Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/80

 such elaborate organization to rival the civil power. It did not call in the civil magistrate to enforce the decrees of the church. Since the magistrate had the power of the “first table,” it was his duty to put down heresy on his own initiative; and he might seek instruction from the churches as to what was or was not heresy. But the declaration of non-communion launched by a church against a contumacious member, or against a contumacious church by other churches was the supreme discipline that the congregational system knew; therefore it needed no assistance from civil authorities.

This Independent tenet necessarily led to a complete denial of the magistrate’s power to punish religious offenses. In Massachusetts Bay magistrates could exercise control over the churches because every magistrate was necessarily a church member. But how would Independent churches fare when civil magistrates, without seeking their advice, imposed upon them innovations on Christ’s supreme laws? Could a magistrate be trusted with a power that would permit him to do so? On this dilemma the Presbyterians thrust their opponents. If the Independents claimed that their system was jure divino, how could they leave it at the mercy of a civil magistrate unchecked by the presence of a national church? Logically there was but one escape for the Independents.