any case the
penalty should not exceed avoidance, for heretics should be
corrected by modesty, charity, and long-suffering.

Ochino was more discerning than any of his contempora-
ries with regard to the problem of conscience. The persecu-
tors contended that no conscience has any right save a right
conscience. Castellio retorted that sincere conviction is to be
respected. " But what " the pope is made to ask in Ochino's
dialogue " what of a conscientious tyrannicide ? " There
were such in the sixteenth century on both sides of the
wars of religion in France and Holland. These men were
conscientious and quite ready to die for their convictions pro-
vided they could first kill. Could the State respect conscience

172 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

in such a case ? Ochino did not answer tie question. His dis-
tinction is first to have raised a problem when others did not
sense its existence.

Another ground of offense in his book was a disapproval
of armed resistance on the part of the Protestants in France.
The gleeful announcement is made by one of his characters
that the papists had been beaten in France. " And do you re-
joice at that? " is the response. " Christians without a special
command from God should not fight. I rejoice more to hear
that one martyr has been constant in the flames than that the
papists have been killed."

Even more galling were direct strictures on the Reformed
Churches, " They have rejected prayers for the dead/' said
Ochino, " and do not pray for the living. Saints' days and
Lent have been abolished and now all days are profane. Im-
ages have been smashed, but God is not worshiped. The
kingdom of Antichrist is overthrown, but the Kingdom of
Christ has not been established."

The ministers and the council at Zurich, having examined
the book, decreed that Ochino should be banished because
he had disregarded the Zurich censorship. He should have
three weeks in which to leave. Ochino admitted that he had
received a remonstrance from the ministers, but when they
said that his books should have the approval of the censor he
supposed that the Basel censor would suffice. As a matter of
fact, the Italian manuscript of his book had received a cur-
sory examination by the censor of Basel, but the Latin, due to
an oversight, had gone to the press without scrutiny. For this,
of course, Ochino was not responsible. He added that in any
case he regarded the counsel of the ministers as advice and
not as law, and wondered whether Zurich had a pope of her
own. His remonstrances were unavailing. He was told that
appeal to conscience is the cloak of hypocrisy and conscience
has no validity unless grounded in the written Word of God.

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 173

Nothing was said about the local circumstances, but the sur-
mise is difficult to stifle that the desire of the Zurichers to dis-
solve the Italian congregation was one of the reasons for
hastening the departure of their minister. His request to be
allowed at least to wait until spring was not granted. Ochino
left with recriminations, not all of them entirely fair.

In the month of December of the year 1563, Bernardino
Ochino, at the age of seventy-six, took to the road with four
little children. His wife was already dead. The oldest daugh-
ter, born while the parents were at Geneva, had stayed and
married there. The son born in England was fourteen. The
other three were younger, though precisely of what age we
do not know. The ministers of Basel would have harbored
them for the winter, but the magistrates refused. Ochino was
allowed only to pass through. There he was able to take a
last leave of Sebastien Castellio, who would have been
brought to trial for having translated his book had not death
released him from the proceedings.

Ochino started out for Poland. Already there were many
Italians in the land because the queen, Bona Sforza, was
Italian. The religious situation was more diversified than
anywhere in Ochino's previous migrations, including even
Augsburg. The king of Poland was Catholic, though flirting
with the idea of espousing the Reform. The varieties of the
Reform were many. The Germans had introduced Luther-
anism. Visitors from Switzerland and France and the many
Polish students who had attended the universities of Basel,
Zurich, and Geneva, brought back Calvinism. In this Slavic
land the Czechs were readily at home and brought with them
Husitism. The Italian exiles, when they forsook Rome,
found no resting place in any of the varieties of the Reform,
and moved in the direction of Anti-Trinitarianism soon to
take shape in the Socinian movement. Such extensive diver-
sity was possible because the crown was weak and the feudal

174 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

nobles, when so inclined, were in a position to offer an asy-
lum to those whom all others regarded as heretics. Poland
was the country on which all of the expellees of Europe con-
verged.

Ochino became once more the idol of the aristocracy. The
leaders of the Reformed movement vied for his pen. Earlier
works were adapted to the Polish situation. A Tragedy or
Dialogue of the Unjust Usurped Primacy of the Bishop of
Rome, which had been rendered into English by Bishop
Ponet, was turned into Polish, with the elimination of course
of all reference to Henry VIII, Edward VI, and a substitu-
tion of discreet hints to King Sigismund Augustus to take
over their role. The circumstances of the appearance of this
work symbolized the international character of the Polish
Reformation. The book was written by an Italian, had previ-
ously appeared in English, was now translated by a Pole,
subsidized by a German, printed by a Bohemian, and dedi-
cated to a Lithuanian.

The one party in Poland with which Ochino had had
no previous acquaintance, save for isolated individuals like
Servetus, was the Anti-Trinitarian. The claim was made by
contemporaries that Ochino gave to this group his adherence.
Nothing in his printed works substantiates the claim, but
there was one point at which he did contribute to the the-
ology of the Socinians. It was not with regard to the Trinity
but rather concerning the atonement. Nor was he in this re-
spect original. Rather, he was the transmitter of the views of
Juan de Valdes. Like his master, Ochino said that God does
not need to be propitiated because he is not angry. Wrath
comports neither with his impassibility nor with his love. If
the death of Christ had any expiatory value, it was only be-
cause God so chose to regard it. The real purpose of the
death of Christ was not to change God but to change us.

THE HERETIC AS EXILE 175

One notes of course here also echoes of the Scotist view that
God might equally well have chosen any other way of sav-
ing men. Thus the lines from Scotus and Valdes ran through
Ochino to the Racovian catechism of the Socinians.

His period of influence in Poland was speedily cut short.
The king was alarmed by the heresies abroad in the land and
thought to banish the anti-Trinitarians. His Catholic advisers
pointed out that to do so would be to tolerate other varieties
of Protestantism. By this time the king had recoiled from any
attachment to the Reform, but feared to banish all the Prot-
estants lest an upheaval should be created. The decision was
to expel all foreign non-Catholics. The Bohemians, however,
were specifically excepted, and the German Lutherans were
unaffected because already naturalized Polish citizens. A no-
bleman of the country sought to provide this way of escape
for Ochino by conferring upon him a tract of land and thus
making him eligible for citizenship. But Ochino declined to
avail himself of the subterfuge, and again with his children
took to the road.

On the way the plague overtook them. Two sons and one
daughter died. The old man, with the one remaining child,
set out for Moravia to find a refuge with a fellow Italian, an
Anabaptist, a member of the Hutterian colony. Under the
patronage of liberal nobles the Anabaptist communities in
Moravia had come to number three thousand. There were
Germans, Hungarians, Poles, and not a few Italians. Colonies
were restricted to about one hundred and fifty. The religious
communism of these groups more nearly resembled the vol-
untary poverty of Saint Francis than the attempts of modern
Communism to raise the standard of living. The funda-
mental conception of these brethren was the aim to restore
primitive Christianity with ascetic living, repudiation of the
oath and of war, abstention from all force in religion, and

176 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

dedication to the way of suffering. Ochino, who began as a
spiritual Franciscan, ended in strong sympathy with the
Anabaptists.

Would he have been disillusioned with regard to them
also? Would he have once more repeated his judgment on
the Reformed Churches that the wings of Antichrist are
everywhere ? We do not know. Had he lived, he would not
have stayed. An invitation came from Johann Zapolya, the
king of Transylvania, to come to his country, where under
the suzerainty of the Turks religious liberty prevailed among
Christians. Ochino with his child would once more have
taken to the road had he not been intercepted by that last
great migration of which Saint Francis sang:
" Be praised, O Lord, for Sister Death

Which none escapes who draweth breath.

Blessed to die in Thy holy will;

Then the second death can do no ill."

PART

THE FREEDOM OF THE INDIVIDUAL
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND:
John <JvLilton

The survey thus far presented of the toleration controversy
as precipitated by the execution of Servetus and as waged by
Calvin and Beza on the one side and
by Castellio, Joris, and Ochino on
the other must have left the impres-
sion of liberty in rout. So indeed it
was in so far as liberty of the person
was concerned. But great gains had
nevertheless been made during the
course of the century, not so much
for individuals as for confessional
groups, and individuals at the same
time benefited because the penalties

John Milton

for heresy had been mitigated. As the sixteenth century ad-
vanced, dissenting religious bodies increasingly attained at
least a restricted toleration. First were the Zwinglians, who
by the peace of Kappel in 1531 obtained a recognized posi-
tion and were to be unmolested in those areas where already
established. In similar fashion Lutheranism acquired an
assured territorial status by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555.
Calvinism, apart from Geneva, first obtained toleration in
the United Provinces of The Netherlands by the Pacification
of Ghent in 1576, later in France by the Edict of Nantes in
1598. Anglicanism became under Elizabeth the partner of
the State. Thus four varieties of Protestantism were both

l8o THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

recognized and established: the Zwinglian, Lutheran, Cal-
vinist, and Anglican. And although no individual could lay
claim to any rights apart from the group to which he be-
longed, yet the lot of the private dissenter was ameliorated in
that the death penalty fell into abeyance even when not
formally abrogated. The last execution in Holland took place
in 1597. In England there were but two instances of death
for heresy after 1600. And on the Continent in general the
seventeenth century was to be marked rather by banishments
and imprisonments than by death.

This century was to make still further gains in the direc-
tion of freedom for the individual, and no country con-
tributed more at this point than England. The reasons were
several. England was more favorably situated to make ex-
periments in liberty than was any Continental country at
that time, because England enjoyed an island isolation and
had therefore less reason to fear that weakening through in-
ternal dissension might invite foreign intervention. At all
times this was true in a measure, but peculiarly in the seven-
teenth century, because the power of Spain had been broken
when the galleons of the Armada skulked to their base. On
the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, the great Con-
tinental powers were involved in an all-engaging conflict
with each other, from which the English with discretion
were able, and for the most part did, remain aloof. Thus the
English were at liberty to make a venture toward freedom.

Furthermore England was consolidated, and not like the
Germany of Luther's day when religious ferment might en-
gender social anarchy. England under the Tudors had ex-
perienced a century of centralized government. Feudal an-
archy had been overcome. The task had been in fact so well
achieved that now Englishmen had become restive under re-
straints and were for throwing off controls, both economic
and political. When the Stuarts attempted to continue the

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND l8l

pattern of the Tudors, there were cries of innovation and
tyranny. The monarchs rightly retorted that the innovation
lay rather on the other side, and for historical precedent the
champions of the rights of Englishmen had to construct the
myth of Saxon freedom and make of Magna Charta a mani-
festo of personal liberties. The arguments are of less interest,
however, than the situation, where a struggle for civil lib-
erties and democratic controls provided the milieu in which
religious liberty could and can best arise and flourish.

The possibility of achieving some understanding in mutual
toleration in the field of religion was facilitated in England
because the conflict lay between less implacable opponents
than on the Continent inasmuch as England was wholly
Protestant. The strife was between the varieties of Protestant-
ism, and, bitter as this might be, there were not the long-
accumulated grievances that the Middle Ages had piled up
against the Church of Rome, nor were the Protestants dis-
posed to hurl at each other all the imagery of Antichrist and
the whore of the Apocalypse.

Again, the controversy was not doctrinal because in the
area of doctrine the Anglican Church was latitudinarian.
Some lessons had been learned from the previous struggles
and already it was apparent that force could not deprive men
of their convictions. The distinction made by Castellio and
many other liberals between the essentials and the nonessen-
tials for liberty had been appropriated by the Anglican di-
vines, who were prepared to concede toleration as to the es-
sentials over which men would be damned if they believed
incorrectly. This, of course, is not to say that there were no
doctrinal demands. The Thirty-nine Articles were employed
as a test, yet they were ambiguously couched and mildly en-
forced. Queen Elizabeth was no bigot. Her desire was to
minimize dissent. Her successor, James I, averred that " no
religion or heresy was ever extirpated by violence or the

i8a

THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

sword, nor have I ever judged it a way of planting truth."
And Archbishop Laud, who so largely determined the policy
of Charles I, could discover in Scripture only one doctrinal
requirement, namely, the belief that "God ... is, and that
he is a rewarder of them that . . . seek him" (Heb. 11:6).
The line, he held, should not be drawn so narrowly as to shut
even the meanest Christian out of heaven.

The controversy centered rather on points that admittedly
were not essential for salvation. They had to do with the ex-
ternals of the Church, with polity and liturgy. The main
reason for this was a political union of two countries with
different Established Churches. Under James I, England and
Scotland came together, and in England the State Church
was the Anglican and in Scotland the Presbyterian. There

A Cartoon: Puritans Demolishing Crosses on Canterbury Cathedral

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 183

might have been no problem at all if each had been satisfied
with a territorial solution whereby Presbyterianism should
remain the Church of Scotland and Episcopalianism the
Church of England. But the idea was not yet extinct that, in
the interests of national unity and civil peace, one country
must have one religion. Presbyterianism therefore aspired
to be the religion of England and Anglicanism endeavored to
enforce itself upon Scotland. The debate became warm as to
the relative merits, the divine ordination, and the Scriptural
warrant of prelacy, prayer books, and vestments.

The matter was further complicated by the proliferation of
Protestantism into a multitude of sects. The pattern that Ger-
many had exhibited a century earlier was, by a fortunate time
lag, postponed in England until it coincided with the con-
ditions of political and social stability already described. The
sects were numerous. Among those that have survived were
the Congregational, Baptist, Unitarian, and Quaker. In that
day there were in addition the Muggletonians, Ranters, Fam-
ily of Love, Fifth Monarchy Men, not to mention social and
political parties with a strong religious ideology, such as
Levelers and Diggers. With the death penalty in abeyance,
the problem of religious diversity could not be solved by gen-
eral extermination. Banishment was possible, but England
would be seriously impoverished by an extensive migration of
enterprising citizens. Wholesale imprisonment was a great
strain upon penal accommodations. Toleration, then, alone
remained. For the wisdom of this solution the example of
Europe during the preceding century afforded irrefutable
arguments: France had been decimated by wars of religion,
whereas Holland was thriving under religious liberty.

In all this ferment Calvinism, which had been persecuting
on the Continent in the sixteenth century, came to be the ally
of liberty. The reason was of course in part that Calvinists
were immalleable and would not leave off agitation, civil

184 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

disobedience, and even armed revolution until they had
achieved recognition for themselves. This had always been
true, and in this sense John Calvin himself had sponsored
liberty. Calvinist intransigence had wrung from France the
Edict of Nantes. But the England of the seventeenth century
presented a new situation. Calvinist theology was shared by
a number of the contesting groups. The Presbyterians, the
Independents, and many of the Baptists were Calvinists, not
to mention the Puritan wing in the Anglican Church. If Cal-
vinism was not to devour itself, some measure of mutual
recognition must be accorded. And this was only an extension
of the principle already espoused by Calvin himself, that not
every church need exhibit the pattern of Geneva and " tol-
erable ineptitudes " could be suffered. The seventeenth cen-
tury need only enlarge the area of the ineptitudes deemed to
be tolerable. But to do so immediately opened the door to
some of the considerations adduced by Castellio as to degrees
of importance and relative incertitude of religious doctrines.
Thus in the i6oo's Calvinists not infrequently employed argu-
ments that earlier would have ranked them with Calvin's
opponents.

The men chosen to epitomize the struggle in Britain in
the Puritan period are two, John Milton for England and
Roger Williams for the colonies. One may question whether
Milton should be considered a Calvinist at all. On some doc-
trinal points he would have been anathema in the Geneva of
John Calvin. Yet in his general justification of the ways
of God with men he is the poet of Puritanism and the bard
of Calvinism. Some would question whether he is the best
single figure to select in order to illustrate the struggle for
religious liberty, because his pleas were never timed to strike
the most decisive moments. Sometimes he did no more than
voice in nobler language what others had abundantly de-
clared, and sometimes he raised his voice only after the cause

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 185

was lost. The reason is that Milton was never satisfied with
any party in power and was always torn within himself and
moving from one camp to another. In his allegiances he was
almost as migratory as Ochino. For that reason Milton is a
poor representative of any single position or group but an
admirable mirror of his age.

He might be described as a Renaissance Puritan, a scholar
amazingly versed in all the learning of antiquity whether
classical or Christian, and profoundly lured by the quest of
all knowledge and the enjoyment of all loveliness. He was a
son of England by birth and of Italy by adoption. While in
college, he had made the acquaintance of a young Italian,
and from him had acquired the rudiments of the tongue. A
visit to Italy enabled him to indulge his passion for the new
science, when he called upon the aged Galileo, who through
his glass perused the craters of the moon and pursued the
satellites of Jupiter. Here was a living symbol of the uncon-
querable human spirit despite the censures of an obscurantist
Inquisition. By another aspect of the Renaissance Milton was
enthralled. He went to Rome and attended the presentation
of an opera. Here he heard the singing of Leonora BaronL
She was twenty-seven years old, with golden hair and flash-
ing eyes. She composed, and played several instruments.
Her voice was an echo of the song of pure conceit, sung in
the morn of endless light before God's sapphire throne. Hers
was an Orpheus voice, which could move forests and lure the
moon to earth. Careful, Milton! She was reputed to be of
questionable morals. This was the pagan Renaissance, the
cult of beauty divorced from ethical restraints. Already Mil-
ton was an inharmonious spirit, for at that very moment he
made his stay in Rome almost untenable by his frankness in
identifying the papacy with Antichrist. Never to the end of
his life did he cease to berate the Church of Rome as the
whore of the Apocalypse. Never would he concede tolera-

l86 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

tion to Catholics in England. Yet he was a child of beauty,
who quivered at the memory of Leonora's voice and had no
mind to subject England to a regime of dour rigidity. He
had no sympathy with a Puritan like Prynne, who in the in-
dex to his book on stage playing defined actresses as whores,
and that at the very moment when the queen was playing in
a masque. For this offense Prynne lost his ears, and Milton
again was outraged by lopping ears to penalize indecorous
indexes. No wonder that he could not bring himself to issue
clarion calls when those with whom he mainly and yet not
entirely sympathized came into power!

Milton returned to England from Italy in 1639. He was
then thirty-one. To what should he devote himself? He had
considered the Church. The oath stood in his way. A life of
literature appealed to him, that he might " imbreed and
cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civil-
ity, celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and
equipage of God's almightiness, and sing the deeds and
triumphs of just and pious nations.'* He thought to become
the bard of Arthur and the Table Round, but this had to be
left for Tennyson, because too much history was in the mak-
ing to be singing of Arthur just then. England was seething.
What had been commended as a firm hand under the Tudors
was considered tyranny when practiced by the Stuarts: the
levying of taxes on inland districts to support a navy super-
fluous after the debacle of the Armada, the quartering of
troops on the civilian population in time of peace, above all,
the enforcement of religious uniformity these were not to
be endured. The Stuarts did believe in uniformity and it was
to be Anglican uniformity. James I, though his mother had
been a Catholic, did not propose to return to Rome and sub-
ject Britain to papal vexations. Neither, though Scottish, did
he intend to impose Presbyterianism on England. He had
had his belly full of Presbyterians who called him " God's

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 1 87

silly vassal." The Anglican Church, decorous and amenable
to royal control, best suited his taste. But the Anglican
Church, as the Church of England, did demand something of
Englishmen. If they were allowed to believe as they liked,
they must behave as they were told, in the interests of seem-
liriess, decorum, and good order. Charles I thought so too,
and even more was this the position of Archbishop Laud.

A Cartoon: Archbishof Laud Dining on the Ears of Prynne,

and Barton

Had he gone no farther than to enforce his program on Eng-
land, there would have been trouble with the Puritans, but
when he attempted to impose it also upon the Scots, there
was war. English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians joined
to resist Laud and Charles and all the mitred bishops and

l88 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

hireling priests parading in the rags of Antichrist.

