Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/82

 tive power over the church. Such powers Christ alone was fit to enjoy; and the magistrate who sought to force the consciences of men by temporal might usurped Christ’s prerogative. The quelling of heresy and schism was no excuse; for to crush them God had appointed his Word and ministry, and not the hand of man. A magistrate who drew the temporal sword to cut off those whom he thought spiritual offenders might be ill-fated enough to learn too late that he had warred against God. Goodwin trenchantly criticised the Presbyterian delegation of power to the magistrate, terming it merely a power to force the kingdom to obey presbyters in all things. In a later pamphlet he suggested that the unregenerate freemen who had elected the members of the House of Commons could give them no authority over the church, made up as it was of saints. Thereby he came nearer yet to a doctrine of complete separation of church and state.

To this end had attacks on the Presbyterian state church led the Independents. Attacking, with Erastian arguments, the expediency of Presbyterianism, they had come to a position still more dangerous from the Erastian viewpoint; for divine right in a system of ecclesiastical anarchy was even worse than divine right in a system of spiritual tyranny. The Independents after advocating such an anarchy jure divino had to defend the divine right principle against Erastian attacks.