"The uses of the Old and New Testaments during the debate over Liberty of Conscience, 1644-1649" Chris Farrell

The historical and societal circumstances behind the tolerationist debate
During the 1640s in England, a Parliamentary challenge to the King’s supremacy precipitated a massive breakdown in authority and stability across the country. This temporary freedom allowed polemicists, pamphleteers and radicals of all categories to publish works and led to a series of fierce debates on contentious topics such as freedom from censorship of printed material, the role of the government in religious affairs, and the merits of liberty of conscience. The latter topic was, at the time, tremendously controversial and produced many very radical pieces, which proved to be important in the development of political thought in British history. The very great body of the printed work in England during the Civil War period came from printing presses in London, which had become ‘a hothouse for radical ideas’. This thesis will focus on the debate regarding religious toleration, or liberty of conscience, with particular emphasis on the biblical language used by proponents of differing ideals. It is the contention of this work that there was an important split between the usage of the Testaments of the Bible by those in favour of liberty of conscience, the tolerationists, and those opposed to it, the anti-tolerationists. The participants in this debate on religious liberty centred their arguments around the poles of two general concepts; the idea of Old Testament Israel as a model for the English state and the proposal to create Jesus Christ’s New Testament kingdom of universal love in the country. This thesis will seek to draw a clarifying line between the use of analogies from the two testaments as models for British religious life with particular focus on the nature of the term toleration. The impetus for undertaking this work derives from references to the tolerationist debate in John Coffey’s two major works on seventeenth century England. In these works Coffey outlines the participants and the course of the tolerationist debate of the 1640s but fails, I believe, to underline the strict dichotomy between the two Testaments over the very notion of liberty of conscience.
The very notion of toleration as a Christian concept was debated vigorously in this period, especially between the years 1644 and 1649, which we will focus on, and there are some very definite dividing lines between the participants in the debate. Most notable was the prevalence of New Testament analogies in favour of the notion of toleration by the tolerationists, and the strict use of Old Testament typology on uniformity and persecution by the anti-tolerationists. 1644 was marked by a the realisation of an inevitable Parliamentary victory on the battlefield and the acceleration by the Presbyterian Church of their religious restructuring of the country. These events heralded the beginning of what we will call ‘the tolerationist debate’. However, before engaging in any sort of detailed analysis of the books and pamphlets written about toleration during these years, it is first necessary to provide an adequate historical backdrop and explanation of religious circumstances including a definition of the common terms and titles both those of the period, and those used to describe the period.
The prevalence of certain terms throughout this work necessitates a clarification and classification of their meanings. The most important elucidation will be of the term ‘toleration’, defined as the 'allowance (with or without limitations), by the ruling power, of the exercise of religion otherwise than in the form officially established or recognized'. The Oxford Dictionary of British History underlines the impact of the term ‘religious toleration’ to people in the seventeenth century, and the commonly held belief that ‘state and church had not only the right but the duty to put down religious dissent’. The ordinary people ‘assumed that religious truth was God-given and absolute; that a country divided in religion would be fatally weakened; that nonconformists were potential traitors; that the exercise of private judgement would, in the end, undermine all authority and produce a shattered and anarchic society, in which everything was permissible’. However, disregarding the ambiguity of the usage of the term toleration the definition consistently used in this work will be the one provided by the American dictionary of Current English. Here toleration is defined as 'the process or practice of tolerating, esp. the allowing of differences in religious opinion without discrimination'. The phrase liberty of conscience will be used interchangeably with toleration throughout this work. Furthermore the OED defines tolerationism as 'the toleration of religious differences as a principle or system' and a tolerationist as 'one who advocates or supports toleration'.
The term Episcopacy will be used to described the church as by law established in England up until the beginning of the Civil War. The interchangeable terms Laudianism and Arminianism, vital to our understanding of the religious battleground of the period, will be analysed in a later chapter. The Puritans who opposed King Charles could be loosely broken down into three groups, Independents, Presbyterians and Sectarians. Presbyterians were the majority grouping which shaped many of the major events of the mid-1640s especially in the lead-up to the second Civil War. They are described as being in opposition to episcopacy but supportive of national church government by ministers and shared their Calvinist religion with the Scottish Covenanters whom they relied upon for military support. Independents, also known as Congregationalists, were in favour of a measure of liberty within a broader church government. The aggressive policies of the Presbyterians in Westminster served to isolate many potentially moderate independents and sectarians and lead them into the pursuit of a more radical agenda as the decade progressed. The Sectarians were not essentially a rigid grouping and the only characteristic they shared was a common schism from the established Church and a desire to be let worship without fear of persecution. The danger which the Presbyterians perceived of the sectaries lay in their denial in the necessity of religious unity which was 'in effect, (a denial) that there was such a thing as society'.
Society, and all aspects of social and even political life, had religious undertones and overtones to it. The fact that even official functions such as 'assizes or meetings of Parliament began with prayers and a mass or a sermon', meant that schism from the established church meant schism from society. Among those termed ‘sectarian’ were Anabaptists, Seekers, and, later on, Quakers. Another common term for sectarians was non-conformists, described as Protestants ‘who did not conform to the disciplines or rites of the Anglican Church’ or the Episcopalian Church in this case.
Other terms frequently encountered throughout the historiography of this debate are radicals and moderates, with appliance strictly to religious beliefs. Radical tolerationists are those, such as Roger Williams, who supported liberty of conscience for all religious denominations, often even including Catholics and Muslims. The issue of the toleration of Catholicism was quite layered during this period, and for the purpose of this debate it is not essentially relevant. Radical anti-tolerationists were often Arminians or Presbyterians who, during this period, argued in favour of uniformity of the National Church and the persecution of dissenters. Moderate tolerationists were in favour of the toleration of individual congregations, often within a loosely formed wider church organisation. Moderate anti-tolerationists were those who saw the need for unity in England and were prepared to tolerate differences in belief among the sectarians so long as it did not challenge the fundamental beliefs of the state. It is important to note that every participant in this debate had their own set of political and social beliefs and the course of their thought was largely dictated by events in the country at large. To Blair Worden even the radicals who encouraged liberty of conscience saw the dangers in granting toleration to the population at large. This debate on toleration took place within a much larger debate on the very future and nature of religion in England, and must be seen as such. The setting of this debate was an England loaded with religious antagonism, teetering on the brink of implosion.
Biblical typology and analogy were common methods in seventeenth century England for adding credibility to political and religious viewpoints. Typology is defined as 'the study of symbolic representation, especially of the origin and meaning of Scripture types' and analogy as 'the equivalency or likeness of relations' in the Oxford English Dictionary. The Civil War period differs only in that the sheer volume of work printed meant that men now squabbled over the meanings of individual lines of scripture more freely and viciously than ever before. The analysing of the Bible was a way of deciphering current political events and determining the best course of action for the English people. It required, nay 'depended upon a commonplace analogy between England and the Biblical people Israel'. Boyd Berry has iterated the importance of typology as a method used to raise events above history, equating the struggle of the Civil War with that of Israel, which served to 'rationalize their revolution as the work of God wrought through his agents on Earth'. Typological readings of the bible implied that a finality or eschatology for both the self and the nation could be found.
It is also important to identify some of the characteristics of the religious denominations involved in the tolerationist debate because religion was in essence one of the major driving forces behind the civil war, stimulating and firing the revolutionary ideals among groups of learned men. It was religion in the form of militant Old Testament Protestantism which defined itself as having an 'obsession with preaching and the message of the scriptures, a penchant for godly discipline, and a vision of the new Jerusalem' which validated wartime actions.
The religious and political circumstances allowing the debate to take place
The Church of England had been the legally established National Church in England from the time of the reformation under Henry VIII, but since the ascension to the throne of Charles I the Church had become dominated by an Arminian clique, especially after William Laud was appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. English Arminians stressed ‘ritual, ceremony and the sacraments rather than the preaching of the word and held a very elevated notion of the importance of the clergy’. These appeared to be suspiciously popish traits for the majority of English Puritans. The Church under James I was a breeding ground for religious discussion; so powerful was its 'authority and influence…(it)…became a battleground for rival visions of English society fought out at court, in Parliament and in the early parishes of Stuart England'. This discussion was contained so long as the Church remained reasonably tolerant of the major religious groupings in the country, and this was not the case under the Arminians. The ceremonial aspects of Arminianism provoked hostility throughout England and by 1640 the term had come to signify ‘absolution in addition to heresy and idolatry’ to many. A hallmark of the Arminian character was their anti-Calvinism and their adherence to the Dutch theologians Arminus’ views on the supreme role of the monarch, both of which appealed to Charles I. As noted above, the term Arminian is used interchangeably with the term Laudian in the study of British history and it was Laud who really gave the movement impetus with his hands-on approach during the 1630s.
As John Fielding highlights, the Church of England’s policies during the 1630s were so radical that 'it is the Arminians and their leader William Laud, who are now portrayed as the revolutionary element, not the Puritans. Nicolas Tyacke has spelled out the principles of Laudianism, including the 'extremely exalted view of episcopacy, both as divinely instituted and an essential mark of the true church'. Laud had a vision of what he wanted the church to be, this vision included 'a wealthier church and one more independent of the laity, to be achieved by an even closer alliance with the monarchy than already existed. The example held forth is that of King David in the Old Testament’. Schism from the established church, as well as being viewed as sinful, was viewed as disloyalty to the monarch to the point of being treasonous. The toleration of sects outside the Episcopalian Church was contrary to the long held policy of both the Tudor dynasty and the Stuarts. Both the Church of England members and the Presbyterians were of the belief that God left one true church on earth, and the unity of that church was a prerequisite for godliness.
The extent to which the Episcopalians viewed themselves as protectors and guides of Kingship is evident from the Canons of 1606. These were to be guidelines for Stuart rule of the church and were adhered to rigidly by Charles I and Archbishop Laud. Canon 20 of book 1 states that the Old Testament role of Kingship was to 'bring up his subjects in fear', being bound to ensure that their subjects had 'no false gods (and) are not idolatrous, nor blasphemous'. The Kings divine right to rule meant that he was directly answerable to the Lord with regards his method of kingship, and therefore subject to his clergy’s interpretations of kingship. Old Testament, and Old Testament-inspired, examples of kingly rule were the norm for the Episcopalians in the seventeenth century, and so the Stuarts and their bishops were comfortable with the need to persecute non-conformists and sectaries. The Canons stated that Kings were bound both by the law of grace and that of nature to bring his subjects up in the true doctrine and might 'compel all their subjects, both clergy and laity, to obey their laws'. Bound to uphold these religious laws and to compel his subjects to live under them, by the late 1630s the King was subject, albeit quite willingly, to the ever growing Arminian element within his own Church which was rapidly polarising the country and creating a radical clique of Puritans determined to abolish episcopacy. These Arminians often quoted heavily from the Bible in order to justify the link between Church and State, the need for religious uniformity and thus their belief the nonconformists were breaking the law. Seventeenth-century England seems to have been structured with the language of biblical imagery more so than it was a century before, and this was to be a crucial factor in the development of religious debate.
