We have been looking many years for a Sunday law to be enacted in our land; and now that the movement is right upon us, we ask, Will our people do their duty in the matter? Can we not assist in lifting the standard, and in calling to the front those who have a regard for their religious rights and privileges? The time is fast approaching when those who choose to obey God rather than man, will be made to feel the hand of oppression. Shall we then dishonor God by keeping silent while His holy commandments are trodden under foot? While the Protestant world is by her attitude making concessions to Rome, let us arouse to comprehend the situation, and view the contest before us in its true bearings. Let the watchmen now lift up their voice, and give the message which is present truth for this time. Let us show people where we are in prophetic history, and seek to arouse the spirit of true Protestantism, awakening the world to a sense of the value of the privileges of religious liberty so long enjoyed. {Testimonies, vol. 5, p. 716; ChS 163.1}

Let us remember how the Scriptures admonish us about the basic building blocks of a healthy society.

"So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts." Psalms 119: 44,45.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord." Luke 4:19,20.

The keeping of the Ten Commandments alone can guarantee continual liberty. Having arrived at a time in history which bears the signs of the closing days of the reign of sin, we ought to know who we are and what we stand for, so one day, if called upon, we can give reason for our faith.

That is the reason we ought to know the meaning of God's Law of Liberty.

The First Commandment:
What does it mean? The first commandment is about loyalty to God. In it the Creator of the universe asks us to demonstrate our love for Him by having no other gods. That is why Jacob told the people to `put away their foreign gods,' and thereby purify and cleanse themselves from this sin, Genesis 35:2-4.

The Second Commandment:
What does it mean? The Second Commandment is about worship. God prohibits the worship of images, of bowing before a carved statue or pictures. It asks us to put away saint worship and all "foreign gods," Genesis 31:19-34. That idol worship was known to be sinful in the days of Jacob is related to us in Genesis 35:2.

The Third Commandment:
What does it mean? The third commandment is about reverence. God instructs us to respect His holy name and not to use it in vain. Pharaoh scoffed at the authority of God's name The Lord eventually destroyed him because of the hardness of his heart, Exodus 5:2; 14:27,28.

The Fourth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Fourth Commandment is about sanctification and relationship. God instructs His people to "remember" the Sabbath day to set it apart for holy purposes to draw nearer to Him. God initiated the Sabbath day at Creation, blessing and sanctifying the seventh day as He makes it clear that He expected continual observance. It is meant to be a bulwark against apostasy. It contains the Seal of God. The bold words represent the seal of God:

The Seal of the President of the United States also contains these three identifications: `George Washington', `President' of the `United States of America'; his name, title and realm. Therefore, the fourth commandment proclaims on which day and who it is we are to worship, the Creator God, Lord of the whole universe. [See also Leviticus 23:3]

The Fifth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Fifth Commandment is about respect of parental authority. God instructs us to show love for our parents by honoring them, Genesis 37:28-35; 50:15-17.

The Sixth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Sixth Commandment is about respect for human life. God instructs us to demonstrate love, not hatred to others by not committing murder, Gen. 4:8-13. All acts of injustice that tend to shorten life; the spirit of hatred, envy, anger and revenge, or the indulgence of any passion that leads to injurious acts toward others, or causes us even to wish them harm (for "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer"); a selfish neglect of caring for the needy or suffering; all self-indulgence or unnecessary deprivation or excessive labor that tends to injure health--all these are, to a greater or lesser degree, violations of the sixth commandment. {PP 308.5}- Not only that, this commandment also means we must actively love our enemies.

The Seventh Commandment:
What does it mean? This Seventh Commandment is about purity in relationships. It forbids not only acts of impurity, but sensual thoughts and desires, or any practice that tends to excite them. Purity is demanded not only in the outward life but in the secret intents and emotions of the heart. Christ, who taught the far-reaching obligation of the law of God, declared the evil thought or look to be as truly sin as is the unlawful deed. {PP 308.7; Mark 7:22,23}

The Eighth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Eighth Commandment is about honesty. God instructs us not to steal. Both public and private sins are included in this prohibition. The eighth commandment condemns manstealing and slave dealing, and forbids wars of conquest. It condemns theft and robbery. It demands strict integrity in the minutest details of the affairs of life. It forbids overreaching in trade, and requires the payment of just debts or wages. It declares that every attempt to advantage oneself by the ignorance, weakness, or misfortune of another is registered as fraud in the books of heaven. {PP 309.1; Scriptures are many}