Milton, not always in terms more decorous, devoted his
pen to the service of the Puritan cause. His first tract was a
defense of the repudiation of any prescribed form of prayer,
including, of course, The Boo\ of Common Prayer. Why, he
inquired, should they who can " learnedly invent a prayer of
their own to the Parliament still ignorantly read the prayers
of other men to God ? " Where did this English prayer
book come from if not from the " abomination of the anti-
Christian temple?" Essentially it is the Mass. "Is this to
magnify the Church of England " that it should have re-
course to the Church of Rome? Strange that John Milton
who had such an ear for speech should not have been en-
thralled by the solemn cadences of The Eoo\ of Common
Prayer! Perhaps it was because he knew so well how to com-
pose prayers of his own. The following is an example, not
only of his incomparable style but of his ardent hope, essen-
tially Calvinist, that God would establish his Kingdom upon
earth and in England:

" Come, therefore, O Thou that hast the seven stars in thy
right hand, appoint thy chosen priests according to their or-
ders and courses of old, to minister before thee, and duly to
dress and pour out the consecrated oil into thy holy and ever-
burning lamps; thou hast sent out the spirit of prayer upon
thy servants over all the land to this effect, and stirred up
their vows as the sound of many waters about thy throne.
Every one can say that now certainly thou hast visited this
land, and hast not forgotten the utmost corners of the earth,
in a time when men had thought that thou wast gone up
from us to the farthest end of the heavens, and hadst left to
do marvelously among the sons of these last ages. O perfect,
and accomplish thy glorious acts; for men may leave their
works unfinished, but thou art a God, thy nature is perfec-
tion: shouldst thou bring us thus far onward from Egypt to

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 189

destroy us in this Wilderness ? Though we deserve ... yet
thy great name would suffer in the rejoicing of thine ene-
mies, and the deluded hope of all thy servants. When thou
hast settled peace in the Church, and righteous judgment in
the Kingdom, then shall all thy saints address their voices of
joy and triumph to thee, standing on the shore of that Red
Sea into which our enemies had almost driven us. And he
that now for haste snatches up a plain ungarnished present
as a thank offering to thee, which could not be deferred in
regard of thy so many late deliverances wrought for us one
upon another, may then perhaps take up a harp and sing
thee an elaborate song to generations. In that day it shall no
more be said as in scorn, * This (or that) was never held so
till this present age,' when men have better learned that the
times and seasons pass along under thy feet to go and come
at thy bidding: and as thou didst dignify our fathers' days
with many revelations above all the foregoing ages, since
thou tookest the flesh, so thou canst vouchsafe to us (though
unworthy) as large a portion of thy Spirit as thou pleasest:
for who shall prejudice thy all-governing will? seeing the
power of thy grace is not passed away with the primitive
times, as fond and faithless men imagine, but thy Kingdom
is now at hand, and thou standing at the door. Come forth
out of thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the
earth, put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty, take
up that unlimited scepter which thy almighty Father hath
bequeathed thee; for now the voice of thy bride calls thee,
and all creatures sigh to be renewed."

Next Milton undertook to support the Presbyterian attack
on prelacy, by which he meant the Episcopal system. At this
point his defense of liberty commenced. The argument in
favor of prelacy was that without its strict control England
would teem with sects. Milton replied that if all sects were to
be suppressed, then England might as well imitate Italy and

190 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Spain. Then he turned to an analogy from nature. If the chief
end were to have no weeds, then " winter might vaunt it-
self " as the season that keeps down " all noisome and rank
weeds." To this the reply would be that winter destroys also
" all wholesome herbs " and confines all " the fresh dews in
hidebound frost." For the destroying of weeds there is no
need of such " imprisonment and bondage." Let rather " the
gentle west winds open the fruitful bosom of the earth." Let
" the sun scatter the mists." Then when " the flowers put
forth and spring . . . the hand of the tiller shall root up all
that burden the soil without thank to " winter's " bondage.
But far worse than any " such " frozen captivity is the bond-
age of prelates."

The conclusion is not only that the tares should be left to
grow with the wheat, but that in some measure the tares may
be regarded as useful to the wheat. " Sects and errors it
seems God suffers to be for the glory of good men, that the
world may know and reverence their true fortitude and un-
daunted constancy in truth." Virtue that wavers is not virtue.
The English people, being a hardy nation, should be left to
exercise themselves in the field of truth. The magistrate
should not step in save to concern himself with the body and
its outward acts. " His general end is the outward peace and
welfare of the Commonwealth and civil happiness in this
life." The purity of the Church is to be guarded solely
through its own discipline by means of excommunication.

In this defense Milton far overshot what was expected or
desired of him. The Presbyterians objected to prelacy, not
on the ground that it would curb the sects which they were
of no mind to encourage, but because the system in their
judgment was not ordained of God and enjoined in Scrip-
ture. They were quite as eager to impose their system on
England as were the Anglicans to accomplish the reverse for
Scotland. And neither one would tolerate sects. The Presby-

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND Ipl

terians were soon to have their turn. The fortunes of war cast
down the king and exalted the Westminster Assembly. There
followed the ejection of ministers and the licensing of books.

And that was the point at which Milton fell foul of their
regime. He had some tracts to publish for which he could
not well expect the approval of any Presbyterian licenser be-
cause the subject was a defense of divorce solely on the ground
of incompatibility. Behind the tracts lay an urgent personal
dilemma. In the summer of 1643, Milton had visited the
country estate of a loyalist squire, Richard Powell, in order
to collect a debt of five hundred pounds. Milton came away
without the payment of the debt, but married to the squire's
daughter Mary. She was seventeen and he was thirty-five.
They went up to live in London. Milton considered the
whole duty of a wife to be ministering to her husband. Mary,
who had been used to the bustle and convivialities of a coun-
try house, did not care to be a maid in waiting to a grave and
sedentary scholar. After a month she returned home.

Milton a year thereafter eluded the censors and brought
out a tract on the legitimacy of divorce for reasons other than
adultery. Knowing that he would have difficulty in obtaining
a hearing, he began with a plea that " the womb of teeming
truth " be not closed. Then he addressed himself to the argu-
ment. In so doing he delineated a view of marriage that was
peculiarly the product of Puritanism. Previously there had
been, broadly speaking, two Christian attitudes toward mar-
riage. The first may be called the sacramental. This was the
position of the Catholic Chutch prevalent throughout the
Middle Ages, according to which marriage is a sacrament in-
stituted mainly for progeny and property. There was no
touch of romance, because marriage was esteemed inferior to
virginity. Unions were commonly made by families. Against
this view arose the romantic revolt in the Courts of Love,
which exalted love as an ennobling passion rather than as a

192 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

sickness. The beloved became the object of almost a religious
devotion, but this cult in its beginnings was extramatrimonial,
on the ground that love freely given is impossible within the
marriage bond. Only in the age of the Renaissance was ro-
manticism transferred to marriage, and only then of course
could it be accommodated to a Christian view. A third posi-
tion entered with Puritanism, and Milton expounded it with
singular persuasiveness. It is the position that marriage is
primarily a companionship in a common endeavor, calling
for mutuality of taste and conviction. Companionability is a
prime requisite. The center of common interest for the Puri-
tan was, of course, religion. Secularized versions have later
stressed common interests, intellectual, artistic, and the like.
Milton commenced his tract by saying that the first com-
mand of God was not, " Be fruitful and multiply " (the fa-
vorite text for the Catholic sacramental view), nor was it that
" To marry is better than to burn " (the chief proof text of
the Lutherans), but rather this, " It is not good for man to be
alone." " In God's intention a meet and happy conversation
is the chiefest and noblest end of marriage." " The chief so-
ciety thereof is in the soul rather than in the body, and the
greatest breach thereof is unfitness of mind rather than de-
fect of body." " Since we know it is not the joining of an-
other body will remove loneliness, but the uniting of another
compliable mind; and that it is no blessing but a torment,
nay a base and brutish condition to be one flesh, unless where
nature can in some measure fix and unite the disposition."
" Loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not
good." " There is a peculiar comfort in the marriage state
beside the genial bed, which no other society affords. No
mortal nature can endure either in the actions of religion or
study of wisdom, without sometime slackening the cords of
intense thought and labor"; therefore we "have need of
some delightful intermissions wherein the enlarged soul may

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 193

leave off a while her severe schooling; which as she cannot
well do without company, so in no company so well as where
the different sex in most resembling unlikeness and most un-
like resemblance cannot but please best, and be pleased in the
aptitude of that variety." So fundamental indeed is commu-
nity of taste, interest, and conviction for such a spiritual inter-
change that in Milton's judgment it were better both parties
should be irreligious than that one should be religious and the
other not.

If these conditions be not fulfilled, there is no real mar-
riage, " What a violent and cruel thing it is to force the con-
tinuing of those together whom God and nature in the gen-
tlest end of marriage never joined." He who misses the true
end of marriage " by chancing on a mute and spiritless mate
remains more alone than before." " Suppose he erred. It is not
the intent of God or man to hunt an error so to the death with
a revenge beyond all measure and proportion." The magis-
trate is not the one to decide whether a marriage be success-
ful When a Roman was asked why he had put away his wife,
he pulled off his shoe and said, " This shoe is a neat shoe yet
none of you know where it wrings me." The magistrate should
take care only that the conditions of the divorce be not in-
jurious. If two such spiritual persons as Paul and Barnabas
found it wise to separate, shall the married be held " to the
most intimate and incorporating duties of love and embrace-
ment ... if unfitness and disparity be not till after marriage
discovered ? "

The difficulties that Milton had experienced in eluding
censorship for three tracts on divorce prompted an eloquent
plea for the freedom of the press. The treatise was entitled
Areopagitica, from Areopagus, the hill of Mars, where the
Athenians exercised freedom of speech. Not one word was
said about divorce. The greatness of Milton was that he could
rise above some particular and personal circumstance to an

194 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

overarching principle, and in tones majestic plead for all time
the cause of truth in free encounter. The Areopagitica ap-
peared in the year 1644, and opened with an unparalleled
apologia for the printed page. " Books are not absolutely dead
things but do contain a potency of life. . . . They do pre-
serve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that liv-
ing intellect that bred them. ... As good almost kill a man
as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable crea-
ture, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills rea-
son itself kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.
Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is
the precious lif eblood of a master spirit, embalmed and treas-
ured up on purpose to a life beyond life. 'Tis true, no age can
restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revo-
lutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth,
for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We
should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against
the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned
life of man preserved and stored up in books; since we see a
kind of homicide may thus be committed, sometimes a mar-
tyrdom, and if it extend to a whole impression, a kind of mas-
sacre, wherein the execution ends not in the slaying of an
elemental life but strikes at ... the breath of reason itself;
slays an immortality rather than a life."

Then the argument soars from books to truth itself, which
is not a deposit recorded or committed to a Church, but rather
the object of a quest. " To be still searching what we know
not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth as we
find it, this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arith-
metic." Milton was no skeptic not, indeed, as much of a
skeptic as Erasmus or Castellio, who insisted that certain
theological tenets can never be known in this life and dis-
cussion should be deferred until the Judgment Day. Milton
welcomed discussion because of his confidence that truth

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 195

could be reached provided inquiry were unimpeded. His
assurance rested upon pessimism as to licensers and optimism
as to Englishmen. No individual is sufficiently inerrant to be
trusted with the responsibility of suppressing a book. If it
come to prohibiting, nothing is more likely to be prohibited
than truth itself. If there be found in an author " one sentence
of venturous edge, uttered in the height of zeal, and who
knows whether it might not be the dictate of a divine Spirit,
though it were Knox himself they will not pardon him their
dash; and the sense of that great man shall to all posterity be
lost, for the tearfulness or the presumptuous rashness of a per-
functory licenser. . . . What is it but a servitude like that
imposed by the Philistines, not to be allowed the sharpening
of our own axes and coulters, but we must repair from all
quarters to twenty licensing forges." When I "visited the
famous Galileo, prisoner of the Inquisition/' Italians vaunted
the liberty of England.

Licensers cannot be trusted but Englishmen can. The judg-
ment of the entire people will fall upon the side of truth. Nor
is licensing " to the common people less than a reproach; for
if we be so jealous over them that we dare not trust them with
an English pamphlet, what do we but censure them for a
giddy, vicious, and ungrounded people ? " " I cannot set so
light by all the invention, the art, the wit, the grave and solid
judgment which is in England." " Lords and commons of
England, . . . why else was this nation chosen before any
other, that out of her as out of Sion should be proclaimed and
sounded forth the first tidings and trumpet of reformation to
all Europe [that is, under Wycliflfe] ? " And why did God
when he desired a reforming of reformation show himself
first to his Englishmen? " Behold now this vast city; a city
of refuge, a mansion house of liberty, encompassed and sur-
rounded with his protection."

Nor would Milton restrict soundness of judgment to the

196 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

English. All mankind are, if not equally, at any rate similarly
endowed, and truth itself has a potency that compels recog-
nition. "Let truth and falsehood grapple; whoever knew
truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter. . . .
For who knows not that truth is strong next to the Almighty;
she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings, to make
her victorious. . . . Give her but room, and do not bind her
when she sleeps."

The triumph of truth is, however, contingent upon the
process of a co-operative quest in which the insights and the
findings of each are subjected to the scrutiny and criticism of
all Clash is an indispensable ingredient in the emergence of
truth, which can be discerned only through its ability to with-
stand the onslaughts of falsehood. Here it is that error itself
performs a useful function, so that one may speak of " the
knowing of good by evil." Truth requires a sparring partner.
" I cannot praise," exclaims Milton, " a fugitive and cloistered
virtue unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and
sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race." " Our faith and
virtue thrive by exercise. . . . Truth is compared in Scripture
to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual
progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and
tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he be-
lieve things only because his pastor says so, or an assembly so
determines, without knowing other reason, though his be-
lief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy."
Milton here enunciates a far-reaching principle. He has gone
beyond the customary definition of truth as that which is ob-
jectively correct and has made it also that which is inwardly
appropriated. Truth, then, is almost a synonym for faith, and
all the arguments for the inviolability of faith then become
pertinent for truth.

When at last truth is attained, one is not to suppose that it
will necessarily exhibit a single face. " Is it not possible that

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 197

she may have more shapes than one ? What else is all that
rank of things indifferent, wherein truth may be on this side
or on the other without being unlike herself? . . . What
great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often
boasts of? His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, re-
gards a day or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How
many other things might be tolerated in peace and left to con-
science, had we but charity, and were it not the chief strong-
hold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another! I fear
this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print
upon our necks." This passage is fraught with vast implica-
tions because in it Milton espouses the ideal of variety rather
than of uniformity. He was but voicing an idea grown preva-
lent in his day that variety is the glory and the gift of the
Creator, who in nothing so much displayed his beneficence
to man as in fashioning the world with such rich diversity.
The same principle applies to marriage, when companion-
ability is enhanced by " most resembling unlikeness and most
unlike resemblance." Variety had become also a principle of
aesthetics, and some hold that Milton deliberately introduced
certain apparently inharmonious styles into Paradise Lost
in order to exhibit a greater variety. When, then, this thesis
was applied to religion, the death knell tolled for the Corpus
Christianum, the Christian society based upon one form of
religion. Milton was not an originator at this point. Some of
the Remonstrants in Holland and the Baptists in England
had declared variety and competition to be wholesome for
the Church. What earlier centuries had deplored as a calam-
ity and compared to the rending of the seamless robe of
Christ was hailed by the sectaries as an ideal and as a state of
health for Christendom. Uniformity for Milton was sym-
bolized by vegetation dormant in the grip of ice, but diversity
by all the profusion of the variegated flowers of spring.
Plainly at this juncture Milton did not belong with the

190 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Presbyterians. He transferred to the Independents, as the
Congregationalists were then commonly called, and became
in time the secretary of their champion, Oliver Cromwell. His
greatest historical significance lies in this, that he substituted
a national religion for an Established Church. Cromwell was
a profoundly religious figure, a Gideon, a Joshua fighting the
battles of the Lord of Hosts, a man of prayer who would ad-
journ a council of officers in order to seek the leading of the
Spirit. Cromwell aspired to rear in England a holy common-
wealth, much after the Genevan model but with this great
difference, that a larger diversity would be allowed. Milton's
ideal of variety had laid hold on him, and he compared the
several sects to the trees mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, the
myrrh and the olive, the cypress and the plantains of Israel,
all different and all alike affording shade. Diversity, however,
should not be permitted endless ramifications. Here the dis-
tinction between the essentials and the nonessentials deter-
mined the lines, and the essentials were so defined that the
Catholics and the Unitarians were excluded; the Presby-
terians, Congregationalists, and Baptists constituted the core.
The Episcopalians and Quakers might be unmolested if de-
void of political threat. Cromwell hoped to disestablish the
Anglican Church and to erect instead a commonwealth of
the saints recruited from the central three.

But the saints were able to collaborate only up to a point. In
opposition to the bishops and the king the three groups were
one. In the first stage of the civil war the Presbyterians of
Scotland and the Puritans of England, of whatever com-
plexion, were allied. The intent was not to destroy the king
but only to dislodge the bishops. The theory eloquently ex-
pounded by Milton was that the Roundheads were not fight-
ing the king at all, but only the " Malignants " by whom he
was surrounded and beguiled. The war was designed to lib-
erate His Majesty, but when His Majesty refused to be thus

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 199

liberated and made abundantly plain that he was responsible
for the policy attributed to the Malignants, then either the
war must stop or else frankly be directed against his person.
At this point the Presbyterians called a halt. They would not
lift a hand against the Lord's anointed.

Then the Independents and the Baptists, the element strong-
est in the army, purged the Presbyterians from Parliament
and forged ahead to bring to book " that man of blood,
Charles Stuart." The theory of course changed, and again
Milton became the spokesman and now urged the covenant
theory 'of government, that the king is bound in compact
with the people and if he violate the covenant is no longer
king. In that case Parliament, as the representative of the
sovereign people, may constitute itself into a court of high
judicature to sit in judgment on his person, even to the point
of depriving him of life. Charles went to the block. Then
Cromwell and the saints began their reign and Milton's dis-
illusionment recommenced. Liberty, he perceived, cannot be
conserved by giving power to the mass of Englishmen nor
even to the saints. Cromwell's parliaments were less tolerant
than he, and soon the protector found himself confronted
with a choice between democracy or freedom. His Parlia-
ment desired to suppress The BooJ^ of Common Prayer. He
did not approve. Either, then, he must flout Parliament and
compromise democracy in the interests of liberty or else give
democracy the rein to the detriment of tolerance. He chose
democracy and the prayer book was suppressed. The pro-
tector then, lacking the divinity which " doth hedge a king,"
found himself even more than the monarch an object of scur-
rilous and seditious attacks. He had no mind to suffer Eng-
land to be flooded with such subversive pamphlets. His sec-
retary, John Milton, was called upon to exercise the office of
licenser.

Milton became almost embittered against " the common

20O THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

rout, that wandering loose about, grow up and perish, as the
summer fly." He inquired:

" And what the people but a herd conf us'd,
A miscellaneous rabble, who extol

Things vulgar, and well weigh'd, scarce worth the praise.
They praise, and they admire they know not what;
And know not whom, but as one leads the other;
And what delight to be by such extolPd,
To live upon thir tongues and be thir talk,
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise?
His lot who dares be singularly good.
Th' intelligent among them and the wise
Are few."

The brutish, ignorant, and wayward are to be held in con-
stant check; if once they are given the bit, their capricious
stupidity will throw off the yoke of reason and order.

And even the leaders filled Milton with foreboding. To
Cromwell he addressed a sonnet, reminding him that peace
has its victories no less renowned than war, and General
Monk was warned to surround himself with a perpetual
council. The guarantee of liberty should be the rule of the
wise, but the end actually was martial law.

And then came the Restoration. The regicides in their turn
went to the block. As Harrison was led to execution, some-
one called out, " Where is now your good old cause ? " With
cheerful smile he clapped his hand to his breast and said,
" Here it is and I am going to seal it with my blood." He was
first hanged, then pulled down while still alive. He was
emasculated, his entrails were burned before his eyes, then his
head was severed and his body hacked into quarters. His
head was then pilloried on a pike and his quarters exposed
upon the city gates. When the turn of Hugh Peter came, the
rabble made so much noise that he could not be heard. An-

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 2OI

other who was similarly hooted, remarked, "It is a very
mean cause that will not hear the words of a dying man."
Evelyn recorded in his diary: " I saw not their execution but
met their quarters mangled, cut and reeking as they were
brought from the gallows in baskets on a hurdle. O the
marvelous providence of God! "

And all this, be it remembered, took place in merry Eng-
land only three hundred years ago!

