Luther and the Reformation Part 12

OUR STATE THE PRODUCT OF FAITH.

I. It is a matter of indisputable fact that the founding of our commonwealth was one of the direct fruits of the revived Gospel of Christ. But a little searching into the influences most active in the history is required to show that it was religious conviction and faith, more than anything else, that had to do with the case.

Changes had come. Luther had found the Bible chained, and set it free.

Apostolic Christianity had reappeared, and was re-uttering itself with great power among the nations. Its quickening truths and growing victories were undermining the gigantic usurpations and falsehoods which for ages had been oppressing our world. Conscience, illuminated and revived by the Word of G.o.d, had risen up to a.s.sert its rights of free judgment and free worship, and resentful power had drawn the sword to put it down. Continental Europe was being deluged with blood and devastated by relentless religious wars to crush out the evangelic faith, whose confessors held up the Bible over all popes and secular powers, and would not consent to part with their inalienable charter from the throne of Heaven to worship G.o.d according to his Word. And amid these woeful struggles the good providence of the Almighty opened up to the attention of the nations the vast new territories of this Western World.

From various motives, indeed, were the several original colonies of America founded. Some of the colonists came from a spirit of adventure. Some came for territorial aggrandizement and national enrichment. Some came as mercantile speculators. And each of these considerations may have entered somewhat into the most of these colonization schemes. But it was mainly flight from oppression on account of religious convictions which influenced the first colony of New England, and a still freer religious motive induced the colonization of Pennsylvania.

All the men most concerned in the matter were profoundly religious men and thorough and active believers in revived Christianity; and it was most of all from these religious feelings and impulses that they acted in the case.

GUSTAVUS AND THE SWEDES.

The first presentation to the king of Sweden, by William Usselinx, touching the planting of a colony on the west bank of the Delaware, looked to the establishment of a trading company with unlimited trading privileges; and the argument for it was the great source of revenue it would be to the kingdom. But when Gustavus Adolphus entered into the subject and gave his royal favor to it, quite other motives and considerations came in to determine his course. As the history records, and quite aside from the prospect of establishing his power in these parts of the world, "the king, whose zeal for the honor of G.o.d was not less ardent than for the welfare of his subjects, _availed himself of this opportunity to extend the doctrines of Christ among the heathen_,"[39] and to this end granted letters patent, in which it was further provided that a free state should be formed, guaranteeing all personal rights of property, honor, and religion, and forming an asylum and place of security for the persecuted people of all nations.

And when these gracious intentions of the king were revived after his death, the same ideas and provisions were carefully maintained, specially stipulating (1) for every human respect toward the Indians--to wit, that the governors of the colony should deal justly with them as the rightful lords of the land, and exert themselves at every opportunity "that the same wild people may be instructed in the truths and worship of the Christian religion, and in other ways brought to civilization and good government, and in this manner properly guided;" (2) "above all things to consider and see to it that divine service be duly maintained and zealously performed according to the unaltered Augsburg Confession;" and (3) to protect those of a different confession in the free exercise of their own forms.[40]

It is plain, therefore, that the spirit of religion, the spirit of evangelical missions, the spirit of Christian charity, and the spirit of devotion to the protection of religious liberty and freedom of conscience were the dominating motives on the part of those who founded the first permanent settlement on the territory of Pennsylvania.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] _History of New Sweden_, by Israel Acrelius, p. 21.

[40] Rehea.r.s.ed in the commission to Governor Printz, 1642, sections 9 and 26.

THE FEELINGS OF WILLIAM PENN.

Bating somewhat the missionary character of the enterprise, the same may be said of William Penn and his great reinforcement to what had thus been successfully begun long before his time. He was himself a very zealous preacher of religion, though more in the line of protest against the world and the existing Church than in the line of positive Christianity and the conversion and evangelization of the heathen. He had himself been a great sufferer for his religious convictions, along with the people whose cause he had espoused and made his own. His controlling desire was to honor and glorify G.o.d in the founding of a commonwealth in which those of his way of thinking might have a secure home of their own and worship their Creator as best agreed with their feelings and convictions, without being molested or disturbed; offering at the same time the same precious boon to others in like constraints willing to share the lot of his endeavors.