The Ninth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Ninth Commandment is about truthfulness. God instructs us not to lie or deceive others. Jesus Christ proclaimed Satan as the "father of lies," John 8:44. False speaking, lying, in any matter, every attempt or purpose to deceive our neighbor, is here included. An intention to deceive is what constitutes falsehood. By a glance of the eye, a motion of the hand, an expression of the countenance, a falsehood may be told as effectually as by words. All intentional overstatement, every hint or insinuation calculated to convey an erroneous or exaggerated impression, even the statement of facts in such a manner as to mislead, is falsehood. This precept forbids every effort to injure our neighbor's reputation by misrepresentation or evil surmising, by slander or tale bearing. Even the intentional suppression of truth, by which injury may result to others, is a violation of the ninth commandment. {PP 309.3, Proverbs 12:22} The Apostle Paul puts liars on the same list as those who "kill their fathers and mothers," "murderers," immoral men," and "kidnappers." 1.Tim. 1:9,10. People who are liars do not trust other people for they assume they are liars just like themselves. Lying causes serious damage to yourself for you know you are one. Lying destroys our relationship with God. - This commandment also means that we must love the truth since at the end many will be deceived by lies (Matth. 24:24; 2.John 7). Loving the truth means we must search for it (Jh. 5:39; Acts 17:11; Ps. 25:5), value it (Mt. 13:44), let it transform our lives (Gal. 5:7; Rom. 2:8) and be eager to share it with unfeigned love (1.Pet. 1:22; Joh. 18:37; Acts 1:8). - At the end, God's people will have no lie in their mouth, Rev. 14:5.

The Tenth Commandment:
What does it mean? The Tenth Commandment is about contentment. God instructs us not to covet - because He knows it can entrap us into even greater sins. This commandment, therefore, strikes at the very root of all sins, prohibiting the selfish desire, from which springs the sinful act. He who in obedience to God's law refrains from indulging even a sinful desire for that which belongs to another will not be guilty of an act of wrong toward his fellow creatures. {PP 309.5; Luke 12:15} - People who get their happiness from things always have to keep moving on from thing to thing as they pursue their coveted items. That is why coveting is idolatry (Col. 3:5) which is about a type of worship. While the 2nd commandment tells us that we should not make things more important than God, the 10th tells us not to make things more important than people. It forbids us to put our selfish desires above the rights of others or to value people and things in terms of the benefit we can get from them.

Liberty Quest in the Days of the Protestant Reformation

Liberty is based on the Ten Commandment law of God for we read, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Ecclesiastes 8:11. Removing the moral restraint of God's law, causes steadily increasing sinning.

Liberty includes the battle for freedom of investigation. In the days of the reformation two kinds of preaching were common, on the one hand the pastor would bring the Word of God reading from the Scriptures as the congregation followed along in their Bibles; on the other hand, a priest would stand before his audience without the Scripture but with rosaries in their hands. One would preach Christ dying for our sins on the cross, while the other would present a Christless cross with just a whip and the sign `for money a sack full of indulgences.'

The Church believed, God is wrath and mercy, and the state is the instrument of his wrath, and the church of his mercy. (Adopted from Roland H. Bainton, `Here I Stand' (RHIS), 1950, p. 128)

Reformers like Dr. Martin Luther believed that political thought was between the lower and the higher capacities of man, corresponding to nature and reason on the one hand and to grace and revelation on the other. The natural man, when not involved for himself, has enough integrity and insight to administer the state in accord with justice, equity, and even magnanimity. These are the civil virtues. But the Church inculcates humility, patience, long-suffering, and charity - the Christian virtues - attainable even approximately only by those endowed with grace, and consequently not to be expected from the masses. That is why society cannot be ruled by the gospel. And that is why theocracy is out of the question. (RHIS, 242)

Luther saw himself different from previous reformers, in that they attacked the sinful life of the clergy of the Church, and he attacked the doctrine. (RHIS, 249)

In the days of Zwingli in Switzerland and Germany, the Anabaptists had grown up. They believed that a church should not rest on baptism administered in infancy, but on regeneration, symbolized by baptism in mature years. They believed that every member in the families should be a priest, a minister, and a missionary prepared to embark on evangelistic tours. Such a church, though seeking to convert the world, could never embrace the unconverted community. And if the state comprised all the inhabitants, then Church and state would have to be separated. In any case religion should be free from constraint. Zwingli was besides himself when he heard all that and in the panic invoked the arm of the state. Thus in 1525 the Anabaptists in Zurich were subject to the death penalty. Luther was not yet ready for such savage expedients.[24] (RHIS, 267)