With the Laudian reforms the Arminians had attempted to bring every subject of the King into the one unifying church by imposing uniformity of practice and prayer book on the country. The propagators of the ideals of Laudianism consistently leaned on examples of Old Testament Kings of Israel such as David and Solomon who also served as the heads of their Church in order to legitimise their monopoly of power. Laud himself asserted that in keeping with the tradition of Kings such as Hezekiah, Justinian and Charlemagne, the monarchy had every right to reform the church and command the priests to do their will. The separation between Church and state was a fundamental principle to the tolerationists, with many of them, throughout the period of this debate, citing John’s Gospel and Jesus’ declaration that God’s kingdom is not of this world. This desire for separation had political consequences as well; by claiming that there should be a separation between Church and State, the sectaries were giving themselves licence to dissent from a church they did not advocate, without breaking any laws. Richard Reinitz iterates that traditionally ‘biblical support for the power of the state in religious affairs had always been drawn from the example of the Old Testament magistrates’ but tolerationists sought a new order. This is why, as we shall see, men like Roger Williams looked to the New Testament as ‘it sustained his advocacy of an absolute separation of church and state and the complete toleration of religious diversity’.
So, by 1640 with the religious and political policies of Charles Stuart returning to haunt him, English society had divided so as to facilitate the emergence of three relevant religio-political groupings. Religious congregations such as the Presbyterians, the Independents, and the Scottish Covenanters became heavily involved both in the politics of the country and eventually the religious debates. With the interjection and growing power of these groups, and with the remnants of Episcopalianism still obvious, religious tension quite frequently spilt into political life during this period. The religious policies of Archbishop Laud, discussed above, had the effect of 'alienating those who had until then been reconciled to working within the church, of nudging Puritans in the direction of sectarianism'. Nowhere was this more evident than in Scotland, where the Kirk had long held precedence, when, in 1637 Laud introduced a compulsory and uniform prayer book in order to bring the Scottish church into line with the English one. Sedition and hostility turned to outright rebellion in the northern Stuart kingdom and 'when Charles eventually took an army to Scotland in 1639, his own subjects forced a humiliating truce upon him'. The Covenanters then pressed Charles into rapid action in 1640 with their invasion of Newcastle. In order to finance further expeditions to the north Charles called a Parliament in 1640, dismissing it after a month, before calling another at the year’s end, one which would eventually become known as The Long Parliament. This 'opened the floodgates of rebellion in politics and anarchy in the spiritual life in England'. As Mark Goldie states, the summoning of the Long Parliament and the subsequent breakdown in the Kings authority let loose an anarchy of private conscience, which was formulated most effectively through the medium of print.
In May 1641, The Long Parliament obtained an Act of Attainder in order to impeach the Earl of Stafford, one of the King’s most prominent supporters, and then directly challenged Charles with their opposition to the Church of England. That same year the rebellion in Ireland, which should have united all Protestants in England against a common enemy, provided the Presbyterian dominated Parliament an opportunity to further frustrate the King’s power. Also in 1641 Parliament passed the Grand Remonstrance and gathered momentum towards directly opposing the King. This precipitated Charles’ ill-conceived movement against the MPs whom he felt had frustrated his need for finance for the war against the Scottish. These MPs, led by John Pym, escaped into London and Charles was forced to leave the capital, setting up camp at Oxford as hostilities began in earnest in late 1642. By this juncture, with the growing relevance of the Assembly of Divines, a religious assembly set up to help facilitate a new Puritan Church of England, it was clear that 'religion and political grievance…(had become)…most intimately interwoven'. At the Battle of Edgehill Charles’ march to London was halted by the Parliamentary army, newly reinforced with Scottish support following their promise to adopt the Scottish League and Covenant throughout a Presbyterian ruled England. Charles was defeated again on a march to London in 1643, this time from his base at Oxford. That same year Parliament ratified the Solemn League and Covenant with the Scottish and they invaded the Royalist held north of England. The combined army of the Scots, Yorkshiremen (under Thomas Fairfax) and the Eastern Association (under Oliver Cromwell and the Earl of Manchester) defeated the Cavalier Royalist army at Marston Moor in 1644, taking the North of England.
The New Model Army was created as a permanent Parliamentary force in 1645 with General Thomas Fairfax at its head, and it decisively routed the Royalists at Naseby that same year. Also in 1645 came the execution of Archbishop Laud, and soon after, the abolition of episcopacy. This effectively ended the first civil war, and secured the Scottish-backed Presbyterian MPs as the political leaders of England. Although the majority of members of the Commons agreed upon the destruction of Laudianism and the dismantling of the Episcopalian system, there was friction over the exact direction which England should take. The Presbyterians wanted to replace the Episcopalian structure with a Presbyterian church in keeping with the Covenant. The Scottish Army had 'demanded as the price of their allegiance the introduction into England of a religious system like their own, and the persecution of sectaries'. However there were numerous other interested parties, such as the Independents and many of the sectaries, who wanted the freedom of congregation within any National Church as a prerequisite for supporting the Presbyterians.
After the passage of the Grand Remonstrance and the Root and Branch Bill through parliament, the winter of 1642-3 saw the introduction of a bill abolishing bishops. The Parliamentary debates of the time were already showing signs of a division between the two parties, Presbyterian and Independent. Events reached a head in 1643 with the adoption of the Scottish Solemn League and Covenant which made it clear that the Assembly of Divines was working to facilitate the creation of a Presbyterian state. On 3rd January 1644 five Independent members of this Assembly published An Apologetical Narration, in which they pleaded for a moderate, independent-influenced, middle ground between Presbyterians and the sectarians. The names of the ministers Thomas Goodwin, Phillip Nye, Jeremiah Burroughes, Sidrach Simpson and William Bridge were to become synonymous with Independency, and their pamphlet effectively opened the way for a constant stream of religious debate during the Civil War period. The views that these divines expressed on toleration are especially relevant here.
They suggested that 'a right to toleration for dissidents should be written into the assembly’s decision on church government-effectively enshrining nonconformity within the new national church-outraged many in the Assembly'. An important development from this was that from within the Assembly, the opposition to these Independent divines began a 'powerful propaganda campaign against toleration'. This event set in motion a current that would run throughout the political and religious debates of the decade and colour the alliances of the sects and the Independents. The seeds sown in this pamphlet were to be reaped in the mid-1640s when the fortunes of the Independents, and of religious toleration as a whole, 'rose broadly in unison with the growing influence of the New Model Army in politics'. W.K. Jordan cites this period as a critical epoch in the drawing of political lines around religious issues such as toleration of the sects. He claims that by 1644 the House of Commons, in co-operation with the Assembly, 'had begun the consideration of the problem of repressing the strange and multiplying sects which had spread so rapidly since the collapse of the establishment'. Of those present at the Assembly meetings, Robert Baillie, who we will look at in the chapter on anti-tolerationists, was most acutely aware of the danger of the sects, particularly the Baptists.
The Church as legally established in England on the eve of the Civil War, the Episcopalian Church, played an immensely important role in providing communal unity and also had a number of official uses, as noted earlier in this chapter. It provided 'a large part of the country’s legal system; and excommunication, its supreme penalty, was supposed to be what it said, exclusion from society'. It is important to stress therefore how important it was for the establishment to ensure that religious dissent was kept at a minimum. The church was quite an effective branch in the administration of the kingdom and without it Charles I knew he could not rule efficiently. This is perhaps why he and Archbishop Laud, interpreting the fact that parts of the Prayer Book service and ceremonies were being omitted from worship as a sign that things were breaking down, acted as they did in the 1630s. This also goes a long way towards explaining Charles’ blundering policy in Scotland, where he tried to impose a prayer book on the Presbyterians from Whitehall by Proclamation. The Scots were outraged and 'after three years of vain attempts to open dialogue with Charles, (they), in August 1640, appealed for help to their English co-religionists and invaded England'. The Scottish victory at Newburn that same month led Charles to call the Long Parliament in order to be granted funds for war.
Norah Carlin presents the tolerationists as having a consistent political theory insomuch as they all repudiated 'the relevance of Israel in the Old Testament and the idea of a chosen people among Christians'. This notion that God chose a certain people or Church which he would protect and maintain until the last day has its roots in the Old Testament books of Deuteronomy and Kings. The need to justify action against one’s perceived enemy by preaching obscure sermons makes this conflict unique in early modern Europe. On the continent, post reformation military action was almost always backed up with the idea that it was Gods will that the heretics, anti-Christians, dissenters, or idolaters, as the case may be, be crushed. Ronald Hutton has stressed that this war 'set Protestant against Protestant in a manner unknown in any of Europe’s other religious conflicts'. It left its stamp in the guise of a new phenomenon; 'a people who were not Catholics, and yet were either unwilling or unable to be full members of a religion proscribed by a Protestant state'.
It would be wrong to assume that Parliament opposed the King and the Episcopalians for the cause of religious liberty, but arguments for this liberty by a small but significant group of men was an unintended consequence of the Civil War period. It is important to note that the English Civil War was not fought between an intolerant Episcopalian party and a tolerant Puritan clique, the Cavaliers against the Roundheads, to use common names given to the King’s supporters and those of the Parliament, respectively. Conrad Russell hits the nail on the head when he states that the war 'was not fought for religious liberty, but between rival groups of persecutors'. Indeed in the 1630’s and early 1640’s Puritans such as the MP John Pym believed in the necessity of a second reformation due the perceived popery of the Episcopalian Church. Many of these men were driven by the religious exclusion they experienced under Laud, and driven by the desire to recreate Jerusalem in England. The divide between radical Puritans and moderate Protestants was evident in the growth of the Root and Branchers, an intolerant anti-Laud group of religious zealots. They went further than most in their aims of 'reforming the reformation', and calling for 'the Church of England to be purged of false doctrine and Laudian ritual and (demanding) the repression of ‘Papists, Priests and Jesuits’. It was these religious militants, guerriers de Dieu, opposing the staunch Episcopalian Laudians who dragged England to war with itself in the 1640s. Many Puritan groups, such as the Baptists and the Independents, did believe in a degree of religious toleration but it was only with the imminent defeat of Episcopalianism in 1644 did they command an audience.
By 1645 with the establishment of the New Model Army the tide had irreparably turned in Parliament’s favour and that of its increasingly powerful army. With the elimination of the immediate Royalist military threat and the protracted negotiations with an increasingly charlatan king, fissures on the Puritan side became evident. The tension which eventually led to the entry of the New Model Army into London to receive Parliament’s submission in August 1647 fermented during the months immediately after the end of the first Civil War. For tolerationists, Presbyterian bigotry was to be challenged with the gathering together of men from ‘numerous intellectual and religious camps’ and the creation of a coherent ideological opposition based on New Testament analogies. The window of relatively free debate in between these two great sequences of military engagements is one in which arguments about such topics as the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press - most notably in John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644) - and toleration of religious belief and practice began to develop. It is clear from the fact that the debate was not between Episcopalians and Puritans, but within the ranks of the Puritan victors, that the cracks in their unity were widening. The failure to create a semblance of concord in terms of policy on liberty of conscience was no great surprise when one considers the different groups and belief systems which had banded together against Charles I and Laudianism. As discussed above, Scottish Covenanters, Presbyterians, Independents and Sectarians had all fought against the King, and once they collectively received the submission of the Royalist armies, they retreated into factions. Undoubtedly the surrender of Oxford and the capture of the King by the Scots in 1646, which ended the first English Civil War, dismantled the façade of harmony between the Presbyterian dominated Parliament and Assembly and the more liberal New Model Army.