The motives of Charles II. in granting his charter were, first of all, to discharge a heavy pecuniary claim of Penn against the government on account of his father; next, to honor the memory and merits of the late Admiral Penn; and, finally, at the same time, to "favor William Penn in his laudable efforts to enlarge the British empire, to promote the trade and prosperity of the kingdom, and to reduce the savage nations by just and gentle measures to the love of civilized life and the Christian religion." Penn's idea, as stated by his memorialist, was "to obtain the grant of a territory on the west side of the Delaware, in which he might not only furnish an asylum to Friends (Quakers), and others who were persecuted on account of their religious persuasion, but might erect a government upon principles approaching much nearer the standard of evangelical purity than any which had been previously raised."

His own account of the matter is: "For my country I eyed the Lord in obtaining it; and more was I drawn inward to look to him, and to owe it to his hand and power, than to any other way. I have so obtained it, and desire to keep it, that I may not be unworthy of his love, but do that which may answer his kind providence and serve his truth and people, that an example may be set up to the nations. There may be room there, though not here, for such an holy experiment." "I do therefore desire the Lord's wisdom to guide me and those that may be concerned with me, that we may do the thing that is truly wise and just."

And with these aims and this spirit he invited people to join him, came to the territory which had been granted him, conferred with the Swedish and Dutch colonists already on the ground, and together with them established the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

RECOGNITION OF THE DIVINE BEING.

II. Accordingly, also, the chief corner-stone in the const.i.tutional fabric of our State was the united official acknowledgment of the being and supremacy of one eternal and ever-living G.o.d, the Judge of all men and the Lord of nations.

The self-existence and government of Almighty G.o.d is the foundation of all things. Nothing _is_ without him. And the devout and dutiful recognition of him and the absolute supremacy of his laws are the basis and chief element of everything good and stable in human affairs. He who denies this or fails in its acknowledgment is so far practically self-stultified, beside himself, outside the sphere of sound rationality, and incapable of rightly understanding or directing himself or anything else. Nor could those who founded our commonwealth have been moved as they were, or achieved the happy success they did, had it not been for their clear, profound, and practical acknowledgment of the being and government of that good and almighty One who fills immensity and eternity, and from whom, and by whom, and to whom are all things.

Some feel and act as if it were an imbecility, or a thing only for the weak, timid, and helpless, to be concerned about an Almighty G.o.d. But greater, braver, and more manly men did not then exist than those who were most prominent and active in founding and framing our commonwealth; and of all men then making themselves felt in the affairs of our world, they were among the most honest and devout in the practical confession of the eternal being and providence of Jehovah.

The great Gustavus Adolphus and the equally great Axel Oxenstiern held and confessed from their deepest souls and in all their thoughts and doings that there is an eternal G.o.d, infinite in power, wisdom, and goodness, the Creator, Preserver, and Judge of all things, visible and invisible, and that on him and his favor alone all good and prosperity in this world and the next depends. This they ever formally and devoutly set forth in all their state papers and in all their undertakings and doings, whether as men or as rulers. The sound of songs and prayers to this almighty and ever-present G.o.d was heard at every sunrise through all the army of Gustavus in the field, as well as in the tent and closet of its great commander. And all the instructions given to the governors of the colony on the Delaware were meekly conditioned to the will of G.o.d, with specific emphasis on the provision: "Above all things, shall the governor consider and see to it that a true and due worship, becoming honor, laud, and praise be paid to the Most High in all things."

The same is true of William Penn. From early life he was always a zealous exhorter to the devout worship of Almighty G.o.d as the only Illuminator and Helper of men. What he averred in his letter to the Indians was the great root-principle of his life: "There is a great G.o.d and Power, which hath made the world and all things therein, to whom you and I and all people owe their being and well-being, and to whom you and I must one day give an account for all that we have done in this world."

And what was thus wrought into the texture of his being he also wove into the original const.i.tution of our State.

ENACTMENTS ON THE SUBJECT.

All the articles of government and regulation ordained by the first General a.s.sembly, held at Upland (Chester) from the seventh to the tenth day of December, 1682, were fundamentally grounded on this express "Whereas, the glory of Almighty G.o.d and the good of mankind is the reason and end of government, and therefore government itself is a valuable ordinance of G.o.d; and forasmuch as it is princ.i.p.ally desired to make and establish such laws as shall best preserve true Christian and civil liberty, in opposition to all unchristian, licentious, and unjust practices, whereby G.o.d may have his due, Caesar his due, and the people their due, from tyranny and oppression on the one side, and insolence and licentiousness on the other; so that the best and firmest foundation may be laid for the present and future happiness of both the governor and the people of this province and their posterity;" for it was deemed and believed on all hands that neither permanence nor happiness, enduring order nor prosperity, could come from any other principle than that of the recognition of the supremacy and laws of Him from whom all things proceed and on whom all creatures depend.

