Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-wbk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-16T02:12:59.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Coercion to Persuasion: Another Look at the Rise of Religious Liberty and the Emergence of Denominationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Sidney E. Mead
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

So far as religious affairs are concerned, the colonial period of our history begins with the planting of the first permanent English colony in 1607, guided by the intention to perpetuate in the new land the religious patterns to which the mother country had grown accustomed. Chief of these for our purposes was uniformity enforced by the civil power. The period culminates just 180 years later with the complete rejection of this central intention in the provisions for national religious freedom in the Constitution (1787) and First Amendment (1791).

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 57 , supplment S1 , March 1988 , pp. 68 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1932

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Philip, Schaff, Church and State in the United States. New York: G. B. Putnam's Sons, 1888. p. 28.Google Scholar

2. Stephen Vincent, Benet, Western Star. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1943. p. 144.Google Scholar

3. Greene, Evarts B., Religion and the State: The Making and Testing of an American Tradition. New York: N.Y. University Press, 1941. p. 37Google Scholar. See also Thompson, Joseph P., Church and State in the United Stales. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1873. p. 55.Google Scholar

4. As quoted in Frederick Zwierlein, J., Religion in New Netherland. Rochester, N.Y.: John P. Smith Printing Co., 1910. pp. 140–41.Google Scholar

5. As quoted in ibid., pp. 117, 118–19.

6. Miller, Perry and Johnson, Thomas H., The Puritans. New York: American Book Company, 1938. p. 231.Google Scholar

7. See the article, “The Contribution of the Protestant Churches to Religious Liberty in America,” Church History, IV (March 1935), pp. 57–66.Google Scholar

8. As quoted in Warren Sweet, William, Religion in Colonial America. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1942. pp. 151–52.Google Scholar

9. Zwierlein, , Religion in New Netherland, p. 261.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 257.

11. Ibid., p. 256.

12. Greene, , Religion and the State, pp. 52–53.Google Scholar

13. For the Colony in Virginea Britannia. Lavves Diuine, Moral and Martiall, &c. Printed at London for Walter Burre, 1612. In Force, Peter, Tracts and Other Papers, vol. III, #ii. Washington: Wm. Q. Force, 1844, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

14. Virginia's Cure: Or an Advisive Narrative Concerning Virginia. Discovering the True Ground of That Churches Unhappiness, and the Only True Remedy. As it was presented to the Right Reverend Father in God Gvilbert Lord Bishop of London, September 2, 1661. London: W. Godbid, 1662. In Peter, Force, Tracts and Others Papers, vol. III, #xv. Washington: Wm. Q. Force, 1844.Google Scholar

15. Miller, and Johnson, , The Puritans, p. 27.Google Scholar

16. “A Reply to Mr. Williams His Examination: and Answer of the Letters Sent to Him by John Cotton” (Publications of the Narragansett Club, 1st Series, Vol. II [Providence, 1862], p. 19)Google Scholar, quoted by Hertz, Karl H., “Bible Commonwealth and Holy Experiment” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1948), p. 148.Google Scholar

17. Miller, and Johnson, , The Puritans, p. 638.Google Scholar

18. For the general factors at work, see the article by Roland, Bainton, “The Struggle for Religious Liberty,” Church History, X (06 1941), 95–124.Google Scholar Professor Winthrop S. Hudson has suggested that English Independents had developed a “denominational” conception of the Church, which in spite of the rigors of the New England way tended always to make its leaders inherently uncomfortable with persecution of dissenters. See his article, “Denominationalism as a Basis for Ecumenicity: A Seventeenth Century Conception,” Church History, XXIV (March 1955), 32–50. This suggests a fruitful area for further exploration.