The Historiography of the tolerationist debate
With the breakdown of authority and the brief freedom from certain punishment for heretical opinions, this period could be heralded as an epoch of huge significance in the development of English democracy. The emergence of groups like the radical Levellers after the first phase of the civil war, with their prolific output of publications, and liberal views on toleration, opened the arena for internal debate on the role of the church and the state and the relevance of different biblical citations in leading England. The Leveller’s first target was the organised church with its 'monopoly of the spirit' and indifference to the 'free trade of truth'. In turn, the proponents of uniformity of worship viewed the works of the tolerationists as a heretical rebellion, and ‘a threat to society, as much as to salvation’.
Whig historians, such as W.K. Jordan, paint a picture of the glorious black and white victory of human reason and tolerance with the Puritan Revolution. A. S. P. Woodhouse took a similar view in Puritanism and Liberty (1938), addressing the ‘puritan concern for liberty’ and belief in a degree of individualism. Relying heavily on the works of the first wave of civil war historians, Clarendon, Hobbes and Harrington the works of Jordan and Woodhouse are vital starting points in the analysis of seventeenth century England. Their emphasis on the prevalence of the notion of liberty in early modern England is perhaps as much a product of the times they lived in as it is of the era they were writing about. Carlin emphasizes the differences between the traditional view that the Puritan Revolution 'opened a new epoch in the history of toleration' and the revisionist and post revisionist view that even the radicals were confined by their 'theological inheritance'.
W.K. Jordan establishes the precise nature and historical context of the tolerationists in the 1640s. After the defeat of Laud and the Episcopalian ascendancy, the loosely knit group of men who had at first politically and then militarily opposed Charles unravelled and the Presbyterians gained hegemonic status. Puritanism had been driven 'into dissent by the persistent effort of the Anglo-Catholic leaders of the Church to alter the essential character of the national church' during the 1630s. The alliance between Presbyterians and the Scottish helped secure first a victory for Parliament and then, by 1645, the effective leadership of England for the Presbyterians. From here many in Parliament maintained relentlessly 'that Presbyterianism should be established as the exclusive faith, while demanding the destruction of the sects'. This was potentially ruinous to the unity of England at a time when 'sectarianism was imposing upon England a measure of religious peace by means of religious toleration'. The Presbyterians, not being the majority in the country, and not having control over the army were powerless to censor the pamphlets that opened the debate on toleration in 1644. Sectaries could see within their grasp the possibility of toleration, of the creation of Christ’s kingdom, after the defeat of the Arminians, but the reliance of Presbyterian polemics such as Baillie and Gillespie on Old Testament analogies halted the progress of this liberal revolution.
Revisionist historians such as John Morrill have consistently contended that religion was, in essence, the ‘crucial polarising factor’ during the civil war period. This stream of research effectively made the English Civil War the last of the Wars of Religion of the European Reformation and it lays the focus on the evolution of this civil war from a conflict between rival authoritarianisms into a struggle for religious liberty. Among those historians who came to similar conclusions to Morrill were William Lamont, J.C. Davis and Blair Worden who all demonstrated the ‘relative isolation of seventeenth century tolerationists and the continuing vitality of theories of persecution’. Christopher Hill has offered a Marxist interpretation of events, building on S. R. Gardiner’s idea of a Puritan Revolution during the mid-seventeenth century in England. More recently, historians of the period in question have attempted to reconcile the Whiggish notion of a liberal revolution with the revisionists religion centric model. Among these scholars can be listed John Coffey, and Nicolas Tyacke, who take quite a balanced approach in their works, giving adequate thought to all strands of the debate, and basing their interpretation of the seventeenth century heavily on fact, as opposed to the speculation of many Whiggish historians.

The Pro-Toleration side
During the period in question a number of men from different backgrounds with different preoccupations all arrived at similar arguments with regards to liberty of conscience. Most remarkably those in favour of toleration all supported their arguments by marshalling similar biblical references. These men, whom we will look at in this chapter, were predominantly in favour of the use of New Testament analogies to put forward the case for liberty of conscience. We shall also see, in the next chapter, that those opposed to religious liberty argued exclusively from the Old Testament.
Liberty of conscience from an Independent position is highlighted in the anonymous pamphlet The Ancient Bounds printed in 1645. The two things contended for this liberty of conscience were:
‘first to instate every Christian in free, yet modest, judging and accepting what he holds; secondly to vindicate a necessary advantage to the truth, and this is the main end and respect of this liberty’.
The contention that religious conviction could not be forced and that coercion created only martyrs and hypocrites was a central tolerationist argument. Pamphleteers such as John Owen, Samuel Richardson, Joseph Hall, Henry Danvers, Thomas Collier, William Dell and Stephen Marshall were all quite prominent proponents of toleration, and will be examined in an effort to gauge the depth of the ideological split between the use of the Testaments as guides for the correct attitude toward people of different religions. However the bulk of the focus of this chapter will rest on the four men who can justifiably claim to be among the most consistently radical religious pamphleteers of the civil war period; Roger Williams, Henry Robinson, William Walwyn and Richard Overton.
At the inception of this debate the Presbyterians, dominant in the Commons and the Assembly of Divines, had made no secret of their desire for a national Calvinist Church. The character of this new church appeared, superficially, to be open to debate between all of those who risked their life in open opposition to Arminian Episcopalianism. Strategically, however the English Presbyterians saw the establishment of a rigid Calvinist church as their support base, guaranteeing as it did Scottish military backing. London bankers and merchants also favoured a return to church unity and stability. Given these circumstances many in Parliament supported the Presbyterians 'in order to cultivate the support of both the Scots and the powerful interests in London'. By the close of the first Civil War the sects had begun to overcome ‘their inherent centrifugal tendencies (in order) to campaign for toleration of the godly, insisting on their earthly freedom in order to develop their overriding responsibility to God'. This was not a mass movement towards freedom of conscience, the majority of sectaries merely wanted to be free from persecution, and ensure that their religious practices were within the law. But it is the radicals this thesis focuses on, those who believed that they had a duty to promote toleration of all the religious beliefs in the world.
1644 was the breakthrough year for tracts regarding religious toleration with Roger Williams publishing The Bloody Tenet of Persecution and Henry Robinson, Liberty of Conscience. This was the year, of course, in which John Milton’s major work on the freedom of printing, Areopagitica, was circulated, adding to the image of a surge in pre-enlightenment notions of liberty during this period in England. Although any discussion on the Civil War debate on liberty would usually include Milton and his groundbreaking work, he is not analysed here. Milton, in Areopagitica, 'had a secularist approach to the problem of liberty of inquiry and expression, when compared to Robinson, Walwyn and Williams', and it is the religious aspect which is to be highlighted in these chapters.
Roger Williams was 'a New England divine and pioneer of religious freedom' who had withdrawn first from the Church of England, when it failed to meet his standards, and then from the churches of Massachusetts which disappointed him. His life parodies the process by which he claimed men search for a godly rule, and in this search they must go unmolested. Williams was a controversial pamphleteer who Andrew Murphy has described as a proponent of ‘intolerant toleration’, or the failure to curb his views to suit a society perhaps not ready for them. He believed that mankind should keep to the teachings of Jesus as rigidly as possible, suffering the persecution 'of ungodly men rather than trying to persecute others'. The God of the Old Testament led Israel in war and slaughtered any peoples who dared challenge his authority, whereas Williams viewed Jesus Christ’s teachings on conflict quite differently. In the opening paragraph of The Bloody Tenet he stressed that the bloodshed on all sides of the recent religious conflicts, as he saw them, and indeed the religious wars of former ages, was 'not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace'. So not only is violence, even in the name of religion not a requisite, it is actually against God’s wishes, an idea that was against the teaching of St. Augustine, widely accepted for hundreds of years as prevalent in Christendom. He stressed the rejection of the Old Testament view of kingship as poor 'examples of piety for Christian emperors'. The Old Testament kings’ 'execution of heretics and of witches, after all, were not models for the magistrate to copy'. However it is Williams views directly regarding toleration which are most striking. Williams begins his Bloody Tenet with an outline of his intended argument, stating boldly that:
‘it is the will and command of God, that since the coming of his Sonne the Lord Jesus a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries’.
Here, explicitly, Williams writes that only since the coming of Jesus, at the beginning of the New Testament, are these worships to be tolerated, signifying a complete break with the Old Testament with regards to liberty of conscience. Williams backs this up by claiming that Israel as a physical entity is meant only as a figurative kingdom, not a pattern for godly states. According to Williams, God does not require the uniformity which Laud and the Arminians had been trying to press the country into during the 1630s, and which the Presbyterians envisaged for the future. This he viewed as the 'persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants', as the New Testament epistle to the Romans proclaims Christ to exist through and with every person. A central idea of those who advocated toleration was the belief that men needed to be left alone to figure out their own paths to God. Williams himself believed that 'without search and trial no man attaines this faith and right persuasion' citing 1 Thessalonians 5; 'for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost'. In writing this Williams was arguing that persecution for cause of conscience was not in keeping with the teachings of Jesus Christ, not attempting to parody England’s seventeenth century position with that of Moses and Israel, as Presbyterians like Gillespie and Baillie were doing during the 1640s. This is the break in thinking about scriptural analogies which becomes more prevalent in England during this period compared to anywhere else in Europe due to the aforementioned, and temporary, authority vacuum. 1644 marks not the start of these ideas but the emergence of them into an arena of open debate free from censorship or potential punishment. For the first time in England men such as Williams and Henry Robinson could actively oppose both the Arminian position on uniformity and persecution and the ever rising Presbyterian threat, and offer their own alternatives. The alternative invariably chosen was a break with the prevalence of the Old Testament ideal of England as the modern day tribe of godly people protected from heretics from their all powerful God, who leaves them clear instructions on how to live a sinless life. The idea of an all seeing, vengeful, desert-dwelling, Old Testament God had been used successfully by Church authorities throughout Europe in order to keep the ordinary people in fear and in reliance on their leadership. This desire for power had made persecution the norm, with a convenient ignorance of the teachings of the New Testament among those who advocated it.
In chapter XXIX of his Bloody Tenet Williams uses the New Testament book of St. Matthew, where Jesus explains to the apostles why he pays no heed to the Pharisees who question him, to forward the tolerationist cause. This Gospel, where Jesus is said to have imparted to his apostles, when the 'blind lead the blind, both should fall into the ditch' offers Williams’ readers a relevant analogy of the situation in England at the time. Not only were the apostles instructed to not give offence to the Pharisees, but they were also forbidden from meddling with them, or molesting them in any way, according to Williams.