Milton, though he had justified tyrannicide, was spared by
the clemency of Charles II, who was loath to make excessive
martyrs, and Milton had not signed the death warrant. Be-
sides, he was a poet of reputation and was blind. Then let
him alone. In his retirement Milton voiced one more plea for
liberty, brave and futile. It was all the more brave because of
those to whom he would accord religious liberty. " We suf-
fer," said he, " the idolatrous books of the papists to be sold
and read as common as our own; why not much rather the
Anabaptists, Arminians, and Socinians ? There is no learned
man but will confess he hath much profited by reading con-
troversies."

The problem had come, however, to be much more serious
than the way to truth. The deepest question was as to the
ways of God with men. One could understand why He
should suffer the rabble to perish, but how explain the fall
of the saints ?

" Such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorn'd
To some great work, thy glory.
And peoples safety, which in part they effect:
Yet toward these thus dignifi'd, thou oft
Amidst thir highth of noon,

Changest thy countenance, and thy hand with no regard
Of highest favours past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service.

202 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

" Nor only dost degrade them, or remit
To life obscur'd, which were a fair dismission.
But throw'st them lower then thou didst exalt them high,

Oft leav'st them to the hostile sword

Of Heathen and prophane, thir carkasses

To dogs and fowls a prey, or else captiv'd:

Or to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,

And condemnation of the ingrateful multitude."

To find an answer Milton had to reach beyond the immedi-
ate to contemplate the design of God and the nature of man.
He must unfold the drama of Creation, Fall, and redemption.
Not Arthur and the Table Round enlisted his pen, but the
sublimer task of justifying the ways of God to men. When
Paradise Lost was finished, it had to be scrutinized by the
licenser. He examined minutely to discover any veiled con-
temporary allusions, but could smell out nothing, and he was
right. Milton was pillorying no persons under the guise of
Satan, Belial, or Beelzebub. England and humanity were his
concern.

The opening scene of Paradise Lost obscures the prob-
lem of why the saints should be brought low, for here it is
the archrebels who have been cast into the lurid abyss. Milton,
himself an outcast, felt the sympathy of common circum-
stance with those who had been ejected but yet were not
broken in spirit. Many commentators have sensed in the poet
an unavowed admiration for the magnificent rebel's courage
" never to submit or yield " or for that yet more audacious
outcast who counseled wearing out the patience of the Most
High. But one must not confuse Milton's dramatic artistry
with his final judgments. To be sure an uncowed spirit evokes
a transient ejaculation of applause, but in the end, as the cause
makes the martyr, so also thej:ause justifies or confounds the
insurrection. Implacable resistance to tyranny is noble, but

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 203

the most superb defiance of God is ultimately base. Courage
cannot justify itself. There is some higher and absolute refer-
ence. Milton would not begin by relativizing God.

The opening scene of the poem is of course a conspiracy, a
council of war among the fallen chiefs as to how best to re-
cover their forfeited estate. Some propose direct attack, but
Satan, who quivers from the shock of the encounter, dis-
misses such a fatuous suggestion. The plan that at length
commends itself is that of seeking to undo God at the point
of his creation, and Satan therefore insinuates himself into
the Garden with intent to seduce God's glorious and frail
creation, to beguile the primal pair by false ideas one is
tempted to add, as the Restoration pamphleteers were then
doing in their legends of Charles the martyr.

The story then moves back to give an account of the Crea-
tion. Adam is made of the dust of the earth, a superb creature.
Eve is wondrous fair. Was Milton reminiscent of Leonora
Baroni? The mother of mankind "infused sweetness into
the heart unfelt before."

" Grace was in all her steps, Heav'n in her Eye,
In every gesture dignitie and love."

Created because God saw it was not good for man to be
alone, she was the perfect mate, whose " sweet compliance
declared unfeigned union of mind." She plied her husband
with questions and listened adoringly to his responses. The
perfect wife!

Now Satan is abroad in the Garden. He is espied from
Paradise, and a warning is sent to Adam and Eve, who well
know that the condition of their bliss is that they shall refrain
from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for in the day in which they eat of it they shall surely die.

The fall begins before the Fall Adam and Eve are dressing

2O4 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

the vines of the Garden when Eve proposes that they should
divide their labors in the interest of greater efficiency.

" Let us divide our labours, thou where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this Arbour, or direct
The clasping Ivie where to climb, while I
In yonder Spring of Roses intermixt
With Myrtle, find what to redress till Noon."

Adam requires the reason for such increased production in
a garden where all things needful are supplied. He would not
be deprived of her company for the sake of a little more fruit.
" For not to irksome toil but to delight God made us." Of
course,, if Eve craves a little solitude, he will not begrudge it,,
for " short retirement urges sweet return." So far Adam had
carried himself well, and had he stopped here. Eve might
have been deterred. But he went on to add that by herself she
would be more open to the seductions of Satan now abroad
in the Garden. Then her back is up and she pours out upon
Adam all the arguments of the Areofagitica. His fear be-
speaks a lack of confidence in her " firm faith and love."

" And what is Faith, Love, Vertue unassaid
Alone, without exterior help sustaind? "

Adam is Milton the licenser, who must remind her that free
will can be abused and even reason may " fall into deception
unaware." Yet for all his misgivings he will not repudiate his
liberalism and interpose constraint.

" Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
Go in thy native innocence, relie
On what thou hast of vertue, summon all,
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine."

And Eve trips blithely into the bushes.
Then Satan as a serpent raises his head and speaks. Eve is

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND 205

amazed. Not that in Paradise any wonder should amaze, save
this, that a lower creature should speak, inasmuch as God had
conferred speech on man alone. The serpent explained that
he had chanced upon a goodly tree laden with fruit of fairest
colors, mixed ruddy and gold. He had eaten, and a strange
alteration had given him the power of speech. Eve desires of
course to see the tree, and at once recognizes it as the one of
which she may not taste. Satan remonstrates. Not eat of this
" sacred, wise and wisdom giving plant, mother of science " ?
It is Galileo speaking. What harm can there be in reading the
riddles of the universe, charting the stars, splitting the -atoms ?
How ridiculous the threat that he who tastes of this fruit shall
surely die!

" Doe not believe

Those rigid threats of Death; ye shall not Die:
How should ye? by the Fruit? it gives you Life
To Knowledge."

" Meanwhile the hour of noon drew on." Eve hungered. The
fruit was savory and she ate.

Her eyes were opened. Should she tell Adam, or should she
enjoy this newly won advantage which overcame the inferior-
ity of her sex? But she resolves to tell him, so dear to her is
his love.

Now Adam meanwhile had " wove of choicest flowers a
garland to adorn her tresses." She comes to him with counte-
nance blithe and tells her tale. Adam, " astonied stood and
blank, while horror chill ran through his veins, and all his
joints relaxed." Well he knew that Eve would die and he
alone live on forever. Might he perhaps give up another rib
and let God make another Eve? Not that: "Loss of thee
would never from my heart." Fully aware then of what he
was about, Adam tasted of the apple in order that he might

206 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

share the doom of Eve. Through chivalry he fell.

There follows a moment of voluptuous delight. Then bit-
terness ensues, and Eve starts to upbraid Adam for granting
the liberty she had craved, just as children demand to have
their way and, when things go wrong, reproach their parents
for having given in. Adam and Eve are quarreling as they
are cast out of the Garden. Having sacrificed integrity for
love, Adam has lost also the love for which the sacrifice was
made.

All this may seem to have wandered far from the theme of
liberty yet not so far. Love cannot thrive without integ-
rity; no more can freedom. At long last all comes back to
truth. For all its varieties, it is yet truth. And all refers to God
and his laws of virtue and soundness of mind.

The archangel Michael points the lesson when he assures
Adam and Eve that their plight is not hopeless. They can
yet make of earth a paradise if they will observe that love and
liberty can thrive only when blessed with virtue and right
reason.

" Yet know withall,
Since thy original lapse, true Libertie
Is lost, which alwayes with right Reason dwells
Twinn'd, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscur'd, or not obeyd,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart Passions catch the Government
From Reason, and to servitude reduce
Man till then free. Therefore since hee permits
Within himself unworthie Powers to reign
Over free Reason, God, in Judgement just
Subjects him from without to violent Lords;
Who oft as undeservedly enthrall
His outward freedom: Tyrannic must be,
Though to the Tyrant thereby no excuse.

THE BARD OF SPEECH UNBOUND

Yet sometimes Nations will decline so low
From vertue, which is reason, that no wrong,
But Justice, and some fatal curse annext
Deprives them o thir outward libertie,
Thir inward lost."

This, then, appears to be the moral, that the fall of the
saints is but the nemesis of their own excess, and the guaran-
tee of liberty is not, after all, the sound sense of Englishmen
as Englishmen, nor even of the saints, but only of those qual-
ities rooted in God which alone can make a commonwealth
holy and free. Milton ends by no means with despair. In
"Paradise Regained," the Saviour declines to establish his
Kingdom by constraint, holding it rather " more humane,
more heavenly first by winning words to conquer willing
hearts and make persuasion do the work of fear."

THE SEEKER:
T^pger Williams

Roger Williams, the lonely seeker who flanks the monument
of the Reformation, has been selected to exemplify the strug-
gle for religious liberty in the New
World. He is a particularly intri-
guing figure because although ban-
ished by a Calvinist theocracy he was
at certain points even more Calvinist
in his theology than his opponents.
Williams was an Englishman, born in
1603 and thus a contemporary of Mil-
ton. His career was divided between
the Old World and the New. Wil-
liams illustrates full well the intimate
relation of the coincident battle for
freedom in the colonies and in the
Roger Williams mother land. The aims were similar;

the circumstances were distinct.

The peculiar circumstance of the New World was that
here " God hath set before us an open door of liberty," which
by no means meant the establishment of a community where
each should be free to go to hell in his own way. Liberty con-
sisted in the opportunity to erect a commonwealth that would
concede very little liberty to the dissenter. The hope was to
do in the New World that which had failed in the Old. In
virgin territory, untrammeled by all the incubus of a per-

THE SEEKER 2Op

verted tradition, a new Canaan should be reared in the wil-
derness. The objective was well voiced by John Cotton when
he said : " And therefore it is for us to do all the good we can,
and to leave nothing to those that shall come after us, but to
walk in the righteous steps of their forefathers. And there-
fore let us not leave, nor give rest to our eyes, until in family,
church, and commonwealth we have set a pattern of holiness
to those that shall succeed us."

The Puritan dream for a new world was an extension of the
optimism already ingrained in Calvinism that God through
the elect would achieve his purpose in the course of the his-
torical process through the erection of his Kingdom. It was a
phase of that optimism which in the 1640'$ inspired Milton
with his confidence that the English were a people highly
favored and chosen of the Lord to sound the tidings of the
Reformation. And when hopes for England waned, all the
more were looks averted from a blighted land to a shore that,
though bleak, barren, and rugged to the outward eye, yet
was burgeoning with possibilities for those who would plant
in the spirit a new Israel of God.

But then, of course, arose again the problem of knowing
who constituted the New Israel. What were the marks of the
elect? The answer was basically Calvinist, that the chosen
are for all practical purposes those who profess the true creed,
exhibit a righteous life, and come to the Lord's Table. But
New England Calvinism added a fourth requirement of even
greater import. In so doing it was reverting to the test origi-
nally posited by Thomas Miintzer of a definite experience of
inner regeneration. The saints are those who can testify, not
only to the intellectual and ethical signs of grace, but also to
the emotional. Candidates for church membership must give
evidence that " they have been wounded in their hearts for
their original sin, and actual transgressions, and can pitch
upon some promise of free grace in the Scripture, for the

210 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

ground of their faith, and that they find their hearts drawn
to believe in Christ Jesus, for their justification and salva-
tion." What a ring of personal experience there is in the
" solemn and public promise before the Lord, whereby a
company of Christians, called by the power and mercy of
God and fellowship with Christ, and by his providence to
live together in the unity of faith, and brotherly love, and
desirous to partake together in all the holy Ordinances of
God, do in confidence of his gracious acceptance in Christ,
bind themselves to the Lord 5 and to one another, to walk to-
gether by the assistance of his Spirit in all such ways of holy
worship in him and of edification one towards another, as
the Gospel of Christ requireth of every Christian Church and
the members thereof "!

Such a test is of all the most difficult to discern, and the
most tormenting to achieve and perpetuate, precisely because
it is so inward. The problem was immediate as to the exact
way in which the colony should be constituted and perpetu-
ated. The founders were Protestants and would emphatically
not base their commonwealth on celibacy with survival con-
tingent upon a steady stream of new recruits. They were or-
ganized on a family basis and relied in part for perpetuation
upon propagation. Then the question was how to preserve
the pattern among their own children. To make Abrahams
out of Isaacs is no easy matter, particularly if they have been
sacrificed on the altars of their parents 5 devotion. One way of
preserving the pattern is to shield the children from con-
tamination by placing some sort of hedge about the commu-
nity. This is the device employed by the Hutterites, Men-
nonites in the more extreme branches, and the Dukhobors.
The Amish, for example, exclude the outside world by pro-
hibiting automobiles, telephones, movies, comics, and the
like.

THE SEEKER 211

The Puritans, however, did not choose the way of segrega-
tion. They had no mind to separate themselves from the
mother country, " dear England, left indeed by us in our per-
sons, but never yet forsaken in our affections." Neither did
they desire for the most part to separate from the Church of
England. The preface to the Cambridge Platform in 1648
declared that " we, who are by nature Englishmen, do desire
to hold forth the same doctrine of religion (especially in fun-
damentals) which we see and know to be held by the Church
of England according to the truth of the Gospel." Their hope
was not to lose contact with England, but rather, by their
" hazardous and voluntary banishment into this remote wil-
derness," to stir up the old land to an emulation of the new
pattern. Nor, again, did the emigrants seek to segregate them-
selves from the Indians; for the purpose in coming had been
" chiefly to display the efficacy and power of the Gospel, both
in zealous preaching, professing, and wise walking under it
before the faces of these poor blind infidels." Finally they
would not separate themselves from the " unregenerated,
that are aliens to the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to
the covenant of promise."

This is the most amazing element in all their program that
a body with intent to plant a holy commonwealth should not
insist at the very outset upon a homogeneous complexion.
Even at the very beginning there were saints and strangers,
" profane men who, being but seeming Christians, have made
Christ and Christianity stink in the nostrils of the poor in-
fidels." How could the pattern be maintained? How could
the community be perpetuated if it were not pure even in the
beginning? The answer was by conversion. The same power
that had been operative in Old England in calling forth a
regenerate people would no less manifest itself in the New
World in winning and holding saints. The Indians should be

212 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

converted, the children should be converted, the strangers
should be converted. Surely in all history never was there a
more transcendent optimism!

There was, nevertheless, one very definite safeguard. The
saints should rule. Church members alone could vote, and
they alone could be church members who exhibited all the
evidences including the emotional signs of grace. State and
Church were one, but Church, State, and community did
not coincide. Those who were not of the Church were not
citizens, but only inhabitants, even though they might con-
stitute, as at New Haven, but nine tenths of the population.
That they should be willing to subject themselves to the rule
of the saints must appear very surprising. The only answer
can be that, if they were not saints, they nevertheless aspired
to be. They respected the saints, and were willing that they
should set the tone for the community. Also it must be re-
membered that most of these people had not lost anything by
way of political privilege, since in the old country they were
debarred from the franchise by the property qualification.
Here, then, was a community that did indeed display a pat-
tern of liberty to an astonishing degree, in that it set out to
preserve its quality, not by the rope and the gallows, but by
producing conviction. They would " by winning words win
willing hearts and let persuasion do the work of fear." *

In the course of time, however, the rule of a handful of
saints produced restiveness. The masses were eager to qualify
for the society of the elite. The problem was all the more
acute because the Puritans, if unable to transmit to their chil-
dren an experience of grace, yet succeeded in instilling into
them a rugged honesty which disdained to make a pretense
of grace in order to be admitted to the Lord's Table and to
the town meeting. Then the temptation became urgent, if
the demands could not be met, to lower the qualifications.
The Cambridge Platform already in 1648 was on the road

THE SEEKER 213

toward relaxation. " Severity of examination should be
avoided . . . and such charity and tenderness should be used
as the weakest Christian if sincere may not be excluded." The
tests should be only vigorous enough to satisfy a " rational
charity." In this spirit the saints were defined as, first: " Such
as have not only attained the knowledge of the principles of
religion, and are free from gross and open scandals, but also
do together with the profession of their faith and repentance,
walk in blameless obedience to the Word, so as that in chari-
table discretion they may be accounted saints by calling
(though perhaps some or more of them be unsound, and
hypocrites inwardly) "; and, second, " The children of such,
who are also holy."

Some proposed to go even farther and to include the grand-
children of the saints, but the framers of the Cambridge Plat-
form were not willing to see the elect of New Canaan de-
generate into the elite of New England. They dug in their
toes. Yet before the end of the century the Halfway Covenant
had included even the grandchildren. The alternative to this
method was a revival which would generate the requisite ex-
perience. Thus the Puritan commonwealth oscillated between
efforts to lower the standards to the level of the community
and revivals to raise the community to the level of the stand-
ards.

But what, then, should be done with those who rejected the
standards altogether, who repudiated the very ideals on
which the commonwealth was established? They might be
of upright life. If so, they were only the more insidious and
seductive because their exemplary demeanor would make
their attack the more plausible. Here again was the old ques-
tion whether the moral or the doctrinal offender constitutes
the greater menace, and New England like Geneva displayed
more leniency to the one who failed to live up to the ideal
that he professed than to the one who refused to make any

214 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

profession. But in that case what should be done with the
nonconformist ? There was more than one possibility. When
Obadiah Holmes refused to have his child baptized, he was
fined. He denied the jurisdiction of the court and declined to
pay the fine. Then he was whipped. The favorite method of
punishment was expulsion from the community. This did
not appear to be an illiberal solution. It was the European sys-
tem of territorialism: "To each region its religion," with
freedom to migrate for dissent. Nowhere was this method less
illiberal than in the New World, where open land was abun-
dant and the hardships of moving no greater than those ex-
perienced by every other breaker of the wilderness. The Bay
colonists believed in their right to stake off a piece of ground
and ask of settlers only this, that either they should subscribe
to the principles of the foundation or go somewhere else. But
the Quakers denied the right to stake off a corner of the earth
in which to intern oneself against the spokesman of the spirit.
" The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," and no
one has any authority to pre-empt a section. The Quakers in-
vaded Massachusetts. The Puritans put them out. They said
to them, in effect, this: " If you do not like it here, go back to
Pennsylvania. You have your own colony. You can conduct
it there as you please. Be satisfied with yours and leave us
ours." The Quakers refused to be banished. They came back.
They were again expelled, and again they came back. At last
four were hanged on Boston Common. No one in this land
would today condone such barbarous treatment, but one must
not forget that an issue was involved. Has any group the right
to erect a no-trespass sign in order to carry out an experiment
in idealistic living according to some given pattern? May
there be zoning laws in the things of the spirit?

At the moment when such issues were acute Roger Wil-
liams arrived in Massachusetts. The year was 1631. He was
then twenty-eight years of age. He was given a pastorate in

THE SEEKER 215

Boston from which because of scruples of conscience he re-
tired to Plymouth and from there received a call to Salem.
After but four years of ministry in Massachusetts, he was
banished in 1635 because of a rejection of the cardinal tenets
of the theocracy. The manner of his dismissal was harsh, in
that he was forced to leave in the inclement season of the
year. Leaving for the time being his wife and two children,
he took refuge with the Narragansett Indians. Thirty-five
years later he declared that he could still feel the bite of that
winter snow as he sought an asylum " in the howling wil-
derness." The spot that harbored him was called Providence.

