Independents (religious movement)

“ On the other hand, they equally dislike an independency in society:—an unaccountableness, in practice and conversation, to the rules and terms of their own communion, and to those that are the members of it. They distinguish between imposing any practice that immediately regards faith or worship, which is never to be done or suffered, or submitted unto; and requiring Christian compliance with those methods that only respect church-business in its more civil part and concern; and that regard the discreet and orderly maintenance of the character of the society as a sober and religious community. ”

“ It was a revolt against the assumption that all must believe alike, and that the laity must never question what the priesthood taught. The Infallibility of the Church had become practically an Article of the Faith. And because this indefeasible right of man was declared by the Church to be indefensible, independence changed into intolerance, and freedom into disruption. But any upheaval, social or religious, to be successful must be united and progressive. ”

“ The Independents differ chiefly from other religious societies, in that they reject all creeds of fallible man, their test of orthodoxy being a declaration that they accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and adhere to the scriptures as the sole standard of faith and practice. ”

“ Besides the efforts of politicians and ecclesiastics in established churches to get church unity by compulsion, there were a few churchmen and independent thinkers who argued that unity might be attained by requiring agreement only upon the few saving essentials of Christianity and leaving everyone free to hold his own opinions on all the doubtful and disputatious matters of doctrine, polity, and ritual. ”

“ We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied. ”

“ Just understand what it means to separate Church from State, to dig a gulf between the religious and the civil life.—Here's a country where nobody can be at once a patriot and a good Christian—where the Catholics don't vote for Parliament, and the State schools teach no religion—where the nation is divided into two vast camps, hating and thrusting at each other with every weapon they can tear from life. ”

“ We have before asserted, but it is well to repeat it, that the Catholic Church professes and practises the most absolute respect for acquired rights, for conventions concluded [741] and accepted. Thus, for the sake of peace, certain governments have felt themselves obliged to recognize the right of dissenters to live in the state, retaining their beliefs and their religious forms. Liberty of conscience has been proclaimed, the public exercise of all the worships authorized. It is, doubtless, a misfortune that religious unity in society should be broken. ”

“ But there is a very important question for the American people to ask themselves. With the multiplicity of sects, the growing indifference to religion, and the political atheism consciously or unconsciously fostered by a large portion of the secular press and but feebly resisted by the religious press, will they be able to reserve the freedom and independence of the spiritual order, or protect the equal rights on which our political institutions are founded? ”

“ If the Protestants of the United States still find in these either an open or concealed attack upon the most cherished principles of their Government—the separation of the State from the Church, the freedom of religious belief, of speech, and of the press, the popular right of self-government—they can not be rightfully accused of intolerance when they announce their determination to stand by and maintain these principles to the last. ”

“ By ceasing to exist as a separate community, and by advancing its pretentions to influence the general government of mankind, Christianity to a certain extent, forfeited its independence. It could not but submit to these laws, framed, as it might seem, with its own concurrent voice. It was no longer a republic, governed exclusively--as far, at least, as its religious concerns--by its own internal polity. ”

“ Happiest of souls, if lethargy is bliss, and palsy the chief beatitude!
America owes its political freedom to religious Protestantism. But political freedom is reacting on religious prescription with still mightier force. ”

“ In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most people believed that a nation could not be politically united unless it had only one church, of which all its people were members. Consequently, the power of the state was generally used to support one church and to suppress all others. “Dissenters” were subjected to various degrees of pressure or restraint to induce them to conform to the established church. Only gradually did dissenters gain liberty of conscience. ”

“ They call themselves Independents, Nonconformists and Puritans, because they have separated themselves from the outward church, and from all worldly power, and demand their right to govern themselves conformably only to the word of God, and the light of their own conscience. ”

“ So that we have assembled in this congress, which is to reform and purify the Catholic and Roman Church of all ages, men so irreconcilably in contradiction with themselves that they cannot touch a religious doctrine without discord, and they cannot find anything on which to unite except in opposition to the one immutable truth. ”

“ This movement, which, besides tacitly denying all sacerdotal authority, denies the power of a government, even though elected by a majority of votes, to prescribe religious belief or practice, is the logical outcome of the Protestant theory. Liberty of thought, long asserted and more and more displayed, is about to be carried to the extent that no man shall be constrained to support another man's creed. ”

“ Protestantism shook loose the bonds of union; Dissent has long been busy in organising a mechanism for the exercise of religious control, wholly independent of law; in America, a separate organisation for that purpose already exists; and if anything is to be hoped from the Anti-State-Church Association—or, as it has been newly named, "The Society for the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control"—we shall presently have a separate organisation here also. ”

“ Should political parties make war upon the Church, or menace the civil, political, or religious rights of its members as such—against a policy of that kind by any political party or set of men whatsoever, we assert the inherent right of self-preservation for the Church and her right and duty to call upon all her children, and upon all who love justice, and desire the perpetuation of religious liberty, to come to her aid, to stand with her until the danger shall have passed. ”

“ There is no authority so strong, and no liberty so broad, as to be able in a religious society to dispense with the necessity of faith. What is it that unites in a church if it is not faith? Faith is the bond of souls. When the foundations of their common faith are attacked, the differences existing between Christian churches upon special questions, or the diversities of their organization or government, become secondary interests. ”