In A necessity for Liberty of Conscience (1644) Henry Robinson claimed that:
‘we are so far from finding in the New Testament any warrant for using of coercive power that if we read from one end to end unto the other, it will appear that neither our Saviour or his Apostles did so much as lay any of their commands or charges upon any person or persons capable of putting a coercive civil power in execution’.
Old Testament scriptures spoke of God’s wrath and his indifference towards idolaters and non-believers and actively encouraged their persecution, and anyone not under the cloak of the one true Christian church was liable to be labelled as an enemy of God. According to Robinson, Jesus Christ’s kingdom of the meek made Old Testament tribal feuds and religious wars redundant. No longer was killing justifiable in any way, indeed to even contemplate taking another life was deemed sinful. According to Levy, Robinson contended 'that force or compulsion of any kind had no place in matters of religion and argument composed the only allowable weapons'. Throughout this work Robinson maintains that liberty of conscience is the central creed of the church of Jesus, and that the very notion of persecution is the antithesis of God’s will. An issue returned to frequently is the validity of one man’s right to judge another’s religious beliefs or practices, and the contention that this judgement is reserved for God. Robinson claims that Jesus’ teachings in Math. 20: 15. make it ‘lawful for us to doe what we will with our owne’, with the implication being liberty of conscience. Peaceful coexistence is the ends towards which Robinson propounds liberty of conscience as the most obvious route, especially in Chapter III of A necessity for Liberty of Conscience. It is here that he cites Luke 9: 56, ‘The Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them’, a key tolerationist citation in opposition to the interference of the central magistrate in their religious lives. The throne of Jesus Christ, the ‘God of Peace’, must ‘be erected with spiritual and peaceable proceedings’, and the exercising of dominion over men by other men ‘in spiritualitus’ was expressly forbidden. In Chapter IV he clarified Christian liberty as ‘liberty of Conscience from the rudiments of the world, not of the persons subjection to Magistrates and Powers’. Robinson’s focus is on iterating that Jesus Christ leads one into meekness and submission, away from conformity and coercion, and that the allowance of liberty of conscience is the correct path for God’s church. Robinson’s contribution was significant because he offered a measured and scripture-based proposal for the acceptance of a New Testament notion of toleration and peace, noting consistently that Christianity is about the valour shown in suffering, not in persecution.
When looking at the debate on the toleration of religious dissent in the 1640s it is difficult to ignore a group of radical pamphleteers and agitators known as The Levellers. The Levellers were the most radical proponents of individual liberty to gain a national audience after their emergence in 1647 and were particularly active within the ranks of the army and in London, publishing some of the most insightful pieces of the decade. The three major polemicists in this group were William Walwyn, Richard Overton and John Lilburne. Before the Levellers materialised, these men all produced competent bodies of work and were very active in the debates of the day. As a group they represented 'the first great outburst of democratic thought in history', according to Margaret Judson, or 'the first recognizably popular movement in politics', to Derek Hirst. Brian Manning describes the Levellers as 'the left wing of the Parliamentary party which won the English Civil War'. They were brought into being, according to Hirst, through 'the combination of growing hardship and excitement and London’s intensifying controversy over religious toleration'. The Leveller belief that every man should read the Bible for himself and not rely on the teachings of clergymen was typical of their attitude toward organised religion. They were, in essence, a 'petitioning movement', according to Jonathan Scott. Therefore the increase in the level of freedom allowed to the sects during the 1640s was crucial to the Levellers, whose pamphlets and petitions resounded 'with the characteristic sectarian assertion that the spirit transcends the letter of the law'. During the pamphlet debates of the 1640s the Levellers engaged in the use of biblical typology as a means to convey their message to a wide population who often held the memory of popular biblical tales from church readings. Elizabeth Tuttle highlights the importance of the historical circumstance on the progress and development of religious debate. The tolerationist debate was the product of this crucial moment in 'the virtually unkinged community' where religious images 'returned to the forefront within the “saints” ideology as the remedy for disorder'. Of course the Bible was central to the education of the gentry and ‘middling sort’, and the Puritans’ biblical images acted as a ‘common short-hand or code’. Indeed the Puritans 'insisted on the exclusive truths of scripture'. Biblical imagery was not solely a tool of the sects or the Presbyterians, it was a common level about which debate could occur on the best way ordering of civil society. However during the 1640s the Levellers and the sectarians made a concerted effort to alter the direction of their scriptural emphasis. Tuttle points out that
‘As the bishops and, after 1643, the Presbyterians, held up the scriptures of the Old Testament to justify the jure divino authority of ministers over the Christian conscience, the separatist ministers and the Levellers became wary of Old Testament tropes’.
This led the Levellers and the separatist ministers toward the use of the New Testament to ensure a break from the main regimes but a continuation of the ability to rest their arguments on the scriptures. Symbolic of this attitude is a quotation from William Walwyn’s pamphlet, Power of Love (1643); 'nor are you under the law, but under grace; the law was given by Moses whose minister I am not'. Although this was written too early to qualify for inclusion in this study of the tolerationist debate it is important from the perspective that it indicates the attitude of many dissenters towards the reliance on the Old Testament.
William Walwyn, whose tract The Compassionate Samaritane was an important input into the tolerationist debate, has been described, by Joseph Frank, as 'the most consistently radical thinker among the levellers‘. Walwyn cited liberty of conscience as a natural right of man, and believed in the freedom of opinion in religious matters insofar as they did not threaten the stability of the state. It was Walwyn’s refrain throughout the 1640s that the core of Christian ideal lay in 'universal love to all mankind without respect of persons, opinions, societies…churches or forms of worship'. In The Compassionate Samaritane Walwyn argued that man ‘must follow his own reason and arrive at his own conclusions regarding religious belief’.
Richard Overton was an outspoken defender of liberty and member of Thomas Lambe’s General Baptist Church, who co-wrote many of the Levellers political and social manifestos of the later 1640s. His Arraignement of Mr. Persecution, published in 1645, also provided an interesting interjection into the tolerationist debate of the time. Written in the form of an account of the trial of a personified ‘Persecution’, this piece holds at its centre the view that all the blood spilt by men in the Old Testament was purchased in the New by the blood of Jesus Christ, 'who came not to destroy, but to save men’s lives'. Overton cites the New Testament book of Corinthians against those who persecute; 'judge nothing before the time until the Lord come' He follows this up with a warning from the book of Matthew; 'Judge not lest yee be judged', perhaps urging the Presbyterian parliament to heed the New Testament idea of preparation for the Second Coming. With regards to the right of any man to judge another’s faith, Overton quotes John 12: 47, 48., 'if any man hear my words and believe not, I judge him not, for I came not top judge the world, but to save the world: he that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him, the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him on the last day'. He adds a passage each from the New Testament books of Matthew, 1 Corinthians and the Old Testament book of Isaiah to reinforce his argument on God’s sole right to judge. Overton uses fictional characters, such as ‘John Presbyter’, whose arguments for the role of magistrates in judging religious affairs rests on the Old Testament passages of Psal. 2: 10, 11. and Deut. 17: 19., to include a spectrum of opinions in this piece. The importance of this pamphlet is in Overton’s ability to both satirise the opposition to toleration and present his own case firmly in the same dialogue. He rests his arguments for liberty of conscience in the gospels of the New Testament, and uses language from this book throughout in order to reinforce his call for religious toleration.
John Owen, in his sermon A Vision of Unchangeable Free Mercy (1646), envisioned congregations of sectaries existing peacefully 'alongside parish churches government according to Presbyterian polity'. He, however, was critical of the Episcopalian terms such as 'temple building, Gods Government, Christ’s sceptre, throne, Kingdom' promising that without which 'errours, heresies, sins, spring among us, plagues, judgements, punishments come upon us' which set men against each other as opposed to bringing them together. This spreading of fear among the common people increases persecution of sects and dissenters and is not the act of a godly church. Owen rubbishes the practice of naming the sects so as to distinguish them from the established church:
‘I would therefore that all horrid appellations, as increasers of strife, kindlers of wrath, enemies of charity, food for animosity, were forever banished from among us. Let a spade be called a spade so we take heed Christ be not called Beelzebub’.
The Presbyterian Church, for Owen, would be modelled on the New Testament apostolic church, viewed as the best scriptural guideline for Church Government. In this new Church, toleration would be afforded to the Godly as defined by New Testament standards.
John Hall, a self-styled peace-maker, emphasised the need for the harmonious coexistence of Christians in his 1645 pamphlet, A remedy of discontent. Here he put forward the notion that Christians were the building bricks of the church with Christ as the great and wise master-builder, building on the foundations of the prophets and apostles. Hall believed that if the established church tolerated open debate and dissent within its ranks in a Christian manner then ‘all other circumstances and appendances of varying practices might…be accorded’. He looked to the model of Titus 3: 10. to advocate his belief that those who foment sects and schisms amongst Gods people will receive their doom not from men, but from the ‘blessed Apostle’. His reliance on the New Testament model of toleration is marked, and is latently present in the language of this whole pamphlet.
Some independents not only saw liberty of conscience as a right but often as a stipulation for the godly community. Samuel Richardson, in his 1647 work the necessity of Toleration in matters of Religion based his work on the New Testament idea that religion ought to be free. Richardson claimed that ‘it is Gods way, to have Religion free, and only to flow from an inward principle of Faith and love’, citing John 4: 4. He goes on to question the validity of inflicting corporal punishment upon those accused of errors in religion, providing a wealth of New Testament references to reinforce his views. Richardson draws almost solely on New Testament typology throughout this short work, rooting his thought in the notion that freedom of worship and liberty of conscience are a prerequisite for all Christian congregations.
Another proponent of liberty of conscience was William Dell, who, in 1646 wrote Right Reformation: or The Reformation of the Church of the New Testament represented in Gospel-Light in order to put forward his views on the New Testament reformation. Dell believed that the coming of Jesus Christ signalled a reformation in the Church of God, evident in the Gospels, and a shift away from the ‘outward rites, ceremonies, duties, (and) performances’ towards the new inward doctrine of ‘spirit and life’. This reformation was complete, it was ‘inward’ and ‘thorow’ and essentially spiritual, and most importantly for the purposes of this debate, it rendered teachings of the Old Testament obsolete and, in many ways, false. With a focus on the New Testament as the sole source of the teachings of God, Dell conceives the fundamental message of Christianity to be love and worship of the inward spirit as opposed the outward one.