On this wise also ran the very first of the sixty-one laws ordained by that a.s.sembly: "Almighty G.o.d being the Lord of conscience, Father of lights, and the Author as well as Object of all divine knowledge, faith, and worship, who alone can enlighten the mind and convince the understanding of people in due reverence to his sovereignty over the souls of mankind," the rights of citizenship, protection, and liberty should be to every person, then or thereafter residing in this province, "who shall confess one Almighty G.o.d to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and profess himself obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly under the civil government;"

provided, further, that no person antagonizing this confession, or refusing to profess the same, or convicted of unsober or dishonest conversation, should ever hold office in this commonwealth.

And so entirely did this, and what else was then and there enacted and ordained, fall in with the teachings, feelings, and beliefs of the hardy and devoted Swedish Lutherans, who had here been professing and fulfilling the same for two scores of years preceding, that they not only joined in the making of these enactments, but sent a special deputation to the governor formally to a.s.sure him that, on these principles and the faithful administration of them, they would love, serve, and obey him with all they possessed.

IMPORTANCE OF THIS PRINCIPLE.

Nor can it ever be known in this world how much of the success, prosperity, and happy conservatism which have marked this commonwealth in all the days and years since, have come directly from this planting of it on the grand corner-stone of all national stability, order, and happiness. Surely, a widely different course and condition of things would have come but for this secure anchoring of the ship on the everlasting Rock. And a thousand pities it is that the influence of French atheism was allowed to exclude so wholesome a principle from the Declaration of our national Independence and from our national Const.i.tution. Whilst such recognition of Jehovah's supremacy and government abides in living force in the hearts of the people, the absence of its official formulation may be of no material disadvantage; but for the better preservation of it in men's minds, and for the obstruction of the insidious growth of what strikes at the foundation of all government and order, it would have been well had the same been put in place as the grand corner-stone of our whole national fabric, as it was in the original organization of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and kept in both clear and unchangeable for ever. We might then hope for better things than are indicated by the present drift, and the outlook for those to come after us would be less dark and doubtful than it is.

But, since weakenings and degeneration in these respects have come into the enactments of public power, it is all the more needful for every true and patriotic citizen to be earnest and firm in witnessing for G.o.d and his everlasting laws, that the people may be better than the later expressions of their state doc.u.ments. The example of the fathers makes appeal to the consciences of their children not to let go from our hearts and lives the deep and abiding recognition and confession of that almighty Governor of all things from whose righteous tribunal no one living can escape, and before whom no contemner of his authority can stand.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.

III. Another great and precious principle enthroned in the founding of our commonwealth was that of religious liberty.

One of the saddest chapters in human history is that of persecution on account of religious convictions--the imposition of penalties, torture, and death by the sword of government on worthy people because of their honest opinions of duty to Almighty G.o.d. For the punishment of the lawless, the wicked, and the intractable, and for the praise, peace, and protection of them that do well, the civil magistrate is truly the authorized representative of G.o.d, and fails in his office and duty where the powers he wields are not studiously and vigorously exercised to these ends. But G.o.d hath reserved to himself, and hath not committed to any creature hands, the power and dominion to interfere with realm of conscience. As he alone can instruct and govern it, and as its sphere is that of the recognition of his will and law and the soul's direct amenability to his judgment-bar, it is a gross usurpation and a wicked presumption for any other authority or power to undertake to force obedience contrary to the soul's persuasion of what its Maker demands of it as a condition of his favor.

It is a principle of human action and obligation recognized in both Testaments, that when the requirements of human authority conflict with those of the Father of spirits we must obey G.o.d rather than man.

The rights of conscience and the rights of G.o.d thus coincide, and to trample on the one is to deny the other. And when earthly governments invade this sacred territory they invade the exclusive domain of G.o.d and make war upon the very authority from which they have their right to be.

The plea of its necessity for the support of orthodoxy, the maintenance of the truth, and the glory of G.o.d will not avail for its justification, for G.o.d has not ordained civil government to inflict imprisonment, exile, and death upon religious dissenters, or even heretics; and his truth and glory he has arranged to take care of in quite another fashion. What Justin Martyr and Tertullian in the early Church and Luther in the Reformation-time declared, must for ever stand among the settled verities of Heaven: that it is not right to murder, burn, and afflict people because they feel in conscience bound to a belief and course of life which they have found and embraced as the certain will and requirement of their Maker. We must ward off heresy with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of G.o.d, and not with the sword of the state and with fire.