Luther, on the inquiry of Zwingli's followers, how he would treat the Anabaptists, wrote: "You ask whether the magistrate may kill false prophets. I am slow in a judgment of blood even when it is deserved. In this matter I am terrified by the example of the papists and the Jews before Christ, for when there was a statute for the killing of false prophets and heretics, in time it came about that only the most saintly and innocent were killed. . . . I cannot admit that false teachers are to be put to death. It is enough to banish them." (RHIS, 314)

Luther, because of the arising of various religious views, yet he would compel no one to the faith he espoused. He would not have any bishops; their place was taken by superintendents. How to choose them was another, still undecided matter. He was driven to the recognition of the rights of rival confessions. The outcome was the territorial church, in which the confession was that of the majority in a given locality, and the minority were free to migrate to favorable terrain. (RHIS, 312) Luther's concern was always that the faith might be impeded. He believed in the hope that anyone might help; no one might hinder.(RHIS, 314)

IN those days they discovered a minister who served two parishes, one in Catholic and one in evangelical territory, and ministered to each according to its respective rites. This arrangement was deemed unacceptable. (RHIS, 314) Can something similar occur today?

In Lutheran lands the principle of religious liberty for Catholics must be observed, whereas in Catholic lands the same liberty would not be extended to the Lutherans. Against this invidious arrangement the Evangelicals protested, whence the origin of the name Protestant derived.(RHIS, 318) They contended that the majority of one diet could not rescind the unanimous action of the previous assembly. They questioned whether this was the intent of the emperor, and on that score they were correct. They affirmed that they could not have two religions side by side in their territories without menace to the public peace, and if their plea was not heard, then "they must protest and testify publicly before God that they could consent to nothing contrary to his Word." (RHIS, 318) [28]

The Augsburg Confession

The `Augsburg Confession' took place from January to June 1530. It came subsequent to the Diet of Spires (Speyer 35 km south of Worms), the latter of which took place in 1529, during which the princes of Germany got together as there was presented the emperor's decree restricting religious liberty, and prohibiting all further dissemination of the reformed doctrines. It seemed that the hope of the world was about to be crushed out. Would the princes accept the decree? Should the light of the gospel be shut out from the multitudes still in darkness? Mighty issues for the world were at stake for the participants in the `Augsburg Confession'. Those who had accepted the reformed faith met together, and their unanimous decision was, "Let us reject this decree of the princes at Speyer. In matters of conscience the majority has no power." {Paraphrased from Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation, b. 13, ch. 5. AA 68.1}

Subsequent to the `Augsburger Confession' which took place between January to June 1530, largely through the efforts and the work of Desederius Erasmus (b. 1466/69 to 1536, died in Basel), Luther was immensely pleased with it and thought its moderate tone better than anything he could have achieved. (RHIS, 324) In the first draft the `Augsburg Confession' spoke only in the name of the land of electoral Saxony, but in the final draft it confessed the faith of a united Lutheranism. The point of contention was the statement on the Lord's Supper. That is why the Swiss and those of Strassburg declined to sign it, and brought in their own confession. In all there were three statements of faith brought in at Augsburg. The Anabaptists received no hearing at all. Despite all this, the `Augsburg Confession' did much to consolidate Protestantism and to set it over against Catholicism. (RHIS, 324-325)

Thus June 25, 1530 was taken as the date for the death of the `Holy Roman Empire.' Emperor Charles V. gave the Evangelicals until April, 1531, to make their submission. If at that time they declined, they would then feel the edge of the sword.(RHIS, 325)

Against this threat Luther addressed an appeal for moderation to the leader of the conciliatory party in the Roman camp, Albert the Archbishop of Mainz (a German city on the Rhine River not far from Frankfurt), by saying,

"Inasmuch as there is no hope of unanimity in the faith, I humbly beseech your Grace that you will endeavor to have the other side keep the peace, believing as they will and permitting us to believe this truth which has been confessed and found blameless. It is well known that no one, be he pope or emperor, should or can force others to believe, for God himself has never yet seen fit to drive anyone by force to believe. How then shall his miserable creatures presume to coerce men not only to faith but to that which they themselves must regard as lies? Would to God that your Grace or anyone else would be a new Gamaliel to command this counsel of peace." (RHIS, 325)

How did God help the reformation? Luther's counsel was taken not on principle but by reason of necessity, for the emperor was not to find himself again in a position to intervene for another fifteen years largely because the Turks were invading Europe, and made it to near the gates of Vienna, the capital city of Austria.[50] (RHIS, 325)

It remains true that one of the articles of the democratic belief in America is the disbelief in any state church or any equation between membership in a church and membership in the American commonwealth. This distinction is crucial to the idea of religious freedom as Americans have practiced it.