Henry Danver’s Certain Quaeries Concerning Liberty of Conscience (1649) is concerned with defining liberty of conscience and explaining the values of toleration through the use of the scriptures. He bases his transcript on the notion that the kingdom of God is not on earth and so the church should not strive for uniformity of worship on earth. This short piece focuses primarily on the New Testament teachings on the right of any man to judge another’s conscience and the crime against God that is persecution. Thomas Collier in his 1649 work, A General Epistle to the Universal Church, also focuses on the magistrates duty with regards to religion and the attempt to dispel the fears over granting toleration. Collier cites the New Testament idea that ’God is Love’ and the notion that toleration of men’s conscience is important to Christianity in this pamphlet. Collier wrote two other major pieces of the debate, Certain Queries in 1645, and Spirtuall Whordome discovered in a Sermon in 1647, both using New Testament language and analogies to further press the case for Liberty of Conscience. Moderate Presbyterians such as Stephen Marshall advocated using New Testament analogies to order English society, rather than Old Testament persecution. In the face of calls for a united Presbyterian church in England it is to be remembered that 'unity cannot be granted by the lash of persecution, for the law of Christ is clearly conceived in meekness, ‘not striving, but gently waiting’. Marshall was seen as 'the most powerful of the London root and branch ministers' and he reflected the opinions of many Presbyterians during the first Civil War when the enemy was still the King and episcopacy. The Swords Abuse Asserted, written by John Vernon in 1648, adheres, in basic principles, to the tolerationist model of scriptural analogy. Although Vernon found fault in many of the popular sectarian views on the role of the civil magistrate, he was an adherent of the New Testament model of man and consequently the New Testament model of toleration. Vernon decried the soothsayers who believed liberty of conscience would spell the end for the civil state, declaring that ‘there is no danger of the subverting the State, by reason of every mans worshipping God according to his conscience, for a state cannot be subverted but either by force, or by general consent of the people’. An anonymously written pamphlet entitled Liberty of Conscience Asserted, written in 1649, brings the tolerationist debate in this particular period to a close with a final declaration on Liberty of Conscience. This work sums up the New Testament-based stance of the tolerationists in six pages, relying heavily on the gospels of Matthew and the book of Romans. Throughout, the author emphasis the central arguments against persecution, the lack of moral authority in judgement and the anti-Christian notion of discrimination, and for toleration, including the Christian ideal of universal love and peace.
The New Testament book of Matthew was used consistently by pamphleteers such as Williams and Henry Robinson to propagate their tolerationist ideals. In particular Matthew 18-26 were of value to these ends, and Robinson’s ‘Liberty of Conscience’ quotes heavily from it. In Matt. 22: 37-40, Jesus instructs his disciples on the fundamental principles of his fathers’ word:
‘Thou shalt love the lord with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and all the prophets’.
By the language used, these two commandments appear to take precedence over all the teachings of either testament, and without their practice all else is apparently deemed worthless. The New Testament shows how Jesus Christ favours the persecuted man; 'Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from your company and shall reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil, for the son of mans sake'. His kingdom is of the submissive; 'love you enemies, bless them that curse you, and do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you'. These are the tracts which the radical tolerationists read in the 1640s and would have seen a different way in which to govern the country, and given the freedom of the Civil War, they expressed their beliefs.
In the New Testament book of Matthew, Jesus is said to have torn up the Ten Commandments, given to Moses by God, upon which Mosaic law was based, and offered his own guidelines along which to worship his father, in an apparent effort to break with Moses and Israel. In these guidelines no room is left for animosity between men, and anger or hatred are expressly forbidden, with tolerance and meekness the defining characteristics of godly Christians. This is reiterated in 2 Tim 24-25. 2.; 'the servant of the lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves' which Williams cites. The persecution of the lambs of God, the sectaries, was, by New Testament standards, unchristian. This made the Arminians and the Presbyterians no better than the Papist idolaters in the eyes of many Independents and sectarians during this time. Richard Overton cited Acts 9: 4. in his Arraignment of Mr. Persecution, by way of showing the anti-tolerationists that when you persecute any man for cause of conscience, 'Christ himself is persecuted'.
The Anti-Toleration side
Also relevant to this thesis are the core of religious conservatives who imbedded their ideas in the Old Testament in an effort to create and maintain a uniformity of worship during the Civil War period. The main proponents of uniformity of religion were horrified at the vocal rise of the sectaries, and they strove to prove that God had left only one church on Earth, for all men to adhere to. That all these men used analogies from the Old Testament in order to oppose the calls for liberty of conscience is cause for this examination. These anti-tolerationists included Daniel Featley, Thomas Case, John Cotton, Thomas Edwards, Robert Baillie and George Gillespie. The focus will rest on the most important figures such as Edwards, Baillie and Gillespie but all of these men made a contribution of some sort during the six-year span of this particular debate. For these men toleration of the gathered churches constituted ‘a grave threat both to the conservative moral code and the established social order of the English State’.
With the war ending, and especially from 1645 onwards, with the King’s surrender, 'for the first time since 1640-1, the religious issue moved to the centre of the political stage at Westminster'. During the years of open conflict with the King and his Cavalier forces the religious divisions in the Long Parliament were obvious but controlled. This was because although the Parliament was polarised between the Presbyterians and the Independents, especially after the Kings supporters walked out in 1642, religious debate had been relegated to the Assembly of the Divines. It was here ‘where a vocal minority, the Dissenting Brethren, had upheld the cause of religious toleration and Independency against majority support for Presbyterian uniformity’. Those in the Assembly in favour of the adoption of the Scottish Covenant and a rigid Presbyterian government believed that ‘religion was about authority and subjection’ and that it was about ‘the community as a whole not just the individual’. This belief included a Presbyterian uniformity, not just the notion of a single church. Presbyterians were among the most vocal in the effort to destroy the bishops, alleging, in the Grand Remonstrance of 1640 that the Episcopalians ‘had been guilty of introducing popery into the church’. However in January 1644 the Presbyterians attempt to dominate affairs in the country was firmly challenged with the publication of An Apologetical Narration, which was looked at in the first chapter. Although An Apologetical Narration was far tamer than the content in Williams’ 1644 work, it was an indication of the manner in which the political landscape of the country was changing so as to allow open dissent and debate on religious norms and practices. The suggestion in this tract that ‘a right to toleration for dissidents should be written into the (Assembly of Divines) decision on church government’ outraged many in the Assembly and ‘provoked a powerful propaganda campaign against toleration’. It must be made clear that in the seventeenth century ‘one of the most important religious endeavours of the Puritans was to avoid the wrath of God and not betray the “covenant” in which they believed’. Freedom of preaching and worship by the sects in Puritan England was something they were certain would anger God, and it seemed therefore completely correct for them to persecute these dissenters.
The Episcopalians were also in opposition to the growth of this liberty of conscience but as Coffey notes, Puritans were more likely 'to hold that Mosaic judicial law was still binding on Christian magistrates'. Men such as George Gillespie cited Old Testament scriptures such as Exod. 22, Zech. 13 and especially Deut. 13, to prove that God willed the destruction of idolaters, heretics and schematics. Anti-tolerationists centred their teachings around men like Moses, Joshua and Josiah, the Holy Princes of the Old Testament, and the extension of God’s rule over Israel to the world. With the tolerationists consciously veering away from Deut. 17, that rule-book for rulers throughout Christendom, it was quite natural that ‘great tolerationist debate from the 1640s onwards was to revolve around the relationship between the Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church’. Further than this, the very notion of toleration and what it was conceived to be revolved around Old Testament teachings on church authority and New Testament congregationalism.
Thomas Edwards was a zealous Presbyterian whose Gangraena exposed ‘the worst excesses of the sectaries and warned of the consequences of religious toleration’. Published in 1645, Gangraena has been described as ‘a composite polemic against the spread of toleration‘. Hirst described Gangraena as a ‘massive survey of unorthodoxy and dissidence in London’, and that is exactly what it appears to be, a list of general schism and dissent in the capital. Edwards called on the Godly in the land of England to organise against 'toleration...the grand design of the Devil'. Edwards feared that the Presbyterians of England will be judged by their failure to root out sectarianism. He cited several Old Testament passages in an effort to show that liberty of conscience is against the will of God, and that it would result in disastrous consequences for the people of England. Edwards did recognise the benevolent New Testament God but believed that if angered, this God would unleash his wrath in accordance with the teachings of the Old Testament. Edwards provided us with a list of the errors and heresies which he believes the sectaries are guilty of, including the conviction ‘that the scriptures of the Old Testament do not concerne nor binde Christians now under the New Testament’. This idea provided the sectaries with a false faith in ignoring Gods teachings on liberty of conscience and helps to spread a general ignorance on the full word of God, claims Edwards. Another supposedly erroneous belief of the sectaries was Williams’ idea that ‘tis the will and command of God, that since the coming of his son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worship be granted to all men in all nations and countries’. Married to this is the notion that ‘for Parliament to use any civill coercive meanes to compell men of different judgement, is one of the greatest sins that can be named’, leaving detractors with just the ‘sword of Gods Spirit’ with which to challenge these tolerationists. Edwards’ allies and friends included such prominent Presbyterians as William Prynne, John Bastwick and Robert Baillie.
The Scots Presbyterian George Gillespie was a commissioner of the Kirk to the Assembly of Divines at Westminster from 1643. Here he engaged such religious figures as Samuel Rutherford and Robert Baillie and obtained first-hand information regarding the merits and details of the Independent definition of liberty of conscience. He was heavily involved, and highly commended, at the Grand Debate, between Presbyterians and Independents in the Assembly, on the merits of Church Government. His intellectual prowess is noted with tales of his involvement in ‘detailed battles of scriptural exegesis with eminent Independent divines such as Thomas Goodwin, Phillip Nye and William Bridge‘. These lengthy musings over scriptural analogies undoubtedly helped form the view that Gillespie put to print in 1645 with the pamphlet Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty. After painting an unflattering picture of tolerationist ideas Gillespie claimed that ‘under these fair colours and handsome pretexts do sectaries infuse poyson, I mean their pernicious, God-provoking, Truth defacing, Church-ruinating and State-shaking toleration’. His work is packed with scriptural typology as he sought a biblical basis for every main point he made, especially concerning the persecution of idolaters, heretics and schismics. With regards to addressing his opposition to toleration, Gillespie rests his argument on two books of the Old Testament; the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Kings. Deut. 13: 6-9. is the basis for Gillespie’s argument in favour of persecution as it is here, he claims, in which the law is laid down concerning people guilty of enticing the Godly to other religions, a charge he lays at the door of the sectaries. This is a cause of social unrest, necessitating the intervention of the civil power in the form of a magistrate and the disunity of the country. Gillespie cites Sarah’s dealing with Hagar in Genesis 16. to draw the conclusion that ‘connivance and indulgence to Heretiks is a cruel mercy: correction is a merciful severity and a wholesome medicine, as well to themselves as to the Church’. He is convinced of the need for a Church Government, he even puts forward a case for the adaptation of the Mosaic laws, and he is suspicious in the extreme of the motives of the sectaries, especially their apparent freedom to recruit and preach. He lays out the reasons why the Christian Magistrate should adopt the judicial laws in order to punish the sins of the sectaries against the moral law citing 2 Chron. 19: 6. ‘and said to the judges, take heed what ye do; for ye judge not for man but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgement’. He follows this up with an attempt to prove that although Jesus failed to stick to the Mosaic Law, when he would not condemn adultery (John 8: 11.), he really meant us to observe it, based on Mathew. 5: 17. 'think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil'. Citations such as this one, paint Gillespie as a potentially moderate Presbyterian, but with respect to the specific poles of this debate, he is clearly more comfortable on the anti-tolerationist side. He puts forward a middle ground, of sorts, at the close of this piece, decrying toleration in favour of accommodation of dissenters into the Presbyterian fold provided there is agreement on fundamental principles.