The first reason for his banishment was that he denied the
validity of the patent from the English crown conferring a
title to Massachusetts, because the English king has no right
to expropriate the lands of the Indians and confer them upon
his subjects. Nor would Williams concede the contention of
John Cotton that the Indians were the Amalekites, rightfully
to be displaced by the new Israelites, on whom God had con-
ferred this Canaan. The war with Amalek, said Williams, is to
be spiritualized, and the only proper way to acquire land from
the Indians is not by conquest, nor by purchase, but only by
good will and free gift. The lands that he later acquired
around Providence he did not pretend to have paid for. What
he had given was merely a token of gratitude and not an
equivalent for the gracious generosity of the Indians.

The denial, however, that the Indians were the Amalekites
was much less disconcerting to the Bay than the rejection of
the claim of the Puritans to be the Israelites. Ancient Israel
did constitute a national Church, said Williams, but properly
speaking it is the only valid example in all history, because
after Christ the Jewish nation ceased to be the chosen people.
From that day forward the elect have been gathered into the
Christian Church, but this can never be identified with any
nation. There is no such thing as Christendom unless the

2l6 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

term be applied to the Church itself and not to any geograph-
ical entity, since no nation is really Christian. The Church
and the world are not Christian. Among them are lukewarm
Protestants who are worse than ignorant papists. No whole
populace ever was or ever will be wholly regenerate. The
entire Puritan dream of establishing a provincial Church
after the pattern of a national Church is utterly illusory. An-
cient Canaan was called " Jehovah's Land " and " Imman-
uePs Land/' " which names and titles I think Master Cotton
will not say are competent and appliable to any other lands or
countries under the Gospel, but only to the spiritual Canaan
or Israel, the Church and people of God, the true and only
Christendom ... to the then only Church of God Master
Cotton can produce no parallel to that, but the Christian
Churches and people of God, not national but Congrega-
tional." Part of the reason is that a Christian community
should not and cannot be maintained and perpetuated by the
methods the Bay employed. One method was the way of
comprehension which modified the standards in order that
a larger number might be able to attain. Such a dilution was
in Williams' eyes fatal to the purity of the Church. When
the hedge is broken down, the garden becomes a wilderness.
The standards must be pitched so high that only the regen-
erate can qualify. Williams took more seriously the concepts
of election and reprobation than did the Puritan colony itself,
in that he would endeavor to fashion the Church only out of
the elect. In this respect he was, of course, reviving the Ana-
baptist attempt to purge the Church of the tares, an ideal that
Calvin had always disclaimed. And yet Calvin himself closely
approximated the Anabaptist ideal by positing certain pre-
sumptive tests whereby the elect could be recognized. Wil-
liams proposed to heighten rather than to diminish the
requirements, and thus refused to make the Church cotermi-
nous with an un weeded society. He declared:

THE SEEKER 217

" From this perverse wresting of what is writ to the Church
and the officers thereof, as if it were written to the civil State
and officers thereof, all may see how the Church and civil
State are now become one flock of Jesus Christ; Christ's
sheep, and the pastors or shepherds of them, all one with the
several unconverted, wild, or tame beasts and cattle of the
world, and the civil and earthly governors of them; . . .
Christ's lilies, garden, and love, all one with the thorns, the
daughters, and wilderness of the world." Williams was in-
deed so extreme in his separatism that " for a season he with-
drew communion in spiritual duties even from his wife, till
at length he drew her to partake with him in the error of his
way." So reports John Cotton.

The standards, then, should not be reduced. At the same
time Mr. Cotton's dream of converting everyone in the en-
tire community in order that all might be able to meet the
requirements was entirely fatuous. One ought indeed to
make the attempt, but Mr. Cotton himself conceded that no
wholesale conversion was to be expected until after the com-
ing of Antichrist. Williams at this point was placing his
finger upon a practical paradox in Calvinism in the combina-
tion of predestination and revivalism. A revival is very dif-
ficult to explain or justify unless its object be to save souls, but
if the number of the elect is predetermined, no amount of
revivalism can effect a change. The New England Calvinists
did not suffer themselves to be impeded by this logic from
employing the only sound method open to them for perpetu-
ating their community. Williams pressed their premises with
greater consistency.

If, then, the standards should not be diminished and con-
versions could not be expected, only one further expedient
was open for maintaining the mores of the holy common-
wealth, and that was constraint. Cotton did not propose to
apply it in every direction. He distinguished between things

21 8 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

indifferent and the fundamentals, and would use coercion
only on behalf of the latter. Williams pronounced him wrong
on both counts. He ought not to be tolerant with regard to
the things indifferent, since nothing is indifferent that God
has enjoined. Within the Church no easygoing tolerance
should obtain. At the same time no coercion should be em-
ployed either to put men out or to draw them in. The whole
fallacy of the national Church is that it cannot dispense with
constraint because a national Church must be a single
Church. If there is a single Church, there will be dissenters,
because uniformity is impossible. Williams did not defend
diversity as an ideal, and he drew no analogies from competi-
tion in trade or variation in poetry, but simply assumed that
diversity is the law of life, and men will be no more satisfied
with a single religion than they will fit themselves into one
style of coat. Since, then, variety is a fact, a national Church
without coercion is unattainable.

And if force be once allowed, it will be used not only to in-
sure the norms of the community but also to extend its con-
fines. The maintenance and the extension alike will be fos-
tered by the sword. However great may be the disclaimer of
any intent to convert by force, soon the commonwealth will
be overreaching its borders. Wars of religion will ensue.

But whichever be the purpose, whether to maintain or to
extend, force in religion ought to be disowned. The first rea-
son is the grave danger of making a mistake. Often enough
the saints have been put to death as heretics, as in the case of
Hus, and Christ himself was condemned as a deceiver. Here
once more is the rational argument that no infallible tests and
no infallible persons exist by which and by whom to admin-
ister coercion. The rational argument in Williams is, how-
ever, comparatively scant.

He found much more congenial the considerations to be
deduced from the cleavage of flesh and spirit. There is, he

THE SEEKER 2 19

claimed, an order of the spirit and there is an order of the
flesh. The sword belongs to the one and the word to the other.
The State properly uses the sword. This Williams never de-
nied, nor was he an Anabaptist in declaring that the Chris-
tian man may not assume the office of the magistrate and
employ the sword as a servant of the State, provided he re-
strict himself to the proper sphere of the State. The point is
not that the sword as such is inadmissible, nor that the State
corresponds entirely to the reprobate and the Church exactly
to the saints. Even Williams conceded that the Church con-
tains some tares. The line between Church and State, there-
fore, is not exactly the line between the elect and the repro-
bate, but rather the line between the spirit and the flesh. The
distinction was one that Luther had drawn, but he was at
the same time insistent that spirit and flesh exist together in
the same individual and that their spheres cannot be so neatly
segregated. Williams affirmed that they can and must be sep-
arated. If the sword exceed its own province, it will but work
havoc.

" I hence observe, that there being in this Scripture held
forth a twofold state, a civil state and a spiritual, civil officers
and spiritual, civil weapons and spiritual weapons, civil
vengeance and punishment and a spiritual vengeance and
punishment: although the Spirit speaks not here expressly of
civil magistrates and their civil weapons, yet, these states be-
ing of different natures and considerations, as far differing as
spirit from flesh, I first observe, that civil weapons are most
improper and unfitting in matters of the spiritual state and
kingdom, though in the civil state most proper and suitable."

The arguments that Williams adduced in support of his
position were those formulated earlier by Castellio and since
grown to be the commonplaces of the advocates of liberty.
The first was that constraint must engender hypocrisy. " Can
the sword of steel or arm of flesh make men faithful or loyal

220 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

to God ? Or careth God for the outward loyalty or faithful-
ness, when the inward man is false and treacherous ? Or is
there not more danger from a hypocrite, a dissembler, a
turncoat in his religion (from the fear or favor of men) than
from a resolved Jew, Turk, or papist, who holds firm unto
his principles ? "

A carnal weapon or sword of steel may produce a carnal
repentance. " Faith is that gift which proceeds alone from the
Father of lights, and till he please to make his light arise and
open the eyes of blind sinners, their souls shall lie fast asleep
and the faster, in that a sword of steel compels them to a
worship in hypocrisy." Even more serious is the effect that
compulsion to religion " carries men to be of no religion all
their days, worse than the very Indians."

As for ridding the commonwealth of inconvenient persons,
toleration is more effective. With regard to the Quakers, Wil-
liams reported : " We moreover find in those places where
these people aforesaid in this colony are most of all suffered
to declare themselves freely and are only opposed by argu-
ments in discourse, there least of all they desire to come. Axid
we are informed they begin to loathe this place for that they
are not opposed by civil authority and with all meekness and
patience are suffered to say over their pretended revelation
and admonitions, nor are they like or able to gain many here
to their way." Williams was unquestionably too sanguine at
this point. The Quakers were before long to avail themselves
of the liberties * of Rhode Island and the colony was to have
Quaker governors.

The consideration most frequently and ardently invoked
by Williams in favor of liberty was the violation of con-
science entailed in persecution. Here he showed himself to
be a son of the seventeenth century, because under conscience
he included the erroneous conscience. Those who like Castel-

THE SEEKER 221

lio employed this argument in the sixteenth century were
few. One hundred years later their opinion had come more
nearly to prevail, and John Cotton appeared as almost an
anachronism in adhering to the ground of the earlier Re-
formers that one who obstinately rejects the fundamentals
sins against his own conscience. Williams stoutly defended
the integrity of the mistaken. His supporting evidences were
relatively few. He did not, like Milton, urge that truth is a
quest in which error may represent a necessary stage. He
did not regard error as an indispensable foil to truth. Nor
did he define truth as many-sided, so that those embracing
different and apparently discrepant aspects could yet both be
right. Williams' argument was simply that those who by
common consent of the Puritans were actually in error were
nonetheless as devoted and as sacrificial as those deemed to
be correct. And if devoted and if sacrificial, then to be re-
garded as sincere.

Let Williams speak. Here are passages culled from several
of his works:

" I have before discussed this point of an heretic sinning against
light of conscience: And I shall add that howsoever they lay this
down as an infallible conclusion, that all heresy is against light of
conscience; yet ... how do all idolators after light presented,
and exhortations powerfully pressed, either Turks or pagans, Jews
or anti-Christians, strongly even to the death hold fast (or rather
are held fast by) their delusions? . . .

" Yea, God's people themselves, being deluded and captivated,
are strongly confident even against some fundamentals, especially
of worship, and yet not against the light, but according to the
light or eye of a deceived conscience. . . .

" Now all these consciences walk on confidently and constantly,
even to the suffering of death and torments, and are more strongly
confirmed in their belief and conscience, because such bloody and
cruel courses of persecution are used toward them. . . .

222 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

"I speak of conscience, a persuasion fixed in the mind and
heart of a man, which enforceth him to judge and to do so and
so, with respect to God, his worship, etc. . .

"This conscience is found in alf mankind, more or less, in
Jews, Turks, papists, Protestants, pagans, etc. And to this pur-
pose let me freely without offense remember you ... [of the
story] ... of William Hartly in Queen Elizabeth her days, who
receiving the sentence of hanging, drawing, etc., spake confidently
(as afterward he suffered) : ' What tell you me of hanging, etc.
If I had ten thousand millions of lives, I would spend them all
for the faith of Rome,' etc. . . .

" I confess in this plea for freedom to all consciences in matters
(merely) of worship, I have impartially pleaded for the freedom
of the consciences of the papists themselves, the greatest enemies
and persecutors (in Europe) of the saints and truths of Jesus: yet
I have pleaded for no more than is their due and right. . . .

" However, I commend that man, whether Jew, or Turk, or
papist, or whoever, that steers no otherwise than his conscience
dares, till his conscience tells him that God gives him a greater
latitude. For, neighbor, you shall find it rare to meet with men of
conscience, men that for fear and love of God dare not lie, nor
be drunk, nor be contentious, nor steal, nor be covetous, nor volup-
tuous, nor ambitious, nor lazybodies, nor busybodies, nor dare
displease God by omitting either service or suffering, though of
reproach, imprisonment, banishment, and death, because of the
fear and love of God. . . .

" It is to me most improbable that the number of Protestants
turning papists will be great in a Protestant nation. . . . Why
should not rather the glorious beams of the Sun of Righteousness
in the free conferrings, disputings, and preachings of the gospel
of truth, be more hopefully like to expel those mists and fogs out
of the minds of men, and that papists, Jews, Turks, pagans, be
brought home, not only into the common road and way of Protes-
tantism, but to the grace of true repentance and life in Christ? I

THE SEEKER 223

say, why not this more likely, by far, than that the mists and fogs
of popery should overcloud and conquer that most glorious
Light? . . .

" [But] if any or many conscientiously turn papists: I allege the
experience of a holy, wise, and learned man, experienced in our
own and other states' affairs, who affirms that he knew but few
papists increase, where much liberty to papists was granted, yea,
fewer than where they were restrained: Yet further, that in his
conscience and judgment he believed and observed that such per-
sons as conscientiously turned papists (as believing popery the
truer way to heaven and salvation) I say, such persons were or-
dinarily more conscionable, loving, and peaceable in their dealings,
and nearer to heaven than thousands that follow a bare common
trade and road and name of Protestant religion, and yet live
without all life of conscience and devotion to God, and conse-
quently with as little love and faithfulness unto men."

Some of the passages already cited indicate that Williams
called for a sharp separation of Church and State. The reason
was not simply that the spheres of their operation are distinct,
but that the basis of their respective memberships must be
different. The State includes everybody in a given area. The
Church comprises only the regenerate, and they are bound
to be few and incompatible with the world which will cer-
tainly subject them to persecution.

" Precious pearls and jewels, and far more precious truth are
found in muddy shells and places. The rich mines of golden truth
lie hid under barren hills. . . . The most high and glorious God
hath chosen the poor of the world: and the witnesses of truth are
clothed in sackcloth, not in silk and satin, cloth of gold, or tissue.
And therefore I acknowledge, if the number of princes profess-
ing persecution be considered, it is rare to find a king, prince or
governor like Christ Jesus the King of Kings . . . who tread
not in the steps of Herod the Fox or Nero the Lion, openly or
secretly persecuting the name of the Lord Jesus."

224 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

For the sake of the Church itself, it must be separated from
the ungodly, who may and will persecute but cannot be suf-
fered to have any part in its internal life. The Bay colony
prevented this by excluding the unregenerate from the fran-
chise. They stoutly resisted any extension of the vote, for
fear that strangers would then dominate the saints. The com-
mon assertion must therefore be qualified that New England
Calvinism transmitted the democracy of Congregationalism
to the political order. This could become true only when the
principle of Roger Williams was adopted which completely
separated the two. The pattern of the Church could not be
transferred to the State unless the State were distinct from
the Church, because if the entire populace were admitted to
the electorate, the Church would be subjected to aliens. Not
until after such a fear was allayed by separation could the
democratic pattern carry over into political relations.

The result of the separation was the emancipation of the
Church but at the same time the secularization of the State.
Williams pushed to extremes the principle of Luther that
the State is not to be regarded as a Christian institution. Lu-
ther's point was simply that the State is not specifically Chris-
tian because it is valid equally among non-Christians and the
Turks are perfectly capable of a sound political administra-
tion. For Luther this was no reason why Christian mag-
istrates should not function as nursing fathers to the Church.

Williams began with Luther by pointing out how many
States had been successfully administered without the benefit
of Christianity.

" The commonwealth of Rome flourished five hundred years
together, before ever the name of Christ was heard in it; which
so great a glory of so great a continuance, mightily evinceth the
distinction of the civil peace of a State from that which is Chris-
tian religion. . . .

THE SEEKER 225

" And since also the Turkish monarchy hath flourished many
generations in external and outward prosperity and glory, not-
withstanding their religion is false. . . .

" If none but true Christians, members of Christ Jesus, might
be civil magistrates, and publicly intrusted with civil affairs, . . .
then none but members of churches, Christians should be hus-
bands of wives, fathers of children, masters of servants: But
against this doctrine the whole creation, the whole world, may
justly rise up in arms, as not only contrary to true piety, but com-
mon humanity itself. For if a commonweal be lawful amongst
men that have not heard of God nor Christ, certainly their officers,
ministers, and governors must be lawful also. 1 *

All this Luther could have said, but Williams went on to
make much more drastic deductions, in that he affirmed that
since a non-Christian could be a magistrate, a Christian when
acting in the capacity of a magistrate could do no more than
a non-Christian and should not therefore undertake to med-
dle with religion,

" A P a an or anti-Christian pilot may be as skillful to carry the
ship to its desired port as any Christian mariner or pilot in the
world, and may perform that work with as much safety and
speed: yet have they not command over the souls and consciences
of their passengers, or mariners under them, although they may
justly see to the labor of the one, and the civil behavior of all in
the ship. A Christian pilot . . . performs the same work (as like-
wise doth the metaphorical pilot in the ship of the commonweal)
from a principle of knowledge and experience; but more than
this, he acts from a root of the fear of God and love to mankind
in his whole course. Secondly, his aim is more to glorify God
than to gain his pay, or make his voyage. Thirdly, he walks
heavenly with men and God, in a constant observation of God's
hand in storms, calms, etc. So that the thread of navigation, being
equally spun by a believing or unbelieving pilot, yet is ... drawn

226 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

over with the gold of godliness and Christianity by a Christian
pilot, while he is holy in all manner of Christianity. . . . But
lastly, the Christian pilot's power over the souls and consciences of
his sailors and passengers is not greater than that of the anti-
Christian, otherwise than he can subdue the souls of any by the
two-edged sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and by his holy
demeanor in his place. . . .

" There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in
one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of
a commonwealth, or a human combination or society. It hath
fallen out sometimes, that both papists and Protestants, Jews and
Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I
affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for
turns upon these two hinges that none of the papists, Protes-
tants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or
worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or
worship, if they practice any. I further add, that I never denied
that, notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of this ship
ought to command the ship's course, yea, and also command that
justice, peace, and sobriety, be kept and practiced, both among the
seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to per-
form their services, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse
to help, in person or purse, toward the common charges or de-
fense; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the
ship, concerning their common peace or preservation; if any shall
mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers; if any
should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders or
officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters nor
officers, no laws nor orders, nor corrections nor punishments;
I say, I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pretended,
the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and
punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits."

Thus Roger Williams achieved religious liberty by the
high price of opening the door to the secularization of the
State. Often in our day this achievement is vaunted as his

THE SEEKER 227

greatest contribution to liberty, and the new problems
thereby created are overlooked. One may justly wonder
whether, rather, his greatest contribution is not to be found
in his tolerant spirit. He was commonly a reconciler. As one
who had lived among the Indians and knew their speech, he
sought to keep the peace among them and between them
and the white colonists. The Bay recognized his services at
this point and considered recalling him from banishment,
but their gratitude could not quite bring them to reduce the
standards of the holy commonwealth. He should remain in
exile, yet esteemed and thanked.

His personal relations with the men of all parties were
marked by both frank controversy and friendliness. A person
who could retain the friendship of Cromwell, Milton, Endi-
cott, and Winthrop was certainly, even if he were not a gen-
ius, yet a man of amazing quality. Williams had learned the
high art of carrying on a battle of ideas without loss of re-
spect, esteem, and affection.

He remonstrated very openly with the Bay for their deal-
ings with the Indians. " Have they not entered leagues of
love, and to this day continued peaceable commerce with us?
Are not our families grown up in peace amongst them?
Upon which I humbly ask, how it can suit with Christian in-
genuity to take hold of some seeming occasions for their de-
structions ? "

He remonstrated with the Bay over religious persecution.
Nothing could have been more direct than his apostrophe to
Endicott: " It is a dismal battle for poor naked feet to kick
against the pricks. It is a dreadful voice from the King of
Kings, and Lord of Lords: Endicott, Endicott, why huntest
thou me? Why imprisonest thou me? Why finest, why so
bloodily whippest, why wouldest thou (did not I hold thy
bloody hands) hang and burn me? Yes, Sir, I beseech you
to remember that it is a dangerous thing to put this to the

228 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

maybe . . . that in fighting against several sorts of con-
sciences ... I have not fought against God, that I have not
persecuted Jesus in some of them ? "

He was equally forthright with Winthrop, telling him that
he mourned his nakedness and poverty in spirituals, yet at
the same time wished him well in a civil way and hoped that
the way of the Lord Jesus might be more fully disclosed to
them both.

