The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut | Page 8

at once elected Greenwood to the
office of teacher. Dr. John Brown, writing later than Dr. Dexter, claims
this London church as the parent of English Congregationalism. To
make good the claim, he traces the history of the church by means of
references in Bradford's History, Fox's "Book of Martyrs," and in
recently discovered state papers to its existence as a Separate church
under Elizabeth, when, as early as 1571, its pastor, Richard Fitz, had
died in prison. Dr. Brown believes he can still farther trace its origin to
Queen Mary's reign, when a Mr. Rough, its pastor, suffered martyrdom,
and one Cuthbert Sympson was deacon. [14] After the death of
Greenwood and Barrowe, this London congregation was sore pressed.
Their pastor, Francis Johnson, having been thrown into prison, they
began to make their way secretly to Amsterdam. There Johnson joined
them in 1597, soon after his release. To this London-Amsterdam
church were gathered Separatist exiles from all parts of England, for
converts were increasing, [k] especially in the rural districts of the
north, notwithstanding the fact that persecution followed hard upon
conversion.

The policy of Elizabeth during the earlier years of her reign was one of
forbearance towards inoffensive Catholics and of toleration towards all
Protestants. Caring nothing for religion as such, her aim was to secure
peace and to increase the stability of her realm. This she did by
crushing malcontent Catholics, by balancing the factions of
Protestantism, and by holding in check the extremists, whether
High-Churchmen or the ultra-Puritan followers of Cartwright. She had
forced on the contending factions a sort of armed truce and silenced the
violent antagonism of pulpit against pulpit by licensing preachers. The
Acts of Supremacy and of Uniformity placed all ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, as well as all legislative power, in the hands of the state.
They outlined a system of church doctrine and discipline from which
no variation was legally permitted. Notwithstanding the enforced
outward conformity, the Bible was left open to the masses to study, and
private discussion and polemic writing were unrestrained. The main
principles of the Reformation were accepted, even while Elizabeth
resisted the sweeping reforms which the strong Calvinistic faction of
the Puritan party would have made in the ceremonial of the English
church. This she did notwithstanding the fact that about the time
Thomas Cartwright, through the influence of the ritualists under
Whitgift, had been driven from Cambridge, Parliament had refused to
bind the clergy to the Three Articles on Supremacy, on the form of
Church government, and on the power of the Church to ordain rites and
ceremonies. Parliament had even suggested a reform of the liturgy by
omitting from it those ceremonies most obnoxious to the Puritan party.
[l] That representative assembly had but reflected the desire of all
moderate statesmen, as well as of the Puritans. But, in the twelve years
between Cartwright's dismissal from Cambridge and Browne's
preaching there without a license, a great change took place, altering
the sentiment of the nation. All but extremists drew back when
Cartwright pushed his Presbyterian notions to the point of asserting that
the only power which the state rightfully held over religion was to see
that the decrees of the churches were executed and their contemners
punished, or when this reformer still further asserted that the power and
authority of the church was derived from the Gospel and consequently
was above Queen or Parliament. Cartwright claimed for his church an
infallibility and control of its members far above the claims of Rome,

and, tired of waiting for a purification of existing conditions by
legislative acts, he had, as has been said, boldly organized, in
accordance with his system, the clergy of Warwickshire and
Northamptonshire. The local churches were treated as self-governing
units, but were controlled by a series of authoritative Classes and
Synods. Having done this, Cartwright called for the establishment of
Presbyterianism as the national church and for the vigorous suppression
of Episcopacy, Separatism, and all variations from his standard. As he
thus struck at the national church, at the Queen's supremacy, and,
seemingly to many Englishmen, at the very roots of civil government
and security, there was a sudden halt in the reform movement. The
impetus which would have probably brought about all the changes that
the great body of Puritans desired was arrested. Richard Hooker's
"Ecclesiastical Polity" swept the ground from under Thomas
Cartwright's "Admonition to Parliament." Hooker's broad and
philosophic reasoning showed that no one system of
church-government was immutable; that all were temporary; and that
not upon any man's interpretation of Scripture, or upon that of any
group of men alone, could the divine ordering of the world, of the
church or of the state, be based. Such order depended upon moral
relations, upon social and political institutions, and changed with times
and