Many of the anti-tolerationists focused on what from the Old Testament was explicitly not rejected by the New, such as idolatry. George Gillespie made the point that ‘it seems clear that we are commanded to punish at least idolatry and gross heresy by the moral commandment of the Old Testament, which has not been revoked by the new’. Gillespie has, in this one sentence encapsulated the variation in wavelengths between the two sides in this debate. He, while reading and analysing the Bible as a collection of stories on how best to live life, has failed to grasp the overarching message of the New Testament, as interpreted by the tolerationists. Jesus himself said ‘Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you and pray for them which disrespectfully use you’ (Luke 6: 27, 28). The very notion that a man would punish another for his beliefs is apparently against the word of Jesus, and this was the viewpoint of the men such as William Walwyn in the 1640s.
Robert Baillie was a Scottish Covenanter who constantly attempted to reconcile the New Testament kingdom of peace with a more politically realist agenda, borrowing heavily from the Old Testament. It was Baillie who was the most vocal of the Scots in London during the formative years of the religious conflict between the Presbyterians and the Independents, between 1642 and 1646. He played a major role in convincing the London moneyed interest that 'the erection of a Presbyterian ecclesiastical discipline would be a bulwark against a slide into religious diversity and anarchy'. He cites the Old Testament book of Micah’s vision of the kingdom of Christ, ‘and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more'. But, according to Baillie, this kingdom had not been created yet, and it would not be 'so long as Divine dispensation besets our habitations both spiritual and temporal, the Church no less than the State, with great numbers of daring and dangerous adversaries'. This prevented him from looking to the New Testament for answers to ecumenical questions. He advocated the continuation of God’s judgement against the enemies of his people, citing directly from the Old Testament, 'prepare war...beat you plowshares into swords and your pruninghooks into spears'. Baillie saw the growth of the sectaries as Satan 'building his Babel both in church and State'. According to Baillie, religious reform precipitated the collapse of the village agrarian community and the ‘deterioration in the material conditions of the common people’. He relied heavily on the Old Testament model of persecution as a necessity for the survival of the church.
John Cotton was a Puritan resident of the New England Massachusetts Bay Colony who advocated congregationalism, but sought a solution that would accommodate Presbyterians in the governance of England. He was a nonconformist who, along with John Davenport and Thomas Hooker, declined the invitation, to sit on the Assembly of Divines. His strong opposition to separatism involved him in a lengthy disagreement on principles with Roger Williams during the 1640s regarding toleration and its merits. After Williams’ publication of The Bloody Tenet and Mr Cotton’s letter lately printed, examined and answered both in 1644, Cotton returned with a reply to Mr. Williams and the Bloody tenet, washed and made white in the bloode of the Lambe both printed in 1647. Here Cotton asked ‘How far liberty of conscience ought to be given to those that truly fear God?’ Cotton offered an alternative view of the tolerationist debate, professing that men were not to be punished for conscience sake, but if a man shows signs of fundamental error even after due conviction then he may be punished. In this case he is 'not punished for his conscience, but for sinning against his conscience'. Cotton admits that through this belief it may appear that he still believes in persecution for cause of conscience even though he expressly renounced it. He, as with many others during the religious debates of this period, was bogged down in definitions and in the attempt to remain true to these two bodies of scripture whose fundamental Church structures often seem to contradict each other. This was especially apparent in the interpretation of the vengeful, persecuting God in the Old Testament books of Deuteronomy, Kings and Judges and Jesus’ actions and words in the New Testament gospels by contemporaries of Cotton. Cotton saw the necessity for unity in the country, but not essentially in uniformity, citing the Old Testament book of judges; ‘if the defect in one of the tribe in Israel was a great trouble to all the commonwealth of Israel then sure the breaking up and dissolving of so many particular useful societies' would only impair England’s growth. He was attempting to show Williams that these sectaries, when they were allowed to sin against their own conscience were potentially a seditious threat to the perception of New Jerusalem in England. Although he does not expressly suggest persecuting these groups, the church must be protected against heathens by the civil state, and he uses examples from the Old Testament book of Zechariah to express this need. He who refuses to subject 'his spirit to the spirit of the prophets in the holy Church of Christ' sins against the church and may be punished violently, citing the example of Zedekiah in 1. Kings 22: 24. His Old Testament view of the history of persecution is tamer than Thomas Edwards, especially in his citation of Acts 14: 16, and the claim that 'God in times past suffered all nations to walke in their own wayes'. Turning away from God is unforgivable however; 'but if an Israelite forsake God he disturbeth not only the commonwealth of Israel, but the barks of Pagans and Heathen states as Jonah did this ship (Jonah, 1: 15), by his departure from God'. For Cotton the central argument for tolerance towards those who are not fully aware of the message of God, but punishment for those who have heard the message, been made aware of it, yet reject it. To iterate this, he cites a powerful passage from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy where the God urges man to stone to death any who dare attempt entice him away into worship for another God; 'and all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you'. John Cotton found himself classed as a moderate during the 1640s, attacked by men as diverse as Williams and Robert Baillie, due to his support of congregational Independency. Although he eventually sought accommodation with Baillie and the Presbyterians during the 1650s, he saw Williams and his like as distrustful and distrusting. It was his ultimate belief that dissenters in fundamentals and those who, out of 'obstinacy against conscience and seducers, to the perdition of souls and to the disturbance of civil and church peace', are not to be tolerated.
Thomas Case was a Presbyterian pamphleteer active during the 1640s and whom the Oxford DNB describes as being 'firmly with the Presbyterians and opposed to the army and the Independents'. Case was an influential London ‘root and branch’ minister, and future chaplain to Charles II. His virulent opposition to toleration he sums up in his tract Toleration Disapproved stating that 'those who called for liberty of conscience only gained...liberty to destroy themselves'. In 1642 he preached a sermon entitled Gods Rising, His Enemies Scattered, which was published in May 1644. In this sermon Case quotes heavily from the Old Testament book of Psalms, indeed the title itself derives from that same book. Case makes a number of observations from the book of Psalms, from which he constructs a list of doctrines fundamental to Christian worship. Against this book he holds the actions, and the very existence of the sectaries in England to be against the wishes of God, indeed to be anti-Christian. One of these fundamental doctrines is expressly aimed at those who would dare to challenge the ascendancy of the Presbyterian Church: 'The Churches enemies are Gods enemies; they that hate the church, hate God. Thine enemies, them that hate thee'. Case was of the belief that one of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity is accepting that God 'seems sometimes to lie still, and sleep'. Again, the book of Psalms was used to emphasis this point with the sectaries being criticised for mistaking God’s silence for contentment; 'because he holds his peace they think he is altogether like themselves'. Case berates the false security felt in the country while the sectaries are free to preach, comparing them with wild animals roaming the streets, for 'hath not God branded malignant spirits with these names in scripture'. He points to the Old Testament book of Jeremiah to warn the English that if they fail to do God’s bidding, they themselves are liable to be punished. New Testament analogies are a rarity in this pamphlet as it seems Thomas Case was prepared, and determined, to live in an England governed by Old Testament norms and examples.
Daniel Featley was a Church of England clergyman and renowned religious controversialist during this period, who contributed significantly to the debate on behalf of the anti-tolerationists. Featley focuses all of his condemnation on the practice of adult baptism and the Baptist movement. His use of New Testament analogies is abundant, as he attempted to counter the Baptist arguments in the passage on the meeting at Southwark in his 1646 pamphlet the Dippers Dipt. Featleys was the sole Episcopalian to take a seat on the Assembly of the Divines and he constantly attempted to prove the importance of the established church, claiming that ‘you sinne against God by your disobedience to lawful authority’ by failing to attend church. His sole political concern was the promotion of Episcopalianism, and so he often ties the actions of the sectaries to sedition, warning of the 'fearful judgement of God in the Old Testament'. It was his belief that the swords of the Civil War needed to be turned into swords of justice, as in Nehem. 4: 17., 'to cut off superstition and idolatry on the one side, and Prophanenesse and Sacriledge on the other'.
Those in favour of Church unity, and the persecution of those who would threaten this unity, used the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy quite consistently. This book contains passages such as on living among non-believers; 'and when the Lord thy god shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them'. These non-believers ‘will turn away thy son from following me' and incur the wrath of God. In searching for how best to deal with the threat that Englishmen may be worshipping a God they deemed to be false this book proved a useful guide; 'But this shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their alters and break down their images and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire'. This persecution advocated by a God who had freed the Israelites from slavery and protected them in the desert was very powerful and its resonance was felt in seventeenth-century England as believers looked to God to deliver their country from civil conflict. This God has characteristics entirely unfamiliar to the one that was later to appear in the New Testament. This is a God capable of hate; 'and repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them; he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face'. This is a jealous God; 'For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God'. This God advocates an iron will in the destruction of his enemies; 'And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee; thine eyes shall have no pity upon them'. This God encourages the complete destruction of nations from the face of the earth if they be in opposition to his word; 'and he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven: there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them'. Particular mention is made of those who entice others away from the worship of God, which was of particular concern to Gillespie and Baillie. These prophets or dreamers are to be stoned to death so as to pluck evil from out of the midst of Israel. Cities in which idolatry is practiced are to be razed to the ground, their inhabitants slaughtered and their possessions gathered and burned, these acts are deemed right in the eyes of the Lord. The real fear among religious radicals in England at this time was that the nation as a whole would be punished for tolerating the sins of the dissenters. The Lord promises this for the disobedient: 'Cursed shalt thou be in the city, cursed shalt thou be in the field'. Further curses and diseases are promised for those who dare act outside of God’s will, leaving the seventeenth century English Protestant in no doubt of the power and potential anger of his God. There is undoubtedly the appearance of two Gods in the Bible, a vengeful Old Testament one, and a peaceful New Testament one.
Conclusion
John Coffey first put forward a detailed analysis of the tolerationist debate of the 1640s in 1998. Coffey examined Puritan attitudes regarding toleration pre-1640 and in doing so sketches a picture of the dominant strains of Puritanism, especially Presbyterianism. The Presbyterians were supportive of the magistrate’s duty to exterminate heresy and apostasy, so long as they recognised the legitimacy of the ecclesiastical authority. The fear of a return to popish practices with the Arminian emphasis on the ceremonial nature of worship cast a shadow over the Episcopalian church’s legitimacy. The example of the Old Testament Kings, whose solemn responsibility before God to halt the spread of false religion was almost universally believed to apply to Christian magistrates, provided the litmus test for legitimacy. These Presbyterian voices were muffled by Laudianism and any internal Puritan dissension was minimised by the struggle for survival in the face of persecution.