PERSECUTION FOR OPINION'S SAKE.

And yet such abuses of power have been staining and darkening all the ages of human administration, and, unfortunately, among professing Christians as well as among pagans and Jews. Intolerance is so rooted in the selfishness and ambition of human nature that it has ever been one of the most difficult of practical problems to curb and regulate it. Those who have most complained of it whilst feeling it, often only needed to have the circ.u.mstances reversed in order to fall into similar wickedness. The Puritans, who fled from it as from the Dragon himself, soon had their Star-Chamber too, their whipping-posts, their death-scaffolds, and their sentences of exile for those who dissented from their orthodoxy and their order. Even infidelity and atheism, always the most blatant for freedom when in the minority, have shown in the philosophy of Hobbes and in the Reign of Terror in France that they are as liable to be intolerant, fanatical, and oppressive when they have the mastery as the strongest faith and the most a.s.sured religionism. And the Quakers themselves, who make freedom of conscience one of the chief corner-stones of their religion, have not always been free from offensive and disorderly aggressions upon the rightful sphere of government and the rightful religious freedom of other worshipers. Even so treacherous is the human heart on the subject of just and equal religious toleration.

SPIRIT OF THE FOUNDERS.

It is therefore a matter of everlasting grat.i.tude and thanksgiving that all the men most concerned in the founding of our commonwealth were so clear and well-balanced on the subject of religious liberty, and so thoroughly inwove the same into its organic const.i.tution.

Gustavus Adolphus and Axel Oxenstiern were the heroes of their time in the cause of religious liberty in continental Europe. Though intensely troubled in their administration by the Roman Catholics and the Anabaptists, the most intolerant of intolerants in those days, they never opposed force against the beliefs or worships of either; and when force was used against the papal powers, it was only so far as to preserve unto themselves and their fellow-confessors the inalienable right to worship G.o.d according to the dictates of their own consciences without molestation or disturbance. In their scheme of colonization in this Western World, first and last, the invitation was to all cla.s.ses of Christians in suffering and persecution for conscience' sake, who were favorable to a free state where they could have the free enjoyment of their property and religion, to cast in their lot. In the first charter, confirmed by all the authorities of the kingdom and rehea.r.s.ed in the instructions given by the throne for the execution of the intention, special provision was made for the protection of the convictions and worship of those not of the same confession with that for which the government provided. Though a Lutheran colony, under a Lutheran king, sustained and protected by a Lutheran government, the Calvinists had place and equal protection in it from the very beginning; and when the Quakers came, they were at once and as freely welcomed on the same free principles, as also the representatives of the Church of England.

As to William Penn, though contemplating above all the well-being and furtherance of the particular Society of which he was an eminent ornament and preacher, consistency with himself, as well as the established situation of affairs, demanded of him the free toleration of the Church, however unpalatable to his Society, and with it of all religious sects and orders of worship. From his prison at Newgate he had written that the enaction of laws restraining persons from the free exercise of their consciences in matters of religion was but "the knotting of whipcord on the part of the enactors to lash their own posterity, whom they could never promise to be conformed for ages to come to a national religion." Again and again had he preached and proclaimed the folly and wickedness of attempting to change the religious opinions of men by the application of force--the utter unreasonableness of persecuting orderly people in this world about things which belong to the next--the gross injustice of sacrificing any one's liberty or property on account of creed if not found breaking the laws relating to natural and civil things.

Hence, from principle as well as from necessity, when he came to formulate a political const.i.tution for his colony, he laid it down as the primordial principle: "I do, for me and mine, declare and establish for the first fundamental of the government of my province that every person that doth and shall reside therein shall have and enjoy the free possession of his or her faith and exercise of worship toward G.o.d, in such way and manner as every such person shall in conscience believe is most acceptable to G.o.d. And so long as such person useth not this Christian liberty to licentiousness or the destruction of others--that is, to speak loosely and profanely or contemptuously of G.o.d, Christ, the Holy Scriptures, or religion, or commit any moral evil or injury against others in their conversation--he or she shall be protected in the enjoyment of the aforesaid Christian liberty by the civil magistrate."

CONSt.i.tUTIONAL PROVISIONS.