Page:The Leveller movement; a study in the history and political theory of the English Great Civil War (IA levellermovement01peas).djvu/89

 ents, on the contrary, engaged warmly, and Prynne was soon in his element.

In a second pamphlet published ten days after his first, Prynne developed the reasons why Independent practice was incompatible with his general proposition. Independency, he argued, really involved setting the church beyond the control of the state. In his opinion the church, outside of the things positively ordained in the Word, was so much a state affair that there was no difference between a freedom to gather Independent churches, and a freedom to set up republics or independent political states throughout the nation. In view of the control that Parliament and king had exercised over religion, Independency seemed to Prynne a legalization of anarchy.

Passing over Prynne’s minor proposition to deny his major, John Goodwin, in a brief answer to the Twelve Questions, took the ground that Independency was of divine right. It was, therefore, he urged, fitting that the state’s law be subject to Christ’s rather than Christ’s to the state’s. Would