Coffey expanded these views in Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689 (2000). In both these works he mentions the split between the use of Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church as societal models, and he backs this up by using scriptural analogies from the works of men on either side of the debate. However he stops short at rooting the very notion of toleration, as espoused by men such as Roger Williams and Henry Robinson, in the books of the New Testament. The idea of showing the tolerationist movement as a complete break from the Old Testament world appears to be the natural progression from Coffey’s work. This debate on liberty of conscience was marked by a fundamental spilt in the testaments of the Bible to such an extent that even the use of language in certain contrasting pamphlets distinguishes them. Coffey does insist that the tolerationists argued 'that looking to the example of Israel led to completely erroneous ideas about the nature of the church' and the 'mission of (the) radical Puritans was to wake the church up, to call it back to the patterns of the New Testament'. He does realise that what was being discussed during the 1640s was the replacement of one model for the church in England with another, both being based on scriptural analogies. Coffey points out the while the ‘defenders of uniformity had pointed to prophecies about the Kings of earth binding themselves to the service of Yahweh, tolerationists highlighted prophecies about the peaceable nature of the Messianic kingdom’.
However the very nature of what toleration meant to both the Mosaic Church and to the Church of Jesus requires a clarification which Coffey overlooks. In the Old Testament, tolerating liberty of conscience left the tribes of Israel vulnerable to the corruption of outside influences. Allowing men to preach and pray to a different God was potentially divisive to God’s people, as it may have tempted some worshippers from his Church and thus into opposition to the state and societal hierarchy. This is the view of the Old Testament church, lacking in confidence and suspicious of outside influence. This is the church on which, to some extent, both the Arminians and the Presbyterians wished to model England. To the New Testament church of Jesus however, toleration meant an acceptance into the community at large and the freedom to disseminate the word of God throughout the world. This church was smaller, more open and unconnected to the secular magistrate. This church was a simple congregation of acceptance and stubborn faith, and consequently was never as worried about outsiders as the Mosaic church. Its avocation of meekness is a product perhaps of its small numbers and its desire to create a community of believers solely through preaching, which arose from the danger of being branded as seditious. Toleration meant different things to these two churches; to the Mosaic church it meant control of dissent and to the New Testament Church it was a natural liberty. This term, toleration, therefore meant very different things to the opposing sides of this debate. Coffey does realise the importance of Scriptural analogies yet fails to notice this rupture between the uses of the Testaments. This oversight leads him to neglect the analysis of the relationship between the tolerationists and the anti tolerationists and how they used and refute different scriptural analogies. An emphasis on this strict dichotomy between the usage of the Testaments by those debating the very fundamentals of toleration is the very aim of this work. Its only through an understanding of the way in which contemporaries viewed the world as black and white, good and evil, rigidly adhering to their principles, can we explain the tolerationist debate. This rigid belief system fed into the pairing of the Old Testament with the anti-tolerationist cause and the link between the New Testament and tolerationist agenda. Although Coffey’s work is undoubtedly a valuable addition to the study of the English Civil War and of English Puritanism, it is the contention of this thesis that his argument requires fine-tuning and revision in order to emphasis the strict dichotomy between the scriptural sources cited by both sides of the debate.
References
1 McGregor and Reay put emphasis on the point that during the 1640s in England censorship collapsed, in fact if not officially (J.F. McGregor, B. Reay, Radical Religion in the English Revolution, New York, 1984, p4)
2 Spurr, John, English Puritanism 1603-1689 London, 1998, p110
3 Barry Coward, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714, 2nd edition, New York, 1994, p 227
4 Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558-1689 (2000), and ‘Puritanism and Liberty revisited: The case for Toleration in the English Revolution in the English Revolution’ (1998).
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10 ‘government of the church by bishops’ (Christopher Durston and Jacqueline Eales (eds.), The Cultue of English Puritanism, 1560-1700, London, 1996, p200)
11 ‘Pertaining to, or characterized by, government by presbyters or presbyteries; applied to a form or system of church polity; belonging to or maintaining this system’ (“Presbyterian” The Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University College Dublin. 28 June 2005)
12 David Cressy and Lori Ann Ferrell (eds.), Religion and Society in Early Modern England: A Sourcebook, London, 1996, glossary
13 Conrad Russel, , ‘The Reformation and the creation of the Church of England’ in John Morrill (ed.), Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain, Oxford, 2000, p258
14 Ibid., p261
15 "Nonconformist" A Dictionary of World History. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University College Dublin. 28 June 2005
16 Blair Worden cited in Norah Carlin, ‘Toleration for Catholics in the Puritan Revolution’ in Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, Cambridge, 1996, p216
17 “Typology” The Concise Oxford English Dictionary. Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2004. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. University College Dublin. 28 June 2005
18 Sharon Achinstien, Milton and The Revolutionary Reader, Princeton, 1994, p18
19 Ibid.
20 J.F. McGregor and B. Reay, Radical Religion in the English Revolution, New York, 1984, p1
21 ibid., p2
22 Ann Hughes, The Causes of the English Civil War, London, 1991, p93
23 Kenneth Fincham, (ed.), The Early Stuart Church, 1603-1642, London, 1993, p1
24 Tyacke, Nicolas, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590-1640, Oxford, 1987, p216
25 Ibid., p244
26 Peter Lake, ‘The Laudian Style’ in Kenneth Fincham (ed.), The Early Stuart Church, 1603-1642, London, 1993, p161
27 John Fielding, Arminianism in the localities: Peterborough Diocese, 1603-1642, in Fincham, Kenneth (ed.), The Early Stuart Church, 1603-1642, London, 1993, p93
28 Nicolas Tyacke, , ‘Archbishop Laud’, in Kenneth Fincham (ed.), The Early Stuart Church, 1993, p59
29 Thomas Lyon, The Theory of Religious Liberty in England, 1603-1639, Cambridge, 1937, p55
30 Ibid
31 Peter Marshall (ed.), The Impact of the English Reformation 1500-1640, London 1997, pp 8, 9.
32 William Laud, , A relation of the conference between W Laud...and Mr Fisher, the Jesuit (London, 1639)
33 Henry Danvers Certain Queries cited in Norah Carlin, ‘Toleration for Catholics in the Puritan Revolution’ in Ole Peter Grell, and Bob Scribner, (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p 226.
34 ‘The Typological Argument for Religious Toleration: the Separatist Tradition and Roger Williams’ Journal article by Richard Reinitz; Early American Literature, Vol. 5, 1999.
35 McGregor and Reay, Radical Religion in the English Revolution, p12.
36 To the Scottish this awoke the fear that the Crypto-Papalism rampant in England was spreading north, cited in John Kenyon, , The Civil Wars of England (London, 1988), p15.
37 John Spurr, , English Puritanism 1603-1689 (London 1998), p 95.
38 W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England from the convention of the Long Parliament to the Restoration, 1640-1660 (Massachusetts, 1965) p17.
39 Mark Goldie, ‘The Search for Religious Liberty, 1640-1690’ in John Morrill (ed.), Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain, p. 295.
40 This was a list of grievances of the people to the King passed in Parliament in November 1641.
41 W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, p17
42 If widely subscribed to this covenant would have replaced episcopacy with a Presbyterian organisation, and prayer book ceremonies with the directory for public worship, cited in Cressy, David and Ferrell, Lori Ann (eds.), Religion and Society in Early Modern England: A Sourcebook (London, 1996), p180
43 Jordan, W. K., The Development of Religious Toleration in England from the convention of the Long Parliament to the Restoration, 1640-1660 (Massachusetts, 1965), p24.
44 Barry Coward, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 (2nd edition, New York, 1994), p227.
45 Christopher Hill and William Dell, The Good Old Cause, 1640-1660 (2nd edition, London, 1969) p109
46 Coward states that the end of the military struggle saw the split in Parliament, cited in Coward The Stuart Age, p224.
47 Cressy and Ferrell state the this bill represented the urban Puritan reaction to Laudian policy and an attempt to destroy the stringiest uniformity to a sacramental they say as similar to popery, cited in Cressy and Ferrell (eds.), Religion and Society in Early Modern England, p174.
48 Spurr, English Puritanism 1603-1689, pp103, 104.
49 Ibid., p104.
50 Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel, Nicolas Tyacke, From Persecution to Toleration (Oxford, 1987), p29.
51 Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, p54.
52 J. F. McGregor, ‘The Baptists: Fount of all Heresy’, in McGregor and Reay, Radical Religion in the English Revolution, p23.
53 John Morrill, (ed.), Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain (Oxford, 2000), p261.
54 Ibid., p289.
55 Ibid., p 290.
56 Norah Carlin in Grell and Scribner (eds.), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p 227
57 Ronald Hutton, Debates in Stuart History (New York, 2004), p33.
58 Indeed Jordan notes that it was Presbyterian opposition to religious toleration which forced the Independents to search sectarian allies and eventually led to the second civil war, cited in Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, p58
59 John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 (London, 2000), p140.
60 Ibid., p136.
61 Keith Lindley, The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook (London 1998), p145.
62 Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, p18.
63 Ibid., p49.
64 Houston, cited in John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 (London, 2000) p160
65 Conrad Russel, ‘The Reformation and the creation of the Church of England’ in John Morrill (ed.), Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain, p258.
66 A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty (London 1965), p51.
67 R. C. Richardson, The Debate on the English Revolution (London, 1977), p31.
68 Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England p216.
69 Ibid., p267.
70 Ibid., p271.
71 Ibid., p48.
72 John Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, p3.
73 John Morrill, The Nature of the English Revolution: Essays, (London, 1993) p394.
74 Coffey, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, p4.
75 R. C. Richardson, The Debate on the English Revolution, p71.
76 A. S. P. Woodhouse, Puritanism and Liberty (London 1965), p 247.
77 Mark Goldie, ‘The Search for Religious Liberty, 1640-1690’ in John Morrill (ed.), Illustrated History of Tudor and Stuart Britain, p. 297.
78 Barry Coward, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714, p225.
79 Derek Hirst, England in Conflict, 1603-60: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth (London 1999), p242
80 Leonard Levy (ed.), Freedom of the Press from Zenger to Jefferson (New York, 1966), p93.
81 William M. Lamont, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1606-1660 (London 1969), p12.
82 Ibid., p140
83 Andrew R. Murphy, Tolerance, Toleration and the Liberal Tradition, Polity, Vol. 29, 1997.
84 Oxford DNB
85 Roger Williams, , The Bloody tenet of Persecution (London, 1644), p
86 William M. Lamont, Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1606-1660 (London 1969), p141.
87 Roger Williams, , The Bloody tenet of Persecution, p a2.
88 Ibid., p a3.
89 Romans 6. 4. Cited Ibid.
90 Roger Williams, The Bloody tenet of Persecution, pg b3.
91 Roger Williams, The Bloody tenet of Persecution, p. 53.
92 Henry Robinson, John the Baptist, Forerunner of Christ Jesus: or, A necessity for Liberty of Conscience (London, 1644), p20.
93 Ibid.
94 2Chron. 6: 34, 35; Eccl. 3: 3; Matt. 5: 21-26. Cited Ibid.
95 Leonard Levy, Emergence of a Free Press (Oxford, 1985), p93.
96 Henry, John the Baptist, Forerunner of Christ Jesus: or, A necessity for Liberty of Conscience, p6.
97 Entitled ‘Christ’s instructions, and the Apostles practice for tendering and holding forth the Gospel only in a peaceable way’.
