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The Pilgrim Fathers, Part 3
Liberty of Conscience Established
In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as
their bill of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared: “We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And the Constitution guarantees,
in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of conscience: “No religious test
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of public trust under
the United States.” “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal
principle that man’s relation with his God is above human legislation, and his
rights of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to establish this
truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is this consciousness
which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained so many martyrs in tortures and
flames. They felt that their duty to God was superior to human enactments, and
that man could exercise no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn
principle which nothing can eradicate.”—Congressional documents (U.S.A.),
serial No. 200, document No. 271.
As the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a land
where every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor and obey the convictions
of his own conscience, thousands flocked to the shores of the New World.
Colonies rapidly multiplied. “Massachusetts, by special law, offered free welcome
and aid, at the public cost, to Christians of any nationality who might fly
beyond the Atlantic ‘to escape from wars or famine, or the oppression of their
persecutors.’ Thus the fugitive and the downtrodden were, by statute, made the
guests of the commonwealth.”—Martyn, vol. 5, p. 417. In twenty years from the
first landing at Plymouth, as many thousand Pilgrims were settled in New
England.
To secure the object which they sought, “they were content to
earn a bare subsistence by a life of frugality and toil. They asked nothing
from the soil but the reasonable returns of their own labor. No golden vision
threw a deceitful halo around their path. . . . They were content with the slow
but steady progress of their social polity. They patiently endured the
privations of the wilderness, watering the tree of liberty with their tears,
and with the sweat of their brow, till it took deep root in the land.”
The Bible was held as the foundation of faith, the source of
wisdom, and the charter of liberty. Its principles were diligently taught in
the home, in the school, and in the church, and its fruits were manifest in
thrift, intelligence, purity, and temperance. One might be for years a dweller
in the Puritan settlement, “and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet a
beggar.”—Bancroft, pt. 1, ch. 19, par. 25. It was demonstrated that the
principles of the Bible are the surest safeguards of national greatness. The
feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of powerful states, and
the world marked with wonder the peace and prosperity of “a church without a
pope, and a state without a king.”
The Right to Vote and Hold Office
But continually increasing numbers were attracted to the shores
of America, actuated by motives widely different from those of the first
Pilgrims. Though the primitive faith and purity exerted a widespread and
molding power, yet its influence became less and less as the numbers increased
of those who sought only worldly advantage.
The regulation adopted by the early colonists, of permitting
only members of the church to vote or to hold office in the civil government,
led to most pernicious results. This measure had been accepted as a means of
preserving the purity of the state, but it resulted in the corruption of the
church. A profession of religion being the condition of suffrage and
officeholding, many, actuated solely by motives of worldly policy, united with
the church without a change of heart. Thus the churches came to consist, to a
considerable extent, of unconverted persons; and even in the ministry were
those who not only held errors of doctrine, but who were ignorant of the
renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Thus again was demonstrated the evil
results, so often witnessed in the history of the church from the days of Constantine
to the present, of attempting to build up the church by the aid of the state,
of appealing to the secular power in support of the gospel of Him who declared:
“My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36. The union of the church with the
state, be the degree never so slight, while it may appear to bring the world
nearer to the church, does in reality but bring the church nearer to the world.
Pilgrim Principles Lost Sight Of
The great principle so nobly advocated by Robinson and Roger
Williams, that truth is progressive, that Christians should stand ready to
accept all the light which may shine from God’s holy word, was lost sight of by
their descendants. The Protestant churches of America,—and those of Europe as
well,—so highly favored in receiving the blessings of the Reformation, failed
to press forward in the path of reform. Though a few faithful men arose, from
time to time, to proclaim new truth and expose long-cherished error, the
majority, like the Jews in Christ’s day or the papists in the time of Luther,
were content to believe as their fathers had believed and to live as they had
lived. Therefore religion again degenerated into formalism; and errors and
superstitions which would have been cast aside had the church continued to walk
in the light of God’s word, were retained and cherished. Thus the spirit
inspired by the Reformation gradually died out, until there was almost as great
need of reform in the Protestant churches as in the Roman Church in the time of
Luther. There was the same worldliness and spiritual stupor, a similar
reverence for the opinions of men, and substitution of human theories for the
teachings of God’s word.
The wide circulation of the Bible in the early part of the
nineteenth century, and the great light thus shed upon the world, was not
followed by a corresponding advance in knowledge of revealed truth, or in
experimental religion. Satan could not, as in former ages, keep God’s word from
the people; it had been placed within the reach of all; but in order still to
accomplish his object, he led many to value it but lightly. Men neglected to
search the Scriptures, and thus they continued to accept false interpretations,
and to cherish doctrines which had no foundation in the Bible.
Seeing the failure of his efforts to crush out the truth by
persecution, Satan had again resorted to the plan of compromise which led to
the great apostasy and the formation of the Church of Rome. He had induced
Christians to ally themselves, not now with pagans, but with those who, by
their devotion to the things of this world, had proved themselves to be as
truly idolaters as were the worshipers of graven images. And the results of
this union were no less pernicious now than in former ages; pride and
extravagance were fostered under the guise of religion, and the churches became
corrupted. Satan continued to pervert the doctrines of the Bible, and
traditions that were to ruin millions were taking deep root. The church was
upholding and defending these traditions, instead of contending for “the faith
which was once delivered unto the saints.” Jude 3, KJV. Thus were degraded the
principles for which the Reformers had done and suffered so much.
The Great Controversy, pp. 295-298
Next part:
God's Unchangeable Law
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