19. As quoted in Andrews, Charles M., The Colonial Period of American History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934. I, 386.Google Scholar

20. Arthur Lyon, Cross, The Anglican Episcopate and the American Colonies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1924. p. 22.Google Scholar

21. In the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Series 4, vol. 2, 1854, pp. 1–113.Google Scholar

22. William, Sewel, The History of The Quakers, Intermixed with Several Remarkable Occurrences. Written originally in low Dutch, and translated by himself into English. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1856. I, 354–55. This history first appeared in English in 1722.Google Scholar

23. See Cobb, Sanford H., The Rise of Religious Liberty in America. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1902, p. 69.Google Scholar

24. Green, , Religion and the State, p. 51.Google Scholar

25. The Journals of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, trans. Tappert, Theodore G. and Doberstein, John W.. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1942. I, 67.Google Scholar

26. See Edwards, ' “A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls, in Northampton…” in The Works of President Edwards. New York: S. Converse, 1830, IV, 70–71.Google Scholar

27. As, for example, Jonathan, Edwards' words: “The Beginning of the late work of God in this Place was so circumstanced, that I could not but look upon it as a remarkable Testimony of God's Approbation of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone, here asserted and vindicated: … And at that time, while I was greatly reproached for defending this Doctrine in the Pulpit, and just upon my suffering a very open Abuse for it, God's Work wonderfully brake forth amongst us, and souls began to flock to Christ, as the Saviour in whose Righteousness alone they hoped to be justified; So that this was the Doctrine on which this work in its Beginning was founded, as it evidently was in the whole progress of it.” Discourses on various Important Subjects, Nearly Concerning the Great Affair on the Soul's Eternal Salvation. Boston: S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738. p. ii.Google Scholar

28. As quoted in Gewehr, Wesley M., The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740–1790. Duke University Press, 1930. p. 16.Google Scholar

29. In ibid., p. 65.

30. From Trinterud, Leonard J., The Forming of an American Tradition, A Reexamination of Colonial Presbyterianism. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1944. pp. 90–91.Google Scholar

31. William Warren, Sweet, The American Churches, an Interpretation. New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1948. pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

32. See for example Hudson's, Winthrop S. review of Sweet's The American Churches, in The Crozer Quarterly, XXV (10. 1948), pp. 358–60.Google Scholar

33. See Isaac, Backus, A History of New England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists. 2d ed., with notes by David Weston. Newton, Mass.: The Backus Historical Society, 1871. II, 41.Google Scholar

34. Adventures of Ideas. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1933. pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

35. John, Wesley, Sermons on Several Occasions. New York: Lane and Scott, 1851. I, 392.Google Scholar

36. Quoted in Sweet, The American Churches, pp. 46–47.

37. Quoted in Gewehr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, p. 65.

38. See in this connection my article, “American Protestantism During the Revolutionary Epoch,” Church History, XXII (12. 1953), 279–297Google Scholar; Wilhelm, Pauck, Theology in the Life of Contemporary American Protestantism,” The Shane Quarterly, XIII (04, 1952), 37–50Google Scholar; Diman, J. L., “Religion in America, 1776–1876,” North American Review, CXXII (01. 1876).Google Scholar

39. From the Autobiography, in Frank Luther, Mott and Jorgenson, Chester E., Benjamin Franklin, Representative Selections …, New York: American Book Company, 1936. p. 70.Google Scholar

40. Padover, Saul K. (ed.), The Complete Jefferson. New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc., 1943. p. 676.Google Scholar

41. James, Madison, “A Memorial and Remonstrance on the Religious Rights of Man,” as printed in Blau, Joseph L. (ed.), Cornerstones of Religious Freedom in America. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1949. p. 81.Google Scholar

42. Padover, (ed.), The Complete Jefferson, p. 676.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 675.

44. As quoted in Henry Wilder, Foote, Thomas Jefferson: Champion of Religious Freedom, Advocate of Christian Morals. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1947. p. 52.Google Scholar

45. Joseph, Priestley, An History of the Corruptions oj Christianity. Birmingham: J. Thompson, 1793.Google Scholar

46. See Ralph Barton, Perry, Puritanism and Democracy. New York: The Vanguard Press, p. 80.Google Scholar

47. In a previous article in this Journal (December 1954) I discussed the nature of the denominational organization and the almost complete triumph of denominationalism during the first half of the nineteenth century.