“ Those of the Protestants who were in favour of the principle of independence, formed a society for the application of Christianity to social questions, and published a placard declaring that—“It is unjust to compel a citizen to contribute to the expense of a worship, which he does not follow. That the support of religious creeds should no longer be borne by the public exchequer, but that every one should be left to provide for the form of worship he shall have freely chosen.... ”

“ There is just now progressing in America a great movement, headed by the “Radical Unitarians,” toward “free religion,” or church without creed. The leaders deny that there is sufficient security for the spread of religion in each man‘s individual action: they desire collective work by all free-thinkers and liberal religionists in the direction of truth and purity of life. Christianity is higher than dogma, we are told; there is no way out of infinite multiplication of creeds but by their total extirpation. Oneness of purpose and a common love for truth form the members’ only tie. ”

“ Independency, on the other hand, would purify the aggregate Church to the utmost, by throwing off the synodical tyranny as well as the prelatic, and restoring the complete power of discipline to each particular church or society of Christians formed in any one place. ”

“ Voluntaryism, on the other hand, neutralized its influence, by holding that, though quite at freedom to exert itself in the political walk in attaining secular objects, religious objects are in that walk unattainable, or at least not to be attained; and so it also has been virtually lost to the Protestant cause. And now a cloud like a man’s hand arises in our own Church, to threaten a further secession from the ranks of the remaining class, who strive to stamp upon the Government, through the operation of the representative principle, at least a modicum of the evangelistic character. ”

“ A voluntary theocracy may uphold a faith which teaches that only a very limited number are of the "elect," but, under the ordinary conditions of life, such a belief is discouraging, deadening, and as men threw off this idea of spiritual bondage, they advanced to a larger conception of personal responsibility, dignity, and freedom. Such enlargement of ideas necessitated a mutual tolerance of diverse opinions. ”

“ And thus it comes to pass that religious thought loses its power among those who are not directly touched by such harangues,—that the influence widens continually to make the Bible a neglected book, and to make the Sabbath a secular day, to make the Church a mere convocation of people coming together at leisure to hear a lecture.
It is at such times that the spirit of liberalism, as it is called, in religious speculations tending all the time to loosen the bonds and unstring the strength of the Gospel of Christ, finds opportunity and incitement and comes more widely to prevail. Liberalism! ”

“ And does it necessarily involve us in or leave us open to the charge of disloyalty, because we thus contended for religious freedom—the right to practice what to us was part of our religion? Let us remind you, gentlemen, that had the people of the first Christian age, and the people of the sixteenth century followed your idea of immediately surrendering when religious principle was attacked, there would have been no Christian religion at all, there would have been no such thing as Protestant sects. ”

“ I respect every honest man, and I think more of a liberal Catholic than of an illiberal Infidel. The religious question should be left out of politics. You might as well decide questions of art and music by a ward caucus as to govern the longings and dreams of the soul by law. I believe in letting the sun shine whether the weeds grow or not. I can never side with Protestants if they try to put Catholics down by law, and I expect to oppose both of these until religious intolerance is regarded as a crime. ”

“ Where absolute religious liberty exists for every individual you then have equal rights for all the people, and this is democracy. Besides, coupled with the doctrine of religious liberty is also the doctrine of the Baptists regarding church government. They believe the Bible to teach that every local church is independent of every other local church and [Pg 154] of any higher government. They believe not only in the independence of the local church, but also of the individual. ”

“ The political aspect of associated life is not to be evaded. In proportion as political organization gained in prosperity, efficiency, and dignity, special religious associations lost their independence and power. Even the most powerful religious association in the world, the Catholic Church, has been fighting a losing battle with political authority, and it is likely in the course of time to occupy in relation to the political powers a position analogous to that of the Greek or the English church. ”

“ If members of all these various organizations were to obey the Gospel and gather together, the religion of heaven would clear their hearts of all political rubbish and make them one in voting for principles and measures, instead of men, and I think that any religion that will not do this is very feeble in its effects. ”

“ But the contention was unequal, from the different characters of the parties; religious zeal and devotion, which, fifty years before, had overthrown the ancient rites in northern Germany, were now more invigorating sentiments in those who rescued them from further innovation. In religious struggles, where there is any thing like an equality of forces, the question soon comes to be, which party will make the greatest sacrifice for its own faith? And, while the Catholic self-devotion had grown far stronger, there was much more secular cupidity, lukewarmness, and formality in the Lutheran Church. ”

“ The rejection of all human authority and influence in religion, requires to be balanced by a very strong sense of the divine authority, to prevent its generating a state of mind more characterized by pride of intellect, and independence of spirit, than by the humility and diffidence which are essential features in the Christian character. It is a singular fact, that the Presbyterians, though at first more rigid in their doctrinal views, and more exclusive in their spirit and system of church government, than the Independents, became before the death of Baxter the more liberal party. ”

“ On the other hand the evangelical or low church party, which is more or less methodistically inclined, holds free intercourse with dissenters, associating with them in home and foreign mission work, etc., and with various shades of differences advocates the claims of progress against those of immobility, the independence of the church against its identification with the state, the evangelical freedom and general priesthood of believers against orthodoxy and hierarchism. ”