Page:New England and the Bavarian Illuminati.djvu/71

 (c) Summary

By way of summary, a few general comments, based upon the situation in Massachusetts and Connecticut jointly considered, are now in order. Looking back upon the activities of the Standing Order after the lapse of something more than a century, we see that they were zealously contending for an ideal which had won their whole allegiance a body politic safeguarded and made secure by a state church. To prevent deterioration of the state and its people the bulwark of a religion established by law seemed imperative. 1 The interests involved were far too serious to put them at the mercy of a voluntary support of the institutions of religion. 2 Moreover, an established church seemed to this group of men no necessary enemy of non-conformity. The degree of toleration possible under an establishment of religion was deemed sufficient actually to favor the growth of sects, and at the same time to make the sway of orthodoxy


 * 1 This point of view was tersely set forth in the election sermon preached by the Rev. Mr. Payson, at Boston, May 27, 1778: "Let the restraints of religion once be broken down, as they infallibly would be by leaving the subject of public worship to the humours of the multitude, and we might well defy all human wisdom and power to support and preserve order and government in the state." Quoted by Backus, Church History of New England, from 1620 to 1804 (ed. of 1844, Philadelphia), pp. 204 et seq.


 * 2 The state of feelings shared by the supporters of the Establishment at the time when the blow fell severing the bond between the church and state in Connecticut, is vividly expressed by Beecher: " It was a time of great depression. ... It was as dark a day as ver I saw. The injury done to the cause of Christ, as we then supposed, was irreparable. For several days I suffered what no tongue can tell for the best thing that ever happened to the State of Connecticut." (Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., vol. i, p. 304.)


 * 3 This was the view propounded by President Ezra Stiles, of Yale, in his election sermon of May 8, 1783: "Through the liberty enjoyed here, all religious sects will grow up into large and respectable bodies. But the Congregational and Presbyterian, denominations, however hitherto despised, will, by the blessing of Heaven, continue to hold the greatest figure in America, and, notwithstanding all the fruitless labors and exertions to proselyte us to other communions, become more numerous than the whole collective body of our fellow protestants in Europe." (Quoted by Backus, History of New England, vol. ii, p. 312.)

To this exposition and bold forecast Backus took decided objections, on the grounds (i) that persecution and not tolerance had promoted the growth of sects in America, and (2) that the numerical increase of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in this country did not justify any such prediction. Cf. ibid., pp. 403-407.