Winthrop reminded him that they thought differently.
" Yes/' replied Williams, " and the fire will try your works
and mine. The Lord Jesus help us to make sure of our per-
sons that we seek Jesus that was crucified. However it is and
ever shall be ... my endeavor to pacify and allay, where I
meet with rigid and censorious spirits who not only blame
your actions but doom your persons; and indeed it was one
of the first grounds of my dislike of John Smith the miller,
and especially of his wife, viz., their judging of your persons
as devils."

To young Winthrop, then living in Connecticut, the son of
the man who had subscribed to his banishment from the Bay,
Williams wrote saying, " Your loving lines in this cold dead
season were as a cup of your Connecticut cider."

Controversies of spirit with spirit and even body with body
we seem scarcely able to surmount. To be able to struggle
even to the point of banishing and being banished in the
winter's cold and yet to preserve the unity of the spirit and
the bond of peace may well be the highest of Christian attain-
ments.

Hine

THE APOLOGIST FOR THE ACT OF TOLERATION:

John

The record of particular episodes in the struggle for religious
liberty often reads like chapters in the story of lost causes.
Doubly so is this the case if the bio-
graphical approach is chosen, because
so often those who fought against
persecution died themselves as the
victims of persecution. Roger Wil-
liams in exile in the colonies and
Milton in enforced retirement in
England are scarcely the symbols of
tolerance triumphant. Nevertheless,
just as one cannot write off the tol-
eration controversy of the sixteenth
century as barren of results, neither
can one dismiss the strivings of the
sectaries in England and America
during the seventeenth century as fruitless for liberty. At the
close of the Cromwellian period England was more disposed
to tolerance, if for no other reason on account of fatigue and
yearning for tranquillity. Charles II rightly thought to facili-
tate his return to England by promising a general amnesty
and by declaring " a liberty to tender consciences and that no
man shall be disquieted or called into question for differences
of opinion in matter of religion which do not disturb the
peace of the kingdom.' 5

John L.oc'ke

230 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Yet the reigns of Charles II and James II were marked by
the last important resurgence of persecution. The reason was
curiously in large part a fear of persecution. Englishmen
would not tolerate Catholics because they did not trust Cath-
olics to be tolerant of Protestants. However much a Catholic
might aver his tolerance, the suspicion could not be allayed
that if he were given the power, he would revert to the In-
quisition and the stake. Such fears in the seventeenth century
could not be considered groundless if one watched the course
of events in France where, despite a political loyalty vocifer-
ously expressed by the Huguenots, Louis XIV progressively
curtailed their liberties, suppressed their churches, and in the
end, by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, sent
thousands of them into exile.

For that reason every move on the part of Charles II to
fulfill his promise of indulgence, if it included any relaxation
for Catholics, was looked upon askance by Parliament lest
the glove should prove to hold the whip. And again such mis-
giving was not without warrant, for Charles did entertain a
vast plan whereby England should be made Catholic in re-
ligion and absolutist in government. French arms should
effect the revolution. But the kind of Catholicism that Charles
envisaged was that of his grandfather Henry IV rather than
that of his cousin Louis XIV. The Church in England should
be dependent only in spirituals on Rome. Subscription in
dogma should not be exacted with rigidity and the sects
should be tolerated. Charles may very well have been sincere
in saying, " I am in my nature an enemy to all severity for
religion and conscience, howsoever mistaken it be, when it
extends to capital and sanguinary punishments." But Eng-
land was too impressed by the transformation of the tolerant
Catholicism of Henry IV into the intolerance of Louis XIV
to believe that Catholicism in power could long concede
liberty.

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 23!

Charles II was too astute openly to avow his grand scheme.
He early perceived that the achievement of political abso-
lutism in England was possible only on the basis of an
ostensible adherence to the Protestant religion. For that rea-
son he concealed his real position until his death. But enough
about him savored of Romanism to evoke suspicion without
any direct profession. His mother had been a Catholic; his
sister in whom he confided was in France and was a Catho-
lic; one of his natural sons was a Jesuit. The alliance with
France and all the subsidies from France bespoke friendliness
for the Catholic power. The king's brother, James the Duke
of York, openly declared himself to be a Catholic and he was
the heir to the throne. Hence there were plots to prevent a
Catholic succession, with all the suspicion and severity that
plots engender. The upshot of it all was, as far as the Catho-
lics were concerned, that by the Test Act of 1673 all were ex-
cluded from public office who did not disclaim the doctrine
of transubstantiation. Yet the succession to the throne was
not altered, and James the Catholic followed his brother.

But if the hostility against Rome was motivated by distrust
and fear of Roman intolerance, one might suppose that the
attitude toward the sectaries would have been indulgent. It
was not so, however. The reason was very similar. The sec-
taries themselves had been intolerant. Cromwell's spirit had
not prevailed and the prayer book had been proscribed, and
Cromwell himself had not scrupled to behead the Lord's
anointed. The best hope for tranquillity appeared to lie in the
maintenance of the middle way of the solid, sober Church of
England. The sectaries were even looked upon as the allies
of Rome, because by their defection from the national Estab-
lishment they weakened the solid front against the papacy.
Then, too, there were those, especially of the clergy, who had
old scores to settle, though one would suppose that their
grievances could have been sufficiently redressed by restora-

232 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

tion to their former sees through the eviction of those ap-
pointed during the interregnum. That further steps were
taken in the direction of the suppression of sectarianism can
only be explained in part as a fear of disorder and in part as
a refusal to acknowledge the dissolution of Christendom. On
a European scale, of course, it was gone, but on a national
scale Englishmen still clung to the ideal of one State and one
Church embracing one people, born and baptized into a
commonwealth both of earth and of heaven. For this they
would make one last effort by constraint. The paradox of
persecution on the part of men weary of persecution is after
all no greater than recourse to war on the part of those weary
of war when new perils loom and new goals appear un-
attainable save by arms.

The actual measures against the nonconformists were en-
acted under Charles II in the Clarendon Code, including the
Conventicle Act, forbidding unauthorized meetings of as
many as five persons at a time, and the Five-Mile Act which
forbade ministers of the sects to come within five miles of
cities. The most drastic stroke was the Uniformity Act of
1662, which required all the clergy to give unfeigned assent
to The Boo^ of Common Prayer newly revised. They must
also renounce the Solemn League and Covenant and profess
the unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king. Those
who refused to comply by the feast of St. Bartholomew
should be deprived. Some 1,700 declined. They were called
Bartholomeans because the terminus had been set for St.
Bartholomew's Day. If to them be added those earlier evicted,
the number approximates 2,000. The hardships of those thus
cast out with families and denied the right either to preach
or to teach were undoubtedly severe, yet Calamy's Sufferings
of the Clergy is far different from Foxe's Boo% of Martyrs or
Van Braght's Bloody Mirror. Calamy discovered a merciful
providence in that " few of them either perished or were ex-

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 233

posed to sordid, unseemly beggary." Either by manual la-
bor or by the generosity of congregations or by teaching
with the connivance of the authorities,, a way was found to
support wives and families. Greater were the sufferings of
clergy and laity alike who for disobedience to the Conventicle
Act and the Five-Mile Act suffered distraint of goods and
prolonged imprisonments. In the course of twenty years some
eight ministers died in prison. The last persecution, which
kept Bunyan in Bedford jail and so many Quakers in dur-
ance, is not by any means to be minimized. Neither is it to be
exaggerated, for the treatment of dissent had been greatly
modified since the days of Torquemada or Servetus.

James II, when in 1685 he succeeded his brother Charles II,
felt that the time had come for toleration; he therefore issued,
in 1687, a Declaration of Indulgence, in which he candidly
avowed his own adherence to the Church of Rome and his
wish that all his subjects might be members of this com-
munion. " Yet we humbly thank Almighty God, it is and has
of long time been our constant sense and opinion that con-
science ought not to be constrained nor people forced in mat-
ters of mere religion. It has ever been contrary to our inclina-
tion, as we think it is to the interest of government, which it
destroys by spoiling trade, depopulating countries, and dis-
couraging strangers, and finally, that it never obtained the
end for which it was employed."

There were two counts that made this declaration unac-
ceptable. The first was that the king was a Catholic, apd Eng-
lishmen suspected his indulgence as a device for removing
the restraints upon the practice of his own faith without
sincere concern for the consciences of others. The king's pre-
vious behavior warranted -distrust, for on his accession he had
demanded of the Scottish estates the most sanguinary law
enacted on the island against Protestant nonconformists. Un-
der its provisions the aged widow Margaret Maclachlan and

234 THE AVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

a lass of eighteen, Margaret Wilson, for refusal to say, " God
save the King/' without adding, " if it be God's will," were
chained in the Solway at low water and engulfed by the ris-
ing tide,

The second count against the declaration was that it had
been promulgated solely on the royal prerogative without
parliamentary authorization. Seven bishops refused to read it
in their churches, and on that account were sent to the Tower
and tried for disloyalty. They were acquitted.

England had had enough. The king must be a Protestant.
An invitation was therefore issued to the king's son-in-law,
William, Prince of Orange, to come over from Holland to
England and assume the government. Thus came to pass the
Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The religious question had now to be settled. William
would have been glad to make the Church of England more
comprehensive by reducing its demands and thus allaying
the scruples of many who remained without. He would at
the same time tolerate all who could not subscribe and would
make no religious tests for public office. The attempt to enact
this program into law was only partially successful. The Bill
of Comprehension designed to facilitate conformity through
a reduction in the requirements was a failure. The Anglican
leaders were not willing to augment numbers at the price of
such dilution. But toleration for dissenters succeeded and
found its expression in the famous Act of Toleration of 1689.

This document is commonly regarded as one of the mile-
stones in the struggle for religious liberty. In and of itself it
was not much. The older legislation of the Conventicle Act
and the Five-Mile Act was not repealed, but the number of
people to whom it might be applied was reduced. The Pres-
byterians and Independents escaped if they would subscribe
to all of the Thirty-nine Articles save those bearing on polity
and liturgy. The Baptists need not adhere to the article on

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT

235

infant baptism. Quakers received a special exemption from
the obligation to take an oath. But Catholics and Unitarians
were left still entirely without the pale, and disabilities as to
public office and university degrees continued to apply to all
nonconformists.

The Act of Toleration was very meager compared with
the liberties subsequently achieved in England and the
United States. Its .significance is less to be found in its actual
enactments than in its position on the boundary betweejtxtwo

A Cartoon: "A Delicate Dainty Damnable Dialogue Between
the Devill and a Jesuite'"

eras. Behind lay the Inquisition, the wars of religion, the
dragonnades, imprisonments, and exiles. The sixteenth cen-
tury had been marked by extensive use of the death penalty
for heresy and the seventeenth, in England, by incarceration
or exile plus many social distraints. The eighteenth century

236 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

was the age of the Enlightenment, with its war upon super-
stition, fanaticism, and bigotry, even to the point of its ex-
tinguishing all enthusiasm. The Act of Toleration stands at
the threshold of this change. Its ambiguity lies in the effort
to combine religious liberty with a national Establishment, to
bring together a union of Church and State and freedom of
religion. The concept of a Christian society, if only on a na-
tional scale, was still not abandoned, yet tacitly was relin-
quished when the sects were conceded an existence along-
side of the Church.

The man who best epitomizes this whole development is
John Locke. He was not an exciting figure. His life, despite
one exile, was comparatively uneventful. His ideas were not
profoundly original albeit extremely influential, and his style
was drab. Drama belongs to the days of intense persecution.
Toleration was achieved by matter-of-fact people who, with-
out any fanfare, had learned something about the everyday
art of living together.

Yet all this is true only in a comparative sense as over
against the days of Torquemada and Servetus. The times of
John Locke were stirring enough. Born in 1632, he was ten
years old when the civil wars broke out in England. His fa-
ther supported the Puritan side and was well-nigh ruined in
the early reverses, but sufficiently recouped by the subsequent
triumphs to be able to send his son to Oxford. John Locke
thus studied there during the Puritan ascendancy. The prob-
lem of a public career then confronted him. The cloth was
rather too narrow of cut. Diplomatic service appealed, and
he went on a mission to Cleve in 1665. The decision, how-
ever, was for medicine, in which he distinguished himself;
and medicine curiously led him into politics for in 1667
he became the physician and secretary to Lord Shaftesbury,
the progenitor of the Whigs. Ill health sent Locke to France
for a sojourn of four years from 1675 to 1679. On his return

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 237

to England he came to be suspected of complicity in an un-
successful attempt on the part of Shaftesbury and others to
forestall a Catholic succession to the throne by the way of re-
bellion. Locke, though able to satisfy interrogators of his in-
nocence, nevertheless considered withdrawal the course of
prudence and went therefore into exile in Holland for the
years 1683-1689. On the very ship with William and Mary he
came back to England, there to reside until his death in 1704.

Shortly after returning he wrote his Letter on Toleration,
the Treatise on Civil Government, and The Essay Concern-
ing Human Understanding. These works taken together,
and particularly the two former, are commonly considered
an apology for the Glorious Revolution. They were not this
in the sense that the revolution had matured Locke's ideas
which had been conceived much earlier, nor in the sense that
his influence brought to pass the revolution, for he became
vocal in print only after its establishment. The point is,
rather, that he was himself so much a part of these events
that he was qualified to declare the word that spoke to men's
condition.

His ideas on religious liberty were not original. No one
could blame him for that. The best to be said on the subject
had already long since been said. The time had come, not
for better theories, but for an implementation of the old. But
the case did need to be restated and in terms pertinent to the
immediate situation.

One might indeed suppose that Locke would have re-
enforced arguments from the past by a skepticism drawn
from the advance of the natural sciences, in which he was
himself both interested and adept. But that in science which
intrigued him was " the improvement of natural experiments
for the conveniences of this life "; in other words, technology,
and not metaphysical implications. He could speak of the
universe as a machine, but did not think of it as a mechanism

238 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

subject to immutable law and immune from divine interven-
tion. He had no objection to miracles on the ground of possi-
bility. The only question was whether the evidence for their
occurrence was sufficient to warrant belief in their actuality.
The problem was thus not so much theological as historical,
and although he would scrutinize even Biblical miracles, he
did not for that reason come out with negative conclusions.
Even in his treatise. The Reasonableness of Christianity, there
was no rationalist attempt to discover natural explanations
for supernatural events. Locke is often classed with the En-
lightenment, but this ascription is sound not so much be-
cause of his conclusions as because he restated the old prob-
lems in new forms, with which the succeeding age was to
grapple.

He was himself another of those Protestants in whom the
rigors of Calvinism and the mildness of Erasmianism were at
odds. Quite possibly the reconciliation of this conflict within
was the condition for the achievement of toleration without.
Locke was the son of a Puritan, ready to " let goods and kin-
dred go, this mortal life also." He knew the mettle of men
who counted faith above estates and the command of God
above the mandate of a sovereign. In his own justification of
revolution he was the heir of those who had dethroned and
beheaded a king.

But Locke was acquainted also with another aspect of de-
veloping Calvinism which, finding itself subject to persecu-
tion, had in the interests of liberty extended Calvin's view of
the English prayer book as containing "tolerable inepti-
tudes." The whole controversy in England was about just
such matters. The great doctrines were neither questioned
nor enforced, for in the area of faith the Established Church
was mild. Uniformity was required only with regard to pol-
ity and liturgy, and the defense of this policy was a curious
reversal of the argument advanced formerly by the Eras-

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 239

mians in the interests of liberty. When they distinguished the
essentials from the nonessentials, and made the latter numer-
ous in order to remove them from the field of constraint on
the assumption that none would care to persecute over a
matter unessential to salvation, then the argument proved to
be a boomerang, for the leaders of the Anglican establish-
ment said, in eff ect, to the sectaries, " You agree that all this
great body of teaching and practice is not essential for sal-
vation ? "

"Yes."

" And you will not be damned whether you do or do not
conform on these points ? "

" Correct."

" Very well, then. If your eternal salvation is not imperiled,
why will you not in the interests of order subject yourselves
to the judgment of the Christian magistrate in order that all
Englishmen may worship with seemliness, decorum, and
after the same manner ? "

A refusal to comply under such circumstances was made
to appear the height of obstinacy.

The answer fell to John Owen, the Independent who had
been the outstanding figure at Oxford in Locke's early days.
Precisely because the great dogmas of the Church were not
in question, he was able in the tradition of Calvin's " toler-
able ineptitudes " to avail himself of Castellio's argument that
the controverted must be uncertain. These points are con-
troverted and therefore they cannot be sure. But persecution
over the uncertain is inappropriate. Such was the answer, but
it was not adequate, for the Establishment was claiming pre-
cisely that the uncertain may be regulated, not in the name
of an absolute but for the sake of good order, and he who re-
fused to comply was punished not for his faith but for his
obstinacy.

Locke, in the spirit of Owen, had a better answer. He

240 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

agreed with the Church of England that the magistrate
might regulate nonessentials with several provisos: First, he
must himself be a member of the Church that he regulates,
and, secondly, he can regulate only that which affects the
public peace, and the question is very real whether too much
regulation may not itself be provocative of disorder. And fi-
nally, and this is the most drastic consideration, the essential
and the nonessential in religion are incapable of determina-
tion because they belong to the inner life. Nothing is trivial
to him who deems it important, unless first of all he be con-
vinced of its triviality. This is but another version of the
Pauline dictum that each to his own conscience must stand
or fall.

On other occasions Locke employed the liberal argument
in its traditional form, that persecution over trifles simply
does not make sense. " Suppose," said Locke, " that I be
marching on with my utmost vigor in that way which, ac-
cording to the sacred geography, leads straight to Jerusalem."
(In other words, I hold to the fundamentals.) Shall I then
be " ill used because I wear not buskins; because my hair is
not of the right cut; because I eat flesh upon the road, be-
cause I avoid certain byways, because I follow a guide that
either is or is not clothed in white and crowned with a miter ?
Certainly, if we consider right, we shall find that for the
most part they are such trivial things as these, which without
any prejudice to religion or salvation of souls might either be
observed or omitted I say ... such things as these which
breed implacable enmities among Christian brethren, who
are all agreed in the substantial and truly fundamental part
of religion." And granted that there be but one right road,
the magistrate is in no better position to determine what it is
than each private man by his own search and study. And if
the magistrate undertakes to require that which is in itself
indifferent, he thereby makes it essential because he has en-

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 24!

croached upon God's province, who will say to him, " Who
has required these or such like things at your hands ? "

In this discussion Locke was, however, far from coming
entirely into the clear. He appeared to rest his case upon
skepticism as to the nonessentials, but plainly he thought they
could be easily determined. The analogies from the triviali-
ties of a journey have clearly that implication, and indeed he
went on to make the point that certain matters were alike in-
different for salvation and innocuous as to the public peace.
" Kneeling or sitting at the sacrament is no more injurious
to the neighbor than sitting or standing at my own table.
Wearing a cope or a surplice in the church can no more
threaten the peace than a cloak or a coat in the market place.
Being rebaptized can no more make a tempest in the com-
monwealth than in a river. Observing Friday with a Mo-
hammedan, Saturday with a Jew, or Sunday with a Christian
can make me neither a better or a worse subject of the mag-
istrate or a worse neighbor."

" If, then, these points are nonessential and harmless, why
not let them alone? " asked Locke. And the other side re-
torted, " If they matter so little, why not consign them to the
magistrate instead of holding out obstinately for a private
opinion ? "

The answer to this question compelled one to go back
farther and inquire as to the very nature of the Church itself.
Should it be composed of those who took their religion so
lightly that they were ready to permit even its outward forms
to be settled by the civil power? What should be the basis of
church membership ? The whole Calvinist tradition had em-
phatically insisted that the members of the Church must be
those who each for himself subscribed to the doctrine, gave
evidence by a good life, and participated in the sacraments.
And no lukewarm adherence was tolerable. Calvinism had
endeavored to combine this Church with an entire commu-

242 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

nity through, a process of exclusion with regard to the un-
worthy as at Geneva, or by converting the entire populace as
in Scotland, or by ruling the land through a militant minor-
ity as in England. But this latter program had collapsed, and
now if all England could not be regarded as genuinely Chris-
tian, and if a convinced minority could no longer impose its
will upon the aliens, then the Church had no recourse left, if
it would maintain its integrity, other than to dissociate itself
from the populace at large. In other words, the very logic of
Calvinism pointed to the conventicle, the sect.