The issue of religious freedom in America thus goes beyond discrimination and also beyond the pluralism of the sects to the core principle of the separation of church and state, as embodied in the constitutional prohibition against any "establishment of religion." Given the experience of Europe as well as that of the early Puritan settlers, the generation of Madison's famous Remonstrance saw that an official recognition of a "religious establishment" would hamper religious freedom. [Max Lerner, America as a Civilization, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957, p. 713. Cited in Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, Prometheus Books, 2002,m p. 149.]

Cromwell - A Moral Vision

One of the great puzzles to foreign observers of the U.S. political and religious scene is how an overtly religious political movement can flourish in a country, which, more than any other Western nation, has maintained clear blue water between church and state and has an unequivocal, even dogmatic, attachment to the principles of religious liberty. The two tendencies seem incompatible - seem like they shouldn't both emerge from the same society. Part of the explanation is to be found by examining 17th century England and the policies of the great Puritan general and statesman, Oliver Cromwell.

Before I had explored Cromwell's intervention in foreign nations' domestic affairs to preserve the liberties of Protestant minorities, and his role in allowing Jews to live in England after four centuries during which their presence had been illegal. However, as we will see, his commitment to religious liberty was combined with an inclination toward social repression. These two apparently contradictory impulses could flourish within the same man because they emerged from the same worldview, and that Cromwellian worldview was eventually transmitted to influential groups in North America, by whom it was preserved - and has been revived in some form today.

So often history provides important insights into current issues. But there are important differences, too, between Cromwell and the leaders of the modern U.S. Religious Right; were they to embrace more fully their Cromwellian legacy, it might modify their aims and make them more libertarian.

Cromwell's wupport for the Vaudois, Huguenots, and Jews was not an isolated incident. It was no coincidence that the poet John Milton (himself an unusually radical proponent of religious liberty) addressed a sonnet to Cromwell after his final military victories in 1651, urging him to emancipate England's Christian minorities:

". . . new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains,
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is the maw." [101]

Milton knew his man. Even on his deathbed Cromwell cried out in concern at what fate might now befall "the poor Protestants of the Piedmont, in Poland and other places." [102 ] Significantly, however, his concern was not just for fellow believers. Throughout his preeminence in the English Republic and his reign as Lord Protector, Cromwell consistently championed the right of all minority religious groups - not just Protestants - to practice their faith as they saw fit.

This was extremely unusual. Across Christendom, it was taken for granted that any nation must be confessionally unitary or fall into chaos. In England Cromwell differed from many of his fellow Calvinists. Most were Presbyterians, who, though persecuted themselves by the established national church in the 1630's, were opposed to any kind of religious liberty. Cromwell was of the so-called "Independents." forerunners of the Congregationalists, but even they generally placed clear limits on toleration.

For example, almost no Protestant advocates of toleration, initially not even Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, favored extending toleration to Catholics. There was also extreme reluctance to allow liberty of worship to those who, although Protestant in sympathy, either were not orthodox in their Christianity, or were extreme in their social radicalism or apocalypticism, anti-Trinitarians, Quakers, "Fifth Monarchists," seventh-day Sabbatarians, "Ranters," and, at the start of the period, Baptists, although as the 1650s wore on, they were increasingly accepted into the ranks of "the godly" (as zealous Protestants called themselves).

Cromwell in theory probably espoused formal toleration only for Protestant sects, but he was adamantly opposed to any religious persecution. He thought it incompatible with Christ's example in the Gospels. He knew that today's subjects of persecution sometimes turn out to be tomorrow's Christian martyrs. Then, too, he was able to conceive that a firmly, honestly held doctrinal opinion might simply be wrong.

In 1650 Oliver Cromwell wrote to the leaders of the Church of Scotland - rigorously and intolerantly Presbyterian - in an effort to end war between England and Scotland, bidding them consider whether, even though they had "established themselves upon the Word of God," all that they said was "therefore infallibly agreeable to the Word of God. . . . I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken?"[103] Although not broadminded enough to countenance the possibility that he might be mistaken, the whole tone of his letter, acknowledged that different people could read the same Scriptures sincerely, yet genuinely arrive at two different interpretations, is a million miles away from the typical medieval and early-modern attitudes toward truth and error. Even Cromwell's willingness to reason in a Christian spirit with his confessional enemies is in sharp contrast to the normal, fiercely polemical, tone of post-Reformation interconfessional "dialogue" (and arguably, too, of the strident declarations of today's so-called Religious Right).

So strong was Cromwell's horror of persecution that in practice he extended toleration, whenever he could, to all religious persuasions - against the opposition of many Puritan leaders, who had expected their victory in the civil wars to give them free reign. As Milton forecast in his famous poem "On the New Forces of Conscience," they planned to use

". . . the civil sword
To force our consciences that Christ set free."[104]

But they had not reckoned on Cromwell's opposition.