98 Rom. 16: 20., cited ibid., p19.
99 Robinson, John the Baptist, Forerunner of Christ Jesus, p20.
100 By Math. 10. 42-45.
101 Entitled ‘Christ’s Instructions, and the Apostles practice concerning Christian Liberty’
102 Robinson, John the Baptist, Forerunner of Christ Jesus, p21
103 Rom. 12: 14., cited Ibid, p49.
104 Robinson, Henry, John the Baptist, Forerunner of Christ Jesus, p26.
105 Ibid. p51
106 Although eventually becoming better known for their views on political liberty, manning has stated that their whole political programme grew out of their anxiety over freedom of conscience, cited in Brian Manning (ed.), Politics, Religion and the English Civil War (London, 1973), p247.
107 Cited in Levy, Emergence of a Free Press, p91.
108 Hirst, England in Conflict, 1603-60: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth, p242.
109 McGregor and Reay, Radical Religion in the English Revolution, p65
110 Hirst, Derek, England in Conflict, 1603-60: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth (London 1999), p242.
111 Brian Manning (ed.), Politics, Religion and the English Civil War, p. 66.
112 Jonathan Scott, Seventeenth Century English Political instability in European Context (Cambridge 2000), p254.
113 Hirst, England in Conflict, 1603-60: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth(London 1999), p243.
114 Biblical reference in the political pamphlets of the Levellers and Milton, 1638-1654, p63----
115 Kroll, Richard, Ashcraft, Richard and Zagorin, Perez (eds.), Philosophy, Science and Religion in England, 1640-1700 (Cambridge, 1992), p88.
116 Biblical reference in the political pamphlets of the Levellers and Milton, 1638-1654, p68----
117 Ibid.
118 Frank, J., ‘The Levellers’ cited in Levy, Leonard, Emergence of a Free Press (Oxford, 1985) p92
119 Waylwyn, William, The Compassionate Samaritane (London, 1644) cited in Ibid.
120 The Vanitie of the present Churches cited in Scott, Jonathan, Seventeenth Century English Political instability in European Context (Cambridge 2000), p253.
121 Manning, Brian (ed.), Politics, Religion and the English Civil War (London, 1973), p243
122 Citations from Luke 9: 56. and John 3: 17. in Arraignement of Mr. Persecution., pp. 9, 10.
123 I Cor. 4: 5. Cited in Overton, Richard, The Araignement of Mr. Persecution (London, 1645), p14.
124 Matt. 7: 1., cited Ibid, p16.
125 Overton, Richard, The Araignement of Mr. Persecution (London, 1645), p16.
126 Ibid., p19
127 Oxford DNB---
128 Owen, John, A Vision of unchangeable free mercy, in sending the means of grace to undeserved sinners (London, 1646), p 48.
129 Ibid., p 52.
130 1 Cor. 3: 11. Cited in Hall, John, A remedy of discontent (London, 1645), p16.
131 Eph. 2: 20. Cited Ibid., p17
132 Hall, John, A remedy of discontent (London, 1645), p51.
133 Rom. 16, 17, 18., cited Ibid., P58.
134 Richardson, Samuel, The necessity of Toleration in matters of Religion (London, 1647), p4.
135 2 Tim 4., 2., Luke 9: 54, 55., 2 Cor. 10: 4., Matt. 10: 16., Rom. 13, Tit. 3: 10., John. 4., Act. 14: 4, 19, 29, 40., Act. 21: 30, 31.,cited in Richardson, Samuel, The necessity of Toleration in matters of Religion (London, 1647), pp 6-10.
136 Dell, William, Right Reformation: or The Reformation of the Church of the New Testament represented in Gospel-Light (London, 1646), p3.
137 Ibid., pp 6, 7.
138 Ibid., p6
139 John 18: 46., cited in Danvers, Henry, Certain Quaeries concerning Liberty of Conscience (London, 1649), pA2.
140 Danvers cites Mat. 7: 1., Jam. 4: 11., Rom. 14: 4., Rom. 2: 1.
141 Danvers cites 1 Cor. 6: 11.
142 ‘None can settle religion truly, but he who makes Religion’ cited in Collier, Thomas, A General Epistle to The Universal Church of the first born, whose names are written in Heaven (London, 1649), p90.
143 Collier, Thomas, A General Epistle to The Universal Church of the first born, whose names are written in Heaven (London, 1649), pp 91-92.
144 Ibid., p93
145 Ibid., p92-94
146 Particularly relevant are citations 1 Cor. 5: 1-3. and 2 Cor. 13: 1, 2. against church uniformity and persecution in Certain Queries, p4; and citations of the gospels of Matthew and Mark in support of liberty of conscience, in Certain Queries., p10 and 11.
147 Spirtuall Whordome discovered in a Sermon is a general religious text of the time with equal reliance on both Testaments (if anything Collier actually quotes more frequently from the Old Testament), however any mention of toleration and peace are made valid through New Testament citations, especially relevant is pp 13, 14, and p18.
148 Marshall, Stephen, The Moderate Presbyter (London, 1645) cited in Jordan, W. K., The Development of Religious Toleration in England from the convention of the Long Parliament to the Restoration, 1640-1660 (Massachusetts, 1965), p323.
149 Lamont, William M., Godly Rule: Politics and Religion 1606-1660 (London 1969), p11.
150 Vernon, John, The Swords Abuse Asserted (London, 1648), p5.
151 2 Tim. 2: 24. Cited in Vernon, John, The Swords Abuse Asserted (London, 1648), p10.
152 Vernon, John, The Swords Abuse Asserted (London, 1648), p14.
153 Anonymous, Liberty of Conscience Asserted (London, 1649), p2.
154 Ibid., p5.
155 Ibid., p6.
156 Matt. 22: 37-40., King James Bible (London, 1932)
157 Luke 6: 22., in Ibid.
158 Matt. 5: 44. in Ibid.
159 Williams, Roger, The Bloody tenet of Persecution (London, 1644), pg 1.
160 Overton, Richard, The Araignement of Mr. Persecution (London, 1645), p22.
161 Spurr claims that these anti-tolerationist Presbyterians propounded the case for uniformity of religion in innumerable apologies and vindications in an effort to rally against the sin of toleration cited in Spurr, John, English Puritanism 1603-1689 (London 1998), p111.
162 Doran, Susan and Durston, Christopher (eds.), Princes, Pastors and People: The Church and Religion in England, 1529-1689 (London 1991), p113.
163 Coward, Barry, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 (2nd edition, New York, 1994), p227.
164 Ibid., p227.
165 Carlin, Norah, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford 1999), p48.
166 It must be noted that it wasn’t just Presbyterians who were not in favour of liberty of conscience, the majority of the Independents were only prepared to go a certain way towards tolerating religious freedom cited in Spurr, John, English Puritanism 1603-1689 (London 1998), p111.
167 Cliffe, J. T., Puritans in Conflict the Puritan gentry during and after the Civil Wars (London 1988), p5.
168 Spurr, John, English Puritanism 1603-1689 (London 1998), p 104.
169 Ibid.
170 Coffey, John, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 (London, 2000), p 32.
171 Ibid.
172 Cressy, David and Ferrell, Lori Ann (eds.), Religion and Society in Early Modern England: A Sourcebook (London, 1996), p195.
173 Oxford DNB
174 Hirst, Derek, England in Conflict, 1603-60: Kingdom, Community, Commonwealth (London 1999), p 233.
175 Edwards, Thomas, Gangraena (London, 1646), Book 1, p 12.
176 1. King. 11: 1-15. cited ibid, p b1.
177 Levit. 26: 25., 1 Sam. 2: 29-32., 1 Sam. 3: 12-14., 1 King. 10: 19-33., Jerem. 5: 30, 31., Dan. 5: 5. 2: 2, 23, 24-28., Amos. 2: 9, 13. 14., Hag. 1: 2, 4, 5. cited Ibid Pg b2.
178 Edwards, Thomas, Gangraena (London, 1646), preface.
179 Ibid., p16.
180 Ibid., p16-17.
181 Ibid., p17.
182 For a detailed analysis on Edwards Gangraena read Hughes, Ann Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford, 2004)
183 Oxford DNB
184 Gillespie, George, Wholesome Severity reconciled with Christian Liberty (London, 1645), p. a3.
185 Ibid., p33.
186 Ibid., p36.
187 Ibid., p7.
188 Coward, Barry, The Stuart Age: England 1603-1714 (2nd edition, New York, 1994), p 225.
189 Mic. 4: 3. cited in Baillie, Robert, Anabaptism, The True Fountaine of Independency (London, 1646).
190 Baillie, Robert, Anabaptism, The True Fountaine of Independency (London, 1646), p2.
191 Joel 3: 9, 10. cited in Baillie, Robert, Anabaptism, The True Fountaine of Independency (London, 1646).
192 Baillie, Robert, Anabaptism, The True Fountaine of Independency (London, 1646), The Espistle.
193 MacLachlan, Alastair, The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary England: An Essay on the Fabrication of Seventeenth-Century History (London, 1996), p37.
194 Oxford DNB
195 Cotton, John, The Bloody tenet, washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe (London, 1647), Cover Page.
196 Ibid p3
197 Jud. 21: 2, 3
198 Cotton, John, The Bloody tenet, washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe (London, 1647), p11.
199 Ibid p14
200 ibid. p20
201 ibid. p22.
202 Deut 13: 11. cited Ibid.
203 Oxford DNB
204 Cotton, John, A reply to Mr. Williams (London, 1647), p 89.
205 Oxford DNB
206 Coffey, John, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 (London, 2000), p35.
207 Psalm 68: 1, 2: ‘Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered, let them that hate him, flee before him’
208 Case, Thomas, God’s Rising His Enemies Scattered (1646), p2.
209 Ibid., p14.
210 Ibid., p5.
211 Featley, Daniel, The Dippers dipt. (London, 1646), p5.
212 Ibid., p11.
213 Ibid.
214 Ibid., p a3.
215 Deut. 7: 2., King James Bible (London, 1932)
216 Deut 7: 4., in Ibid.
217 Deut 7: 5., in Ibid.
218 Deut. 7: 10., in Ibid.
219 Deut. 4: 24., in Ibid.
220 Deut. 7: 16., in Ibid.
221 Deut. 7: 24., in Ibid.
222 Deut. 13.: 1-5., in Ibid.
223 Deut. 13: 12-18., in Ibid.
224 Deut. 28.: 16, 17., in Ibid.
225 Deut. 28: 15-68., in Ibid.
226 Coffey, John, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, The Historical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), 961-985.
227 Ibid., p963.
228 Ibid., p971.
229 Ibid., p972.
230 Ibid., p973.
231 Coffey, John, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689 (London, 2000), p59.
232 Ibid., pp 30, 31, 32.
233 Ibid., pg 41.
234 Ibid., p 59.
235 Coffey, John, Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689, The Historical Journal, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Dec., 1998) p974.


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Chris Farrell