Locke had great difficulty in coming into the clear on this
subject, because he was and remained an adherent of the Es-
tablished Church, and sometimes argued for toleration on
the ground that it would attract the nonconformists. At the
same time he would not invite them save on the basis of
sincere conviction.

" Open dissenters are better than secret malcontents. If all
the dissenters were forced into the Church we should then
have only an exasperated enemy within." Can anyone, he
asked, question the sincerity of King James II, who gave up
three crowns for his religion, or was Mr. Chillingworth less
sincere when he became a Roman Catholic than when he re-
turned to the Church of England ? " It becomes all men to
maintain peace and the common offices of friendship in a
diversity of opinions, since we cannot reasonably expect that
anyone should readily and obsequiously quit his own opinion
and embrace ours with a blind resignation to an authority
which the understanding of man acknowledges not."

But if the Church includes only convinced believers and
the State embraces the entire populace, of necessity the the-
ories of Church and State must differ and the union of the
two becomes well-nigh impossible.

Adherence to the State depends on residence, adherence to
the Church on voluntary subscription. This way of putting

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 243

the case may seem to do violence to Locke's political theory
because there, too, he adduced the principle of consent and
often enough the analogy has been pointed out between his
covenant theory of the Church and compact theory of the
State. But there was a difference, because in the case of those
born into a society after the original compact, membership
was held to depend upon tacit consent to be inferred from
the mere failure to remove elsewhere, whereas membership
in the Church rested upon commitment. In other words,
despite the compact theory of government, Locke held still to
the birth theory of the State, and, despite his Anglicanism, to
the new birth theory of the Church.

" A Church then," said he, " I take to be a voluntary so-
ciety of men, joining themselves together of their own accord,
in order for the public worshiping of God, in such a manner
as they judge acceptable to him, and effectual to the salvation
of their souls. I say it is a free and voluntary society. Nobody
is born a member of any Church; otherwise the religion of
parents would descend unto children, by the same right of
inheritance as their temporal estates, and everyone would
hold his faith by the same tenure as he holds his lands; than
which nothing can be imagined more absurd. No man by
nature is bound under any particular Church or sect, but
everyone joins himself voluntarily to that society in which
he believes he has found that profession and worship which
is truly acceptable to God." And " if afterwards he discover
anything erroneous, . . . why should it not be as free for
him to go out as it was to enter? " If separatism be a sin, why
should not a nonconformist who secedes from his own group
in order to join the Church of England be regarded as sin-
ful ? The question of course makes sense only if one assumes
the parity of the established Church and the sects, and that
is precisely where Locke came out. With Roger Williams he
reached the conclusion that " there is absolutely no such

244 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

thing, under the gospel, as a Christian commonwealth." And
he was even more logical than Williams in his denial that
there ever had been a Christian commonwealth, because even
in ancient Israel strangers were tolerated within the gates
and not exterminated because of their practice of idolatry.
Locke was the very epitome of the English system, with a
love for the national Church and a complete acquiescence in
a multiplicity of sects.

Alongside the Calvinist strain in Locke was the Erasmian,
and it was mediated to him through two lines: the first was
English and the second Dutch. In England the ethical em-
phasis that insists that only the pure in heart can see God was
cultivated by the Cambridge Platonists. One of their leaders,
Cudworth, was a personal friend of Locke's, and Cudworth's
daughter, Lady Masham, extended the hospitality of her
home to Locke in his declining years. The Neoplatonist tradi-
tion held that because the eye of the soul is impaired by im-
purity, the vision of God is attainable only after a purgative
process. One of the school of Cambridge affirmed that since
love was enjoined by Christ as the chief among the virtues,
therefore without love one cannot attain to Christian truth.
And Cudworth, the friend of Locke, preached before the
House of Commons an exposition on Paul's "Hymn of
Love," recalling that the way to heaven lies, not through
speculative knowledge, but through divine obedience. He
trusted that " a sweet harmonious affection in these jarring
times should tune the world at last into better music." Cer-
tain passages in Locke read almost as if they might have
been taken from this very sermon, for Locke held that " obe-
dience to what is already revealed is the surest way to more
knowledge " and that " the indispensable duty of all Chris-
tians " is " to maintain love and charity in the diversity of
contrary opinions, since Christianity is not a notional science
but a rule of righteousness. Therefore we should lay aside all

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 245

controversy and speculative questions and instruct and en-
courage one another in the duties of a good life and pray
God for the assistance of his spirit for the enlightenment of
our understanding and subduing our corruptions. . . . Agree-
ment in things necessary to salvation, and the maintaining
of charity and brotherly kindness with diversity of opinions
in other things, is that which will very well consist with
Christian unity."

Still deeper in its impact on Locke was a movement di-
rectly in the succession not only of Erasmus but also of Cas-
tellio, that of the Remonstrants in Holland. Locke spent
six years of his life there as an exile. For a time he lived in
concealment and under the assumed name of Mynheer Van
der Linden. But when he was removed from the list of the
proscribed in England, he feared no longer to reveal his
identity, yet declined the pardon procured for him by Wil-
liam Penn on the ground that to accept would be an admis-
sion of complicity in a plot of which he had been innocent.

Holland at the time of Locke's arrival appeared to be the
last stronghold of Protestantism and liberty. Elsewhere in
Europe the prospect was grim. The year 1685 saw the acces-
sion of the Catholic king to the throne of England, the revo-
cation of the Edict of Nantes in France, the passing of the
Calvinist Palatinate into Catholic hands, and the cessation of
toleration in Savoy for the Waldenses. But in Holland old
sects and new survived either by toleration or connivance.
Here Locke met the Mennonites and the Labadists. For
some years he stayed in the home of an English Quaker,
Benjamin Furley. Here were new refugees from France,
Calvinists reconstructed and unreconstructed, and rationalists
such as Pierre Bayle. No subject was more warmly discussed
in these circles than toleration, and more important than all
were the native Hollanders, who cherished the memory of
the great Hollander, Erasmus of Rotterdam. Locke became

246 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

intimate with Le Clerc, the editor of the works of Erasmus,
and, indeed, had it not been for the encouragement of Le
Clerc, one may doubt whether Locke would ever have pub-
lished anything. And there was Limborch, the leader of the
Remonstrants and the exposer by historical science of the
cruelties of the Inquisition.

Exile gave Locke leisure to think and to write, and the
new pressures incited thought. The problem of conscience
was here receiving a more searching consideration than had
hitherto been the case. The sixteenth century, save for a few
exceptions in men like Castellio, had claimed toleration only
for a right conscience. The seventeenth century came to rec-
ognize also the claims of the erroneous conscience. But then
the question was whether conscience could claim to be an
absolute in the eyes of the State, and whether any particular
course of action could be exempted by the State from penalty
simply because the perpetrator was sincere. Castellio hardly
saw the problem. Ochino raised it in the case of a conscien-
tious tyrannicide, but left the problem in mid-air.

Pierre Bayle brought it to earth, in his discussion of the
text, " Compel them to come in." He went so far as to say
that if one is conscientiously convinced of his duty to spread
his religion by force, then he is bound to do so, and this
applies quite as much if he be in error. Thus Bayle either
justified persecution when exercised by the erroneous or
made it ridiculous, and in any case he pointed up the difficul-
ties entailed in treating conscience as an absolute from the
subjective point of view and a relative from the objective.
Then came the question left suspended by Ochino of the
conscientious tyrannicide. Bayle concluded that zealots, like
the assassins of Henry III and Henry IV, if they believed it
their duty to kill, must kill. But the magistrate who is not a
searcher of hearts must at the same time punish. Thus Bayle
emerged with an irreconcilable clash between the conscience

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 247

of the citizen and the conscience of the State.

Locke could discover no better way out; if the magistrate
conceived himself in duty bound to enact laws for the public
good that appeared to his subjects to be clean contrary, there
was no judge between them but God. The magistrate was
bound to act, the subject was bound to suffer. Only if the
magistrate's behavior imperiled the common weal might the
subjects have recourse to revolution. The reconciliation of
the problem, then, could not lie in any comparison of con-
sciences, but only in constraint and resistance whether pas-
sive or active.

In such cases Locke could find no practical way of deter-
mining who was right. But it was for no lack of considera-
tion of the question of how man can know what is true and
right. Locke's fame rests largely upon his Essay Concerning
Human Understanding. Curiously only two men in the
course of the struggle for religious liberty have written trea-
tises alike on the problem of liberty and the problem of
knowledge and have sought to bring the two into relation.
Those two men were Sebastien Castellio and John Locke.
For that reason it is very interesting to discover in the letters
of Limborch and Locke for the year 1693 a correspondence
on the question of the desirability of publishing a complete
edition of the works of Sebastien Castellio. Locke's opinion
was that they would be received with high favor in England.

One wonders whether he was thinking only of the pub-
lished works or whether perhaps he may have known the
manuscript On Doubt and Belief. There is a bare possibility,
though it cannot be pressed. This at any rate is certain, that
Locke in Holland was moving in a succession of Castellianist
thought, and the similarity between the ideas of Locke and
Castellio is striking. Locke, like Castellio, took as the source
of knowledge sense experience and revelation. Both were to
be corrected and amplified by reason. And although Locke

248 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

rejected innate ideas, he accepted intuitive modes of under-
standing, which meant very nearly the same thing. Much he
was prepared to accept on faith, and if he attempted by rea-
son to demonstrate the existence of God, yet for the character
of God he relied upon Christian revelation.

His main point was that faith and reason are not anti-
thetical, and that religion can be understood. Further, if it
cannot be understood, it is of no practical consequence. This
is where Locke distinctly sets himself in the Castellianist and
Erasmian antidogmatic tradition. It may in a sense be called
even antirationalist, since despite all the praises of reason it
disclaims any capacity on the part of reason to scale the
heavenly heights and pry into the ultimate mysteries. All
that has been vouchsafed to men is enough light to get home
by, a few simple truths, and a code of behavior. There is a
vast area that man cannot know, but should he complain
" that we are not furnished with compass nor plummet, to
sail and fathom that restless unnavigable ocean of the uni-
versal matter, motion and space " ? Because, however great the
ignorance of mankind, no one who sincerely sought to learn
his duty with a design to do it had miscarried for want of
knowledge. Locke's system is rational only in the sense of
reasonable, and significantly he entitled his theological work
The Reasonableness of Christianity. The object of the book
was to discover an intelligible reason for the reticence of
Jesus with regard to his Messianic role. The gist of the whole
matter was this: what is needed to be known for salvation
must be accessible to the uninstructed and therefore clear
and simple. Locke was another exponent of the theology of
the penitent thief.

Curiously, his treatise on knowledge was brought less di-
rectly into relation with the problem of liberty than was Cas-
tellio's, and the reason was that in Castellio's day persecu-
tion rested on a claim to truth, but in Locke's day only on

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 249

a claim to order. He had no need to argue with the Church
of England about truth, but only as to how much constraint
was necessary for the preservation of the public peace.

And on this score he conceded the necessity of some con-
straint, notably in the case of the Roman Catholics, whose
worship was by no means to be allowed. Practical experience
had taught Locke much on this score. He had learned that
Catholics may be urbane and less insufferable than argu-
mentative Calvinists. Nevertheless they are not to be trusted
in Church-State relations. In his judgment they were bound
by their presuppositions to persecute, and therefore should
not be tolerated.

His journals give some intriguing accounts of personal
contacts with Catholics on the Continent The first eye opener
was on the mission to Cleve when he saw a Christmas creche.
To him it was but an instance of popish superstition and the
images of the holy family appeared to him but the second
cousins of Punch and Judy or their progenitors. The little
models of sheep were but symbols of the people who were
as sheep without a shepherd. Locke sprinkled himself with
holy water and recorded in his diary that Catholics slobber
over their ceremonies. But in the next entry he declared that
" the Catholic religion is a different thing from what we be-
lieve in England. I have not met with any so good-natured
people or so civil as Catholic priests, and I have received
many courtesies from them. But the Calvinists are as bad as
the Presbyterians, and one young sucking divine assaulted
me furiously." Locke visited a Franciscan friary and con-
versed with the brothers in bad Latin. " The friar had more
belly than brains and methought was very fit to be rever-
enced and not much unlike some head of a college and I
liked him well for entertainment The truth is they were
very civil and courteous."

But the subsequent years in France revealed instances

250 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

enough in which Huguenot churches were being suppressed.
Amid notes on relics, vineyards, uniforms, and irrigated or-
chards of Chinese oranges, Locke recorded that the Prot-
estants had had three hundred churches demolished and
within these two months twenty more condemned. Louis
XIV was moving toward the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes. Locke was convinced that this was the inevitable
logic of Catholicism and never receded from his position that
if any sect teach that promises are not to be kept to heretics
or that excommunicated kings forfeit their crowns, such a
sect is not to be tolerated.

The works of Locke written in exile with little hope of
their ever seeing the light of day became, in fact, the apology
for the Whig revolution when he returned on the very same
vessel with William and Mary. His first letter on toleration,
published in the year 1689, began with a protest in the spirit
of Castellio:

" If the gospel and the apostles may be credited, no man
can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith
which works, not by force, but by love. Now I appeal to the
consciences of those that persecute, torment, destroy, and kill
other men upon pretense of religion, whether they do it out
of friendship and kindness toward them, or no; and I shall
then indeed, and not till then, believe they do so, when I
shall see those fiery zealots correcting, in the same manner,
their friends and familiar acquaintances, for the manifest
sins they commit against the precepts of the gospel; when I
shall see them prosecute with fire and sword the members
of their own communion that are tainted with enormous
vices, and without amendment are in danger of eternal perdi-
tion; and when I shall see them thus express their love and
desire of the salvation of their souls, by the infliction of tor-
ments, and exercise of all manner of cruelties. For if it be out
of a principle of charity, as they pretend, and love to men's

APOLOGIST FOR THE TOLERATION ACT 251

souls, that they deprive them of their estates, maim them
with corporal punishments, starve and torment them in
noisome prisons, and in the end even take away their lives
I say, if all this be done merely to make men Christians,
and procure their salvation why, then, do they suffer
4 whoredom, fraud, malice, and such like enormities,' which,
according to the apostle, Rom., ch. i, manifestly relish of
heathenish corruption, to predominate so much and abound
amongst their flocks and people ? These, and such like things,
are certainly more contrary to the glory of God, to the purity
of the Church, and to the salvation of souls, than any con-
scientious dissent from ecclesiastical decision, or separation
from public worship, whilst accompanied with innocency of
life. Why, then, does this burning zeal for God, for the
Church, and for the salvation of souls burning, I say lit-
terally, with fire and faggot pass by those moral vices and
wickednesses, without any chastisement, which are acknowl-
edged by all men to be diametrically opposite to the profes-
sion of Christianity; and bend all its nerves either to the in-
troducing of ceremonies or to the establishment of opinions,
which for the most part are about nice and intricate matters
that exceed the capacity of ordinary understandings ? Which
of the parties contending about these things is in the right,
which of them is guilty of schism or heresy, whether those
that domineer or those that suffer, will then at last be mani-
fest, when the cause of their separation comes to be judged
of? He certainly that follows Christ, embraces his doctrine,
and bears his yoke, though he forsake both father and
mother, separate from public assemblies and ceremonies of
his country, or whomsoever, or whatsoever else he relin-
quishes, will not then be judged an heretic."

One is not surprised that Locke was not satisfied with the
Act of Toleration. To Limborch he wrote, " It is not what you
would wish, but it is something." And then he set himself

252

THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

indefatigably to urge that what had already been done should
in all logic call for more. The arguments adduced in favor of
abolishing the penalties of confiscation, maiming, and incar-
ceration were valid equally for the removal of civil disabili-
ties. And likewise the arguments against removing civil
disabilities would be of equal force in favor of restoring con-
fiscation, maiming, and incarceration. Then, England should
go either backward or forward, and Locke was sufficiently
confident that England would not move backward to be cer-
tain that his plea would impel it forward. Such, indeed, at
long last was the outcome. England thus demonstrated the
possibility of retaining a union of Church and State and of
combining it with religious liberty.

A Cartoon: Two Devils Helping Nonconformists Pull Down
the Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral

REFLECTIONS

A survey of the events and the theories described or alluded
to in these brief sketches prompts at least certain reflections.
The most obvious is that something was accomplished and
that the process was exceedingly slow. The best things on
religious liberty were said in the sixteenth century but not
practiced until the nineteenth. From this observation we may
derive alike comfort and concern. By way of comfort we
have reason to hope that as the religious controversies of by-
gone days have been allayed, so also in time will the political
and economic clashes of our time be assuaged. The day may
come when men will think it preposterous to die and kill
over a system of land tenure or a political constitution. On
the other hand, if all this is to take two hundred years, quite
conceivably there will be nobody here to celebrate the victory.
Our situation differs from that of former times in that the
very technology to which Locke looked to enhance the com-
forts of life has introduced the possibility of man's extinction.
The only conclusion can be that either we perish or else the
pace of social change must be accelerated. We cannot afford
to wait two centuries to solve our present dilemmas.

Another reflection is that when one problem is solved, an-
other will undoubtedly replace it. If one lion is persuaded to
lie down with a lamb, another lion rampant leaps from his
lair- Life does not seem to have been constructed for tran-
quillity. When the religious problem in the Western world

254 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

was relatively solved, political and social upheavals emerged,
which In turn set back religious liberty. Conceivably, now
that at last all problems are being grappled with on a world
front, we may, if we succeed at all, manage to achieve solu-
tions that will offer a greater stability. But certainly the past
discloses a never-ceasing bubbling of the caldrons. Eternal
vigilance and unremitting labor are our mortal lot.

This is in part true because every solution, however wise
and necessary, carries within itself the possibility of some new
abuse. If doubt be invoked as a check on dogma, the course of
skepticism may run so far that in the end neither God, nor
right, nor neighborliness, nor decency survive. If reason be
invited to temper orthodoxy, reason may erect its own guil-
lotines. If to curb the arrogance of the Church or to check
the meddling of the State the two be separated, then the State
is prompted to remove from our coins " In God we trust."
All of which is not to say that dogma is not to be curbed and
orthodoxy is not to be restrained and Church and State are
not to be separated. But even that which is imperative in any
given situation opens the way to abuses of another sort. The
ideal is to strike some sort of golden mean.

If formerly all the slogans of persecution deserved to be
challenged, today many of the catchwords of liberty call for a
re-examination if genuine liberty is to be conserved. The most
serious problem is as to the certitude of truth in the field of
religion. So far has relativity gone that now one idea is com-
monly held to be as good as another and one religion to have
quite as much claim as another, provided only that it satisfies
its own adherents. If they find in it peace, the character of the
religion is inconsequential. Surely the rise of all the frightful
isms of our time ought to have been enough to make clear
that the satisfaction of adherents is no criterion either of the
worth or of the truth of any system. The ideologies of racial
extermination have been satisfying enough to those who pro-

REFLECTIONS 255

fessed and practiced them, and yet they are not for that rea-
son either right or true. Satisfaction and peace of mind are
not after all the chief end of man. We must square up to
what is actually so, whether or not it bring peace and satisfac-
tion. If we are to deal with the tough in behavior, we shall
have to be tough in belief.

And yet we cannot return to the appalling dogmatisms of
former days. The protests of Erasmus and Castellio and all
the rationalists against unqualified pretensions to religious
knowledge were perfectly valid. The distinction between rea-
son and faith is sound. Perhaps here another distinction should
be introduced which was never distinctly formulated in the
course of the long struggle, namely, the distinction between
knowledge sufficient for private consolation and knowledge
adequate for public legislation. Belief in immortality, for ex-
ample, is a very great comfort to the bereaved, but our cer-
tainty of the future life and its details is not so great that we
can blithely blot out whole cities with the bromidic reflection
that after all we have not destroyed life but only transferred
it to another sphere.

We need likewise to rethink the common assumption that
superior knowledge has no right whatsoever to interfere with
religious conviction. A very thought-provoking instance is
related by Dr. Heiser in his book An American Doctor's
Odyssey. He was the health officer for Manila when cholera
was reported in various parts of the city. Simultaneously came
the news of a miracle in the bay, for a fisherman had observed
upon the surface of the water a black streak in the form of a
cross and the water was sweet. He summoned the priest, who
confirmed the miracle. The people then paddled out with
bottles and drank of the holy liquid. Investigation discovered
a break in the sewer. The doctor then appealed to the militia
to suppress the miracle. He was told that a riot might be ex-
pected, since the natives were already incensed over the burn-

256 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

ing of some of their huts for sanitary reasons. The doctor re-
plied that he preferred a riot to an epidemic and the populace
was kept back while the damage was repaired.

Here we have an instance where force was used to restrain
people for their own good and the justification was superior
knowledge. The difference between the American doctor and
John Calvin was that the American doctor did know and
John Calvin did not. At least that was the first difference.
And a very much more important difference was that the mi-
litia did not burn the natives but merely kept them back un-
til the sewer was mended. This introduces a sound principle,
that although constraint may be justified when grounded on
knowledge and genuinely directed to the welfare of those
constrained, it must nevertheless be chary of means and con-
fine itself to the very minimum needful

This brings us directly to the problem of conscience. In the
matter of religion its claims have come to be generally rec-
ognized, but not in matters of conduct, and conscientious ob-
jection to military service in the Western world fares very
differently from country to country. Great Britain has been
the most liberal. The problem was faced in other form clearly
enough by Bayle and Locke, who saw that conscience can-
not be regarded by the State as an absolute. If the individual
be conscientiously convinced of a particular course of action
that is deemed inconsistent with the public welfare, some de-
gree of restraint will have to be exercised. There is no recon-
ciliation of the clash other than by penalty from the one side
and endurance from the other. But all this is not said to deny
the rights of conscience nor to justify ruthlessness. Nothing is
more precious than conscience, and no quality is more inte-
gral to the sound life of the body politic. The State in exercis-
ing restraint should be guided by several principles of limita-
tion. First, the object of constraint should never be to break
down integrity but only to prevent overt acts being inimical.

REFLECTIONS 257

And when the peril is past, there should be no continuing
penalty, let alone deprivation of citizenship, because he who
out of conscience refuses to serve the State in time of war may
well be in peace a most scrupulous and devoted public serv-
ant. The State ought ever to be ready to take such men into
its service the moment they can conscientiously comply. Fur-
thermore the State should cultivate humility, since acts that
in one generation are deemed subversive often come to be re-
garded as innocuous by the next. Moreover, the State should
exhaust every other recourse before employing the prison or
the concentration camp.

The distinction so persistent throughout the struggle for
religious liberty between the essentials and the nonessentials
of Christianity calls for reconsideration. It is still a potent con-
cept, for the whole Church unity movement within Protes-
tantism and the continuing attitude of aloofness toward the
Roman Church are based on the assumption that Protestants
are agreed in essentials with each other, but that with Rome
they are not. This is true, but the distinction cannot be main-
tained without continual inquiry as to what is essential.
There is no answer other than through theology, and the con-
temporary revival of theological interest is wholesome, how-
ever much theology in the past may have been the symbol, if
not the cause, of persecution. There are a number of points
involved in this matter of the essentials and the nonessentials.
One view is that in case of a difference both sides cannot
be right, but there is no infallible way of telling which is
right and, since the point is not vital, each may leave the
other to follow his own preference. The other view is that
both views may be right because truth is varied, just as God
is diversified. If this theory be adopted to cover the varieties
of Protestantism, then the question arises whether it may not
be extended to cover all the religions of the world, and in that
case a complete relativism ensues. No simple answer is ready

258 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

to hand. This is one of the areas requiring constantly to be
explored.

As for the theory of the Church, one observes throughout
the course of Christian history a perpetual tension between
permeation and withdrawal in the attitude of the Church to
the world and the corollary has been the view of the Church
either as coterminous with society or as separated in the form
of a sect. All the previous failures to Christianize the world
have more and more disposed Christians in the West to
abandon the attempt at holy commonwealths and to regard
the Church as an independent voluntary society. But this
leaves the question only the more crying of what then be-
comes of the State and of society. The ideal is that of a na-
tional religion envisaged by Cromwell rather than that of an
established Church, and in the United States, despite all the
secularism, that ideal has perhaps more nearly been realized
than anywhere else. Church and State are separated and
friendly and exert a mutual influence. The Churches in some
measure do affect public policy. The problem at the moment
is most acute in the field of education, where the separation
of Church and State has led to secularization. Some Church
bodies feel the necessity of reverting to the system of the pa-
rochial school. Others seek to introduce religion on released
time. Whatever the method, the need is acute.

The most devastating reflection to be cfeduced from this
study is that much of the previous controversy is simply ir-
relevant now because the whole context has changed. In the
past in Western Christendom those who debated persecution
and liberty were on both sides concerned to make men Chris-
tian. Today the greatest persecutors desire to eradicate all re-
ligion. Even the argument^that constraint will not make sin-
cere Fascists or Communists will not weigh too greatly with
them because they do not need many genuine converts so
long as they hold the machinery of power. What they require

REFLECTIONS 259

of the others is only that they should not impede. A recanta-
tion is useful only in a few instances to affect public opinion.
For the most part silent submission suffices. And even the old
techniques of resistance are gone. Martyrdom is seldom al-
lowed and obstructionists merely disappear.

The noblest achievement of the Western world has been
the conduct of controversy without acrimony, of strife with-
out bitterness, of criticism without loss of respect. But when
men do not operate within the same framework, this becomes
impossible. Only those who believe in universal right, in in-
tegrity, law, and humanity, if not in the Christian God, are in
a position to clash on higher levels and retain personal friend-
ship as did Roger Williams with most of his opponents. But
if one side makes the will of a party into an absolute, and for
it will lie and assassinate, then for the other side to fight ac-
cording to the rules is very difficult.

The more the contestants are locked, the greater becomes
the danger that the rules will be scrapped on both sides, and
in that case the liberalism of the West is already undone. The
very effort to control the unscrupulous foe leads to unscrupu-
lousness. What is still more disconcerting is the Communist
technique of insinuating agents under false colors, which
breaks down laith, awakens suspicion, sows the poison of dis-
trust, and produces panic and fevered witch hunts which are
vastly more inimical to the innocent than to the guilty. In
the United States at the present moment the greatest danger
is not from a Communist coup but from anti-Communist
hysteria.

Which again is not to say that the fear of Reds is entirely
hysterical. Balance and again balance is what we need. In so
many quarters of the globe whole peoples are incapable
of considered judgment. War, privation, disease, fear have
warped all sobriety of judgment. One word may be extricated
from the long travail of liberty in the past and made a watch-

260 THE TRAVAIL OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

word for the present, and that word is " reasonableness."

These concluding remarks have gone beyond the immedi-
ate question of religious liberty into a discussion of all liberty
and all rights, and the extension is justified because all free-
doms hang together. Milton properly associated freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. Civil
liberties scarcely thrive where religious liberties are disre-
garded, and the reverse is equally true. Beneath them all is a
philosophy of liberty which assumes a measure of variety in
human behavior, honors integrity, respects the dignity of
man, and seeks to exemplify the compassion of God.

Sources

Since this work is directed to the general public, documentation has been
used only sufficiently to enable the specialist to find his way to the sources.
The first six chapters are in a different category from the last three, because
the sources are in foreign languages and the treatment is largely a rework-
ing of books and articles of a more technical nature and previously pub-
lished. All that is needful is to refer to the previous studies save for ad-
ditional bibliography and references for new citations. The last three
chapters are almost wholly new and the sources are in English. For that
reason the documentation is complete.

FOREWORD: The opening section is a reworking of an article, "The
Struggle for Religious Liberty," Church History, X,2 (June, 1941), 3-32.
This article has three pages of bibliography. The theory of the Church in
relation to persecution is more amply treated in the article "The Parable
of the Tares as the Proof-text for Religious Liberty to the End of the Six-
teenth Century," Church History, 1,2 (June, 1932), 67-89.
CHAPTER I: TORQUEMADA: The sketch of the earlier history of the
theory and practice of persecution in Christian history is condensed from
my book, Sebastian Castellio Concerning Heretics (New York, 1935).

On the Inquisition in general, the classic work is that of Henry C. Lea,
A History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages (reprint, New York,
1922). A briefer and more recent treatment is that of A. S. Tuberville,
Medieval Heresy and the Inquisition (London, 1920).

For the Inquisition in Spain, consult Henry C. Lea, The Inquisition in
Spain, 4 vols. (reprint, New York, 1922), and Cecil Roth, The Spanish
Inquisition (London, 1927).
For Torquemada, the following:

Hope, Thomas, Torquemada Scourge of the Jews (London, 1939).
Lucka, Emil, Torquemada und die Spanische Inquisition (Vienna and
Leipzig, 1926).

Sabatini, Rafael, Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition (Boston and
New York, 1924?). The documents on the Franco case are printed in the
article of Fidel Fita, "La Inquisition y el Santo Nino de la Guardia,"
Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia t XI (1887), 7-160.

262 SOURCES

Some documentary material is in Juan Antonio Llorente, Historia Critics

de la Inquisition de Espana, II (Madrid, 1822).

CHAPTER II: CALVIN utilizes the following previous studies:

" The Development and Consistency of Luther's Attitude to Religious

Liberty," Harvard Theological Review, XXII,2 (April, 1929), 107-149.

Sebastian Castellio Concerning Heretics (New York, 1935).

" The Struggle for Religious Liberty," Church History f X,2 (June, 1941),

3-32.

The citations from Calvin's commentary on Deuteronomy will be found

in the Calvini Opera, XXVI, and in the following order: pp. 150 ft, 177, 21,

77,56.

The citation on page 71, line i, is from the Calvini Opera, XXIV, 363.
CHAPTER III: SERVETUS: A detailed study is in preparation. The fol-
lowing articles have appeared:

" The Present State of Servetus Studies," Journal of Modern History, IV, i
(March, 1932), 72-92.

" The Smaller Circulation: Servetus and Colombo," Sudhoffs Archiv fur
Geschichte und Medizin, XXIV, 3-4 (1931), 371-374.
" Servetus and the Genevan Libertines," Church History, V,2 (June, 1936) ,
141-149.

The documents on the trial at Geneva are in the Calvini Opera, VIII. The
best biographical study of Servetus is that by E. Morse Wilbur, A History
of Unitarianism, I (Cambridge, 1945). He has translated "Servetus *On
the Errors of the Trinity,'" Harvard Theological Studies, XVI (1932).
Citations from Servetus:
ending

page 78, line 17, De Trinitatis Erroribus, n6b;
page 78, line 26, De Trtnttatis Erroribus, 783 j
page 79, line u, Dialogorum de Tnmtate hbri Duo, B6a.
CHAPTER IV: CASTELLIO is for the most part a reworking of materials
in my Sebastian Castellio Concerning Heretics (New York, 1935), and
especially of the earlier article, "Sebastian Castellio and the Toleration
Controversy of the Sixteenth Century," in Persecution and Liberty, Essays
in Honor of George Lincoln Burr (New York, 1931), 183-209.

The standard work on Castellio is the life by Ferdinand Buisson, Sebas-
tien Castellion (Paris, 1892), in two volumes. Castellio's "De Arte Dubi-
tandi " has been published by Elizabeth (Mrs. Felix) Hirsch in " Per la
Storia degli Eretici Italiani del Secolo XVI in Europe," Reale Accademia
d'ltalia Studi e Documenti, VII (Rome, 1937).

The newly discovered manuscript referred to in the text was found by
Dr. Bruno Becker, of Amsterdam, and is described in Church History,
IX,3 (1940), 272. I have discussed Castellio's theory of knowledge in the
article "New Documents on Early Protestant Rationalism," Church His-
tory, VII,2 (June, 1938), 179-187. The references to Calvin on page 103

SOURCES 263

are from the Calvini Opera, XXIII, 482-487; XXIV, 16-24. The passage
from Beza on page 113 is from his De Haereticis, pp. 48-53 condensed,
and his statement on page 114 is from the Eptstolae (1575), 20.
The counsel to let Castellio alone mentioned on page no is from an un-
published letter of Simon Sulzer to Theodore Beza from Basel, May 2,
1560, cited here by the courtesy of Dr. Fernand Aubert, of Geneva, who
is editing Beza's correspondence.

CHAPTER V: DAVID JORIS rests on my book David Joris Wiedertaujer
und Kampfer fur Toleranz in 16. fahrhundert, translated by Hajo and
Annemarie Holborn, Archiv jur Rejormationsgeschichte, Erganzungsband
VI (Leipzig, 1937). My work has been corrected by Paul Burckhardt,
"David Joris und seine Gemeinde in Basel," Easier Zeitschrijt jur Gc-
schichte und Altertumsfyunde, XL VIII (1949), 5-106. He discovers a num-
ber of errors in my readings, but dissents from my conclusions at only
two important points. The first has to do with Joris' reputed bigamy. A
letter, the significance of which I overlooked, written by someone to the
subsequent husband of the allegedly bigamous wife says that the father
would not have been satisfied with the provision made for the children.
The father appears to be Joris, in which case the charge is substantiated,
but Burckhardt is not positive. The other point is my contention that at the
end of his life Joris abandoned his messianic pretensions in favor of mysti-
cism and allegory. In a region necessarily so vague precision is impossible,
but I still sense a great difference between the earlier and the later Joris,
and between the later Joris and some of his materialistic followers.

There is an illuminating discussion of Joris on religious liberty in Jo-
hannes Kiihn, Toleranz und Offenbarung (Leipzig, 1923).
CHAPTER VI: BERNARDINO OCHINO rests on my book Bernardino
Ochino Esule e Rijormatore Senese del Cinquecento, translated by Elio
Gianturco, Biblioteca Storica Sansoni, N.S. IV (Florence, 1940). The fol-
lowing study appeared slightly earlier, but too late to be used: Benedetto
Nicolini, II Pensiero di Bernardino Ochino (Napoli, 1939).
CHAPTER VII: JOHN MILTON: For the background of religious tolera-
tion in Milton's age, consult W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious
Toleration in England, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1932-1946), and Thomas Lyon,
The Theory of Religious Liberty in England 7603-39 (Cambridge, Eng-
land, 1937). There is an illuminating discussion in Michael Freund, "Die
Idee der Toleranz im England der grossen Revolution," Deutsche Viertel-
jahrschrijt jur Literaturwissenschajt und Geistesgeschichte , XII (Halle,
1927). A section is devoted to Milton by Johannes Kiihn, Toleranz und
Offenbarung (Leipzig, 1923).

Among the recent books on Milton, the following have proved useful:
Buck, Philo M., "Milton on Liberty," University of Nebraska Studies,
XXV,i (1925).
Hanford, James Holy, John Milton Englishman (New York, 1949).

264 SOURCES

Hutchinson, F. E., Milton and the English Mind (London, 1946).

Raymond, Dora Neill, Olivers Secretary (New York, 1932).

Wolfe, Don M., Milton in the Puritan Revolution (New York, 1941).

The following two instructive articles are in the Journal of the History
of Ideas:

Ogden, H. V. S., "Variety and Contrast in I7th Century Aesthetics and
Milton's Poetry," X,2 (April, 1949), 159-182.
Siegel, Paul N., "Milton and the Humanist Attitude Toward Women,"

xr,i (1950), 42-53.

The citations are from the Columbia edition of The Worlds of John Milton t
18 vols. (New York, 1931-1938), and are as follows: page 188, line 8:

III, i, 356; page 189, line 28: III, i, 147-148; page 190, line 13: III, i, 214;
page 192, line 20: III, 2, 390-39*; page 192, line 23: III, 2, 423; page 192,
line 27: III, 2, 478; page 192, line 29: IV, 83; page 193, line 5: IV, 85-86;
page 193, line 13: HI, 2, 395; page 193, line 15: III, 2, 397; page 193, line 17:
IV > 775 P a ge 193, line 21: III, 2, 503-504; page 193, line 27: IV, 116-117;
page 194, line 24: IV, 297-298; page 194, line 30: IV, 339; page 195, line 16:
*V, 326-330; page 195, line 23: IV, 328; page 195, line 25: IV, 327; page
195, line 33: IV, 339-340; page 196, line 8: IV, 347-348; page 196, line 19:

IV, 311; page 196, line 26: IV, 333; page 197, line u: IV, 348; page 200,
line 13: Paradise Regained III, lines 49-59; P a g e 202 > * me 8: Samson Ago-
nistes, lines 678-696; page 203, line 21: Paradise Lost VIII, lines 488-489;
page 204, line 8: Paradise Lost IX, lines 214-219; page 204, line 22: Para-
dise Lost IX, lines 335-336; page 204, line 30: Paradise Lost IX, lines 373-
375; page 205, line 17: Paradise Lost IX, lines 684-687; page 207, line 5:
Paradise Lost XII, lines 82-101; page 207, line 15: Paradise Regained I,
lines 222-223.

CHAPTER VIII: ROGER WILLIAMS: The biographical material on
Williams is scant, and any treatment in the compass of a volume has to be
filled out with copious drawing from the works of contemporaries. On the
whole that by Emily Easton, Roger Williams (Boston, 1930), strikes me
as the most sound. James Ernst, Roger Williams, New England Firebrand
(New York, 1932), is interesting. The heart of the matter is in the succinct
and discriminating evaluation by Lawrence Wroth, "Roger Williams,"
Brown University Pafers (1937). The works of Roger Williams are pub-
lished in six volumes by the Narragansett Club (1867-1874).

The opening section of the chapter is drawn from my article, "The
Puritan Theocracy and the Cambridge Platform," in the commemorative
volume entitled The Cambridge Platform (Cambridge, 1949). The article
appeared also in The Minister s Quarterly , V,i (1949).

The following citations from Roger Williams' works are identified by
these abbreviations: The Bloudy Tenent ET; The Bloudy Tenent Yet
More Bloudy - BTB; Letters L.

Page 215, line u: L, 335; page 216, line 16: BTB, 277; page 217, line 9:

SOURCES 265

BT, 174-175; page 218, line 28: kTB, 23-24; page 219, line 19: BT, 132;
page 219, line 29: BT, 147; page 220, line 6: BTB, 208; page 220, line 12:
BT, 138; page 220, line 14: BT, 290; page 220, line 25: Works, V, vii;
page 221, line 34: BT, 272; page 222, line 11: BTB, 508-509; page 222,
line 16: BTB, 47; page 222, line 26: L, 328-329; page 223, line 16: BTB,
S/S-S 1 ;; page 223, line 34: BT, 180; page 224, line 33: BTB, 71; page 225,
line 3: BTB, 189; page 225, line 12: BT, 332; page 226, line 7: BT, 399-
400; page 226, line 32: L, 278; page 227, line 25: L, 271; page 228, line 3:
L, 225; page 228, line 18: L, 90; page 228, line 22: L, 306.
CHAPTER IX: JOHN LOCKE: The background is taken from chapters
in Vol. V of the Cambridge Modern History: C. H. Firth, "The Stuart
Restoration"; John Pollock, "The Policy of Charles II and James II";
and H. M. Gwatkin, "Religious Toleration in England." Useful is the
book by A. A. Seaton, The Theory of Toleration Under the Later Stuarts
(Cambridge, Eng., 1911). The ecclesiastical documents are printed in
Henry Gee and W. J. Hardy, Documents Illustrative of English Church
History (London, 1914). On the evictions, consult A. G. Mathews, Cdamy
Revised (Oxford, 1934) . For the Cambridge Platonists, the most illuminat-
ing work is that of Ernst Cassirer, " Die Platonische Renaissance in Eng-
land und die Schule von Cambridge," Studien der Bibliothe\ Warburg
(1932). For Huguenot thought and the Glorious Revolution, consult Guy
Dodge, The Political Theory of the Huguenots of the Dispersion (New
York, 1947).