Using his powers as Lord Protector, he vetoed a parliamentary bill providing for compulsory attendance at an Anglican, Baptist, or Calvinist church on Sundays. As Lord Protector he had no power of pardon, but strove to mitigate the intolerance of his associates in government. When the anti-Trinitarian spokesman John Biddle (often known as "the father of English Unitarianism") was imprisoned in the remote Scilly Isles (ca. Lg. W 6.3; Lt. 50) in 1655, he received a weekly stipend of 10 shillings (a sizable sum for the time) from Cromwell's own private funds, to ameliorate the conditions of his imprisonment. Cromwell, also probably helped to protect the Quaker leader James Nayler, who in October 1656 re-created Christ's entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday by riding into Bristol (Britain's second-largest city) on a donkey, while his followers laid branches in his path and cried "Holy, holy, holy Lord God of Sabbaoth." It was probably a symbolic act, a piece of religious theater, rather than an actual claim to be Jesus Christ. But contemporaries missed any dramatic subtleties or ironies and perceived only blasphemy - "horrid blasphemy" as a parliamentary resolution characterized it, for the crime was felt to be so egregious that only Parliament could deal with it. Cromwell stayed out of the debate over how severely Nayler should be punished (in the end he was branded, flogged, and jailed), but the narrow defeat of a bill to execute the Quaker probably reflects Cromwell's influence, exercised behind the scenes.

Cromwell thought it politically impossible to extend formal liberty of worship to Roman Catholics, and he accepted a parliamentary act for the confiscation of Catholic's property. However, as he wrote to a French cardinal in December 1656, he had personally intervened to "pluck many (Catholics) out of the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannize over their consciences and encroach by arbitrariness of power over their estates," and was determined gradually to do more to let them practice their faith.[105] It is notable that, though it was a capital offence simply to be a Roman Catholic priest in England, only one priest was executed during the Protectorate: John Southworth (declared a saint by the Vatican in 1970). This death toll is in sharp contrast to the reigns of both Kings James I and Charles I - generally seen as sympathetic to the plight of England's Catholic minority. It was Cromwell, the zealous Puritan, who halted the hunt for Catholic priests. Southworth was hanged, drawn and quartered under the terms of a commuted sentence from a 1630 trial, rather than subject to new proceedings. Unable to commute the sentence, Cromwell did what he could: he provided surgeons to sew the disemboweled and quartered body back together, and he returned it for burial to Douai College, the seminary for English émigré priests in the Low Countries. The only corpse of an English Catholic martyr to survive to modern times is testimony to Oliver Cromwell's opposition to religious persecution.

And yet . . . despite this impressive record - despite, too, the fact that Cromwell was the only ruler in 17th century England who did not impose censorship on the press - he was to impose on England, briefly, the most repressive regime in its history. The 350th anniversary of the end of this episode is upon us and inevitably prompts reflection as to how it could have originated with this great champion of religious liberty.

The Major-Generals

What became known as the rule of the Major Generals, was imposed in the late summer of 1655. Cromwell, who had himself been elected three times as a member of the House of Commons, and was twice to reject proposals that he take the throne as king rather than rule as "Lord Protector," was never happy ruling without a legislature. As Lord Protector he called two parliaments, elected on a franchise more democratic than Britain (or many American states) enjoyed again before the mid 19th century. We see here again Cromwell's commitment to liberty. But Cromwell's regime was always underpinned by the threat of pike and musket. When Parliament resisted the government's tax program and Cromwell's wish to impose Reformed values on the population at large, he imposed government by his generals.

In August-September 1655, even as Menasseh Ben Israel traveled to London to request readmission for the Jews, England and Wales were divided into a dozen districts and a Major-General commissioned for each, with authority over all troops and tax-collection in his area and a wide range of other powers and instructions. They actually administered their regions only until September 1656, when the second Protectoral Parliament began its sessions; in January 1657 the episode was definitely ended when Parliament rejected a bill for continuation of the Major-Generals' rule. In this period, effectively just a year, they generated enough hostility not only to ensure that their authority was short-lived, but also to create a long-standing suspicion of standing armies that was to be transmitted from Britain to North-America, where it produced a pronounced preference for a citizen militia. It in turn produced the constitutional guarantee of the right to bear arms; the controversy this still generates is thus one of the legacies of Cromwell's experiment in military government.

There were a number of reasons that the Major-Generals' regime was so unpopular, but the most important was that, from the start, Cromwell intended the