For Locke's own thought, the following were especially helpful:
Driver, Cecil, " John Locke," in F. J. C. Hearnshaw, The Social and Po-
litical Ideas of Some English Thinkers of the Augustan Age (London,
1928).

Gibson, James, Locke's Theory of Knowledge and Its Historical Relations
(Cambridge, England, 1917).

Gough, J. W., John Lodges Political Philosophy (Oxford, 1950).
Herding, Georg Freiherr von, John LocJ(e und die Schule von Cambridge
(Freiburg im Breisgau, 1892).

Citations are from the edition of Locke's works in 1801 and from the docu-
ments given in the biographies by Lord King, The Life of Locke, new
edition, 2 vols. (London, 1830), and by H. R. Fox Bourne, The Life of
John Loc\e, 2 vols. (London, 1876). These are as follows: page 237, line 32:
King, I, 197-198; page 240, line n: King, II, 84-87; page 241, line 2:
Works, VI, 24-31; page 241, line 18: Fox Bourne, I, 177; page 242, line 19:
Fox Bourne, I, 191; page 242, line 23: Works, VI, 376-379; page 242, line
28: Works, II, 279; page 243, line 12: Works, V, 395-410; page 243, line 28:
Works, VI, 13; page 243, line 31: King, II, 202; page 244, line 5: Works,
v * 38~39; Fge 245, line 4: King, II, 65; page 245, line 8: Works, VI, 237;
page 248, line 22: King, I, 164-168; page 249, line 33: King, I, 28-44;
page 251, line 31: Works, VI, 6-7.

266 SOURCES

ILLUSTRATIONS

33 Thomas of Torquemada, drawn from the painting by Pedro
Berruguete in a detail from a work commissioned by Torquemada
for the monastery at Avila, reproduced in Thomas Hope, Torque-
mada, 1939.

Page 45 A Burning at the Stake in the Spanish Inquisition, reproduced
from an illustration in Adriaan Van Haemstede, De Histonen der
Vromen Martelaren, 1604.

Page 54 Monument of the Reformation at Geneva, drawn from a photo-
graph.

Page 72 Michael Servetus, drawn from the copperplate in Johann L.
Mosheim, Histona Michaelis Serveti, 1727.

Page 8 1 Portrait of Erasmus Censored by the Inquisition, reproduced
from the Cosmographia of Sebastian Miinster, available in Marcel
Bataillon, Erasme en Espagne, 1925.

Page 97 Sebastien Castellio, drawn from the plate in his Latin Bible of
1729.

Page 125 David Joris, drawn from the painting in the Basel Museum.

Page 133 David Jons' Lion and Lamb, reproduced from Joris* Twonder-
boecJ^, 1542.

Page 151 Bernardino Ochino, reproduced from his Dialoghi Sette, 1542.

Page 165 A Cartoon of the Pope Receiving His Commission from Satan,
drawn from an illustration in a Spanish translation of a work of
Ochino entitled Imajen del Antechnsto, 1557.

Page 179 John Milton, drawn from the picture of a bust reproduced in
Denis Saurat, Milton, Man and Thinker, 1925.

Page 182 A Cartoon: Puritans Demolishing Crosses on Canterbury
Cathedral, reproduced from Bruno Ryves, Mercurius Rusticus, 1647.

Page 187 A Cartoon: Archbishop Laud Dining on the Ears of Prynne,
Bastwick, and Barton, drawn from an illustration in "A new play
called Canterburie his change of Diet" as reproduced in Edmund W.
Ashbee, Occasional Fac-similie Reprints, 1868-1871.

Page 208 Roger Williams, drawn from a photograph of the Monument
of the Reformation at Geneva.

Page 229 John Locke, drawn from illustrations in Lord King, The Life
of Loc^e, volume one, London, 1830.

Page 235 A Cartoon from A Delicate Dainty Damnable Dialogue Be-
tween the Devil and a ]e suite, by John Taylor, 1642.

Page 252 A Cartoon: Two Devils Helping Nonconformists Pull Down
the Dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, drawn from an illustration in The
TJmehouse Dream (1710) by Andrew Marvell the younger.

Index

Acton, Lord, 17
Alcander, Jerome, 80
Alexander VI, 41
Amerbach, Boniface, 146
America, 70, 135, Chapter VIII,

229 ^

American Colonies, 28

Constitution, 26
Amish, 210
Anabaptism, 16, 18, 19, 60, 61, 63,

64, 67, 69, 80, 83, 126, 176, 201,

210, 216, 219
Anglican Church, 25, 27, 179, 181,

182, 184, 187, 198, 239, 242
Antitrinitarians, 18, 19, 173, 174
Apostasy, 18, 37
Aquinas, Thomas, 76, 114
Aragon, 44, 93
Arians, 18, 39, 74
Armenians, 13
Arminians, 28, 201
Atheist, 14, 91
Augsburg, Interim, 27
Peace of, 26, 27, 179
Augustine, 38, 39, 66, 75, 76, 156,

169

Bacon, Francis, 162

Baptism, 18, 24, 35, 41, 61, 83, 86,

91, 92, 93, 115, 129, 138, 235
Baptists, 27, 28, 55, 60, 183, 184, 197,

198, 234
Basel, 64, 65, 80, 1 06, 108, 109, no,

142, 144, 146, 147, 159, 161, 164,

168, 169, 170, 172
Bayle, Pierre, 245, 256
Bellianism, 108, 109, 125
Bellius, Martin, 108, 113
Beza, Theodore, 55, 108, 109, no,

113, 114, 122, 148, 179
Bible, 18, 21, 56, 61, 69, 73, 74, 77,

107, 114, 117, 118, 131, 136
Blesdijk, Nicolaes, 132, 144-145, 146,

M7

Bocholt, 128, 129
Bool^ of Common Prayer, The, 188,

199, 232

Boston, 99, 214, 215
Braght, Tieleman, Van, 232
Brethren of the Common Life, 125,

126

Bullinger, Heinrich, 162
Bunyan, John, 233
Burtembach, Sebastian Schertlin

von, 1 60, 161

Calamy, Edmund, 232

Calvin, John, 16, 17, 18, 29, 54, 64-
71, 78, 84-94, 97, 98, 99, 103-
105, 107-109, 113-115* H9> 121,
122, 155, 157, 158, 162, 164,
179, 184, 256

Calvkiists, 20, 22, 97, 107, 113, 115,
119, 122, 140, 144, 158, 173, 1 80,
184, 208, 241, 244, 245, 249

Cambridge Platform, 211, 212. 213

268

INDEX

Canon Law, 18, 20, 61, 90
Castellio, Sebastien, 16, 21, Chapter
IV, 125, 134, 137, 138, 139, 143,
147, 148, 157, 159, 161, 164, 170,
171, 173, 179, 184, 194, 219,
239, 245, 246, 247, 248, 250, 255
Castile, 44

Charles I, 182, 187, 199, 203
II, 201, 229, 230, 232, 233
V, 16, 27, 72, 79, 150, 159, 162
Chiliasm, 128
Christendom, 29, 33, 34, 36, 90, 197,

215, 232, 258
Church (see State)
authority, 19, 20, 59, 77
no salvation outside, 17, 24, 37,

38

types, 23, 6o~6t, 83, 122-123, 139
Clarendon Code, 232
Codex Justinianus, 18, 61, 74, 90,

92,93

Communism, 14, 70, 175, 258, 259
Comprehension, 26, 27, 28

Bill of, 234
Congregationalists, 26, 27, 183, 198,

244

Connecticut, 27, 28, 228
Conscience, 21, 120, 171, 172, 215,

220-222, 230, 246, 247, 256

Constantine, 38

Donation of, 56
Contarini, Caspar, 156
Conventicle Act, 232, 233, 234
Cotton, John, 209, 215, 216, 217, 221
Counter Reformation, 29, 55
Covenanters, 128, 129
Cranmer, Thomas, 162
Creeds, 19, 21, 37, 67, 69, 92, 118,

136, 137

Apostles', 56, 64, 148, 171
Cromwell, Oliver, 25, 29, 198, 199,

200, 227, 231, 258

Crusades, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 115, 149
Cudworth, Ralph, 244

Death Penalty, 19, 37, 61, 63, 93,

98, 149, 166, 179, 180, 183, 235
Declaration of Indulgence, 233
Decree of 1781, 20
Democracy, 25, 94, 199
Deuteronomy, ch. 13, 36, 69
Devotio Moderna, 22

Diggers, 183
Dominicans, 43, 46, 135
Donatists, 18, 38, 61
Dostoevsky, Feodor, 52
Dukhobors, 128, 210

Edict of Nantes, 20, 179, 184, 230,

245, 259
Edward VI, 28, 107, 108, 121, 161,

163, 164, 174
Elect, 25, 62, 63, 67, 138, 209, 215,

216, 219
Elizabeth of England, 16, 27, 162,

168, 181

Endicott, John, 227
England, 16, 19, 23, 27, 28, 35, 69,

99, 121, 133, 152, 161, 163, 164,
173, Chapter VII, 211, Chapter
IX, 256

Enlightenment, 29, 56, 116, 120, 238
Episcopalians, 27, 28, 183, 189, 198
Erasmianism, 72, 73, 79, 80, 97, 114,

120, 238, 244, 248
Erasmus of Rotterdam, 21, 22, 29,

57-59, 60, 72, 73, 74, 79, 80, 81,

97, 106, 125, 126, 146, 154, 164,

194, 245, 255
Erastianism, 28, 163
Error, 17, 21, 30, 60, 63, 94, 114,

120, 138, 190, 196
Ethical, 21, 24, 58, 73, 117, 134

Fall of Man, 75, 116, 163, 203
Family of Love, 183
Farel, William, 55, 68, 94
Fascism, 14, 258
Ferdinand, 41-51, 72

INDEX

269

Fifth Monarchy Men, 183

Five-Mile Act, 232, 233, 234

Foxe, John, 232

France, 16, 35, 41, 42, 54, 64, 69,
71, 82, 84, 90, 92, 97, 98, 99,
no, 115, 157, 161, 169, 171, 172,
*73> *79> 183, 184, 230, 231, 236,

245

Francis I, 107
Franciscans, 20, 73, 135, 149, 150,

i55 ? 158, 175
Franck, Sebastian, 108
Franco, Mose, 47-51
Yuce, 47-51
of La Guardia, 48-51
Frederick the Great, 25
Fundamentalism, 22, 86, 93, 105,

113, 211, 218
Furley, Benjamin, 245

Galileo, 195, 205

Gansfort, Wessel, 22

Garcia, Benito, 47-51

Geneva, 54, 55> 68-69, 8 5 ? 86, 87,
88, 89-94, 97, 99, 104, 105, 106,
108, no, 115, 119, 143, 157-
159, 163, 164, 173, 179, 184, 213,
242

Gentile, Valentine, 18

Germany, 14, 27, 35, 81, 87, 99,
152, 159, 160, 161, 169, 180, 183

Ghent, Pacification of, 179

God, Glory of, 17, 18, 65-66, 70, 77,

94, MO

Neoplatonic conception of, 76
Granada, 51, 52

Halfway Covenant, 213
Harrison, Thomas, 200
Hardy, William, 222
Harvey, William, 83
Heiser, Victor G., 255
Henry III, 246

IV, 16, 20, 230, 246
VIII, 28, 162, 163, 171, 174
Heresy, 17, 18, 19, 24, 37, 39, 40,
58, 59, 63, 85, 88, 93, 94, 119,

126, I43-I44* *7*> 181, 235, 251
Holland (see Netherlands), 16, 54,

109, 125, 126, 161, 171, 1 80,
183, 197, 234, 236, 245, 247

Holmes, Obadiah, 214

Holy Spirit, 20, 58, 59, 62, 120, 122,

127, 136, 149, 158, 159
Huguenots, 16, 98, 230, 250
Humanism, 20, 56, 57, 59
Hus, Jan, 59, 218
Husites, 20, 173
Hutterites, 175, 210

Idolatry, 18
Image of God, 75, 194
Independents, 184, 198, 234, 239
Inquisition, 246

French, 86, 87, 88, 92

Roman, 156, 195

Spanish, 36, 40-52, 57, 72, 73, 80,

81

Isabella, 41-51, 72
Islam, 33, 36

Italy, 14, 16, 69, 89, 150, 152, 156,
157, 161, 162, 166, 184, 189

James I, 19, i8r, 186

II, 230, 233, 242

Jews, 13, Chapter I, 56, 72, 73-74,
77, 107, 115, 119, 121, 122, 144,

152, 220, 221, 222, 226, 24!

Joris, David, 16, 18, Chapter V, 149,

157. 179
Joseph II, 20

Kappel, Peace of, 179

Kingdom of God, 63, 66, 138, 172,

209

on earth, 62, 83, 188-189
Kleinberg, George, 108
Knox, John, 21, 55, 195

2JO INDEX

Labadists, 245

La Guardia, 48-51

Latitudinarianism, 24, 181

Laud, William, 182, 187

Le Clerc, Jean, 246

Leo X, 55

Levelers, 183

Limborch, Philip van, 246, 251

Locke, John, 16, 21, Chapter IX,

2 53> 256
London, 162
Lord's Supper, 79, 113, 115, 138,

167-168

Louis XIV, 230, 250
Luther, Martin, 17, 18, 29, 55, 58,

59-60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 67, 73, 77,

80, 84, 108, 113, 126, 138, 155,

1 60, 219, 224
Lutherans, 13, 20, 22, 26, 69, 98, 99,

113, 126, 140, 144, 152, 161, 167,

*69> 173, *75> *79> l8o J 9^

Maclachlan, Margaret, 233

Madrid, 125

Magistrates, 21, 24, 62, 63, 64, 107,

119, 120, 121, 136, 138, 219,

225, 239, 240, 246-247
Magna Charta, 181
Malignants, 198, 199
Marriage, 192-193, 197
Martyrdom, 20, 172, 259
Mary, Queen of Scots, 21

Tudor, 28, 121, 164
Maryland, 27
Mass, 60, 64, 68, 98, 188
Massachusetts, 27, 28, 214
Melanchthon, Philipp, 18, 64, 80,

162

Mennonites, 129, 210, 245
Middle Ages, 75, 76, 149, 163, 181,

191 .
Millenarianism, 129

Milton, John, 16, 29, Chapter VII,

208, 209, 221, 227, 229, 260
Mohammedans, 13, 14, 241

Mohammedanism, 74

Monotheism, 74

Montaigne, Michel, 98

Montanists, 38

Moors, 41, 51, 56, 72, 73-74, 77,

154

Moravia, 175

Miinster, 64, 128, 137, 158
Miintzer, Thomas, 62-63, 67, 158,

209
Mysticism, 20, 21, 29, 57, 58, 59, 72,

121-122, 131, 132, 135, 139,

142, 145, 154, 155

Naples, 89, 150, 154, 155, 157, 161
Navarre, Margaret of, 98
Netherlands (sec Holland), 73, 125,

126, 128, 142, 144, 145, 154, 179
New England, 16, 54, 67, 209, 213,

224

New Jersey, 27
New York, 27
Nicaea, Council of, 74, 75, 77

Creed of, 92
Nonessentials, 22, 113, 115, 138, 168,

171, 181, 198, 239, 240-241, 257

Oath, 134

Ochino, Bernardino, 16, Chapter

VI, 179, 185, 246
Old and New Testaments, 18, 37,

74, 82, 117, 128, 129
Oporinus, Johannes, 106, 108
Orange, William, Prince of, 16, 234
Owen, John, 239
Oxford, 236, 239

Pacifism, 129, 134, 172
Pagnini, Santes, 82
Pax Dissidentium, 29
Peasants' War, 62, 63
Penn, William, 245
Pennsylvania, 27, 214
Persecution, ideological, 15
presuppositions, i?. 17. 18. T<V-->'>

INDEX

271

36, 37> 39. *o8 120-1:22, 137,

143, 164, 249
sociological, 14, 36
Peter, Hugh, 200
Philip IV, 41

of Hesse, 170
Plymouth, 215

Poland, 29, no, 161, 171, 173, 174
Polygamy, 128, 129, 145-146, 170
Powell, Richard, 191
Predestination, 91, 92, 101, 103, in,

113, 115, 158, 162, 168, 1 69, 217
Presbyterians, 15, 27, 28, 182, 183,

184, 186, 187, 189, 190, 198, 199,

234, 249
Providence, 215
Prynne, William, 186
Ptolemy, 82
Puritanism, 184, 187, 191, 192, 209,

211

Quakers, 27, 28, 128, 183, 198, 214,

220, 233, 235, 245
Quintana, 73, 79, 80

Racovian Catechism, 175

Ranters, 183

Rationalism, 21, 29, 58, 73, 116, 255

Reason, 116-117

Renaissance, 28, 41, 56, 60, 79, 84,

91, 185, 192
Revivalism, 217
Revolution, 128, 129, 238

Glorious, 1 6, 234, 237, 250
Rhode Island, 27, 220
Roman Law, 18, 19, 61, 90, 147
Rome, 41, 64, 151, 152, 156, 158,

159. l6 3> 164, 173, 185
Roundheads, 198
Russia, 13, 14

Sabatini, Rafael, 51
Sacraments, 22, 23, 24, 122, 123,
138, 241

Salem, 215

Savonarola, Girolamo, 150, 159

Savoy, 68, 71, 245

Schor, Heinrich, Van, 145, 146, 147

Schwenckf elders, 160, 164

Scotland, 54, 55, 161, 182-183, 190,

198, 242
Sectarianism, 20, 23, 24, 29, 39, 40,

59, 60, 232, 242, 244
Sedition, 59, 63, 64, 90, 121
Servetus, Michael, 16, 17, 18, 53,

Chapter III, 97, 98, 106, 108,

121, 143, 144, 149, 164, 174,

179, 233, 236
Siena, 149, 157, 161, 162
Simons, Menno, 129
Sin, 17, 21, 75, 92, nr, 130, 243

original, 91, 209
Socinianism, 173, 174, 175, 201
Spain, 16, 27, Chapter I, 57, 69, 72-

73> 79) 8o > 8l > 93> **<>> * 2I > I2 5>
154, 180

Speculation, theological, 73
trinitarian, 75, 77

Speyer, Diet of, 1529, 63

State, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 37, 40, 41,
42, 55, 60, 63, 211, 217, 219,
223, 226, 232, 235, 242, 246,
249, 252, 253, 256, 257, 258

Strasbourg, 64, 80, 83, 87, 98, 133

Switzerland, 166, 169, 173

Tares, 24, 62, 106, 139, 190, 216, 219
Territorialism, 26, 27, 28, 214
Test Act, 231

Thirty-nine Articles, 181, 234
Titus 3:1, 37

Toleration, Act of, 16, 30, 97, 229,
234, 236, 251

American, 19

as expediency, 19-20

grades, 13, 179, 184
Torquemada, Thomas, 16, 68,

Chapter I, 72, 233, 235
Trent, Council of, 156, 162

272 INDEX

Trinity, 18, 56, 58, 74-80, 91-93, Waldenses, 245

in, 113, 134, 136, 154, 171, 174 Westphalia, Peace of, 26
Tritheism, 74, 77 Williams, Roger, 16, 55, 185, Chap-

Turks, 34, 41, 107, 115, 144, 152, ter VIII, 229, 243, 244, 159

160, 176, 220, 221, 222, 224, 226 Wilson, Margaret, 234

Winthrop, John, 227, 228
Worms, Diet of, 80

Uniformity, Act of, 232 Wiirttemberg, Christoph of, 110

Unitarians, 28, 183, 198, 235
United States, 15, 19, 99, 235, 258, Zapolya, Johann, 176

259 Zurich, 60, 89, 92, 162, 1 66, 167, 168,

170, 172

Zwingli, Ulrich, 29, 60, 61, 67, 162,
167

Valdes, Juan de, 154-155, *74-i75
Venice, 151, 152, 156, 159
Virginia, 27, 28

Zwinglians, 22, 69, 99, 140, 144,
159, 169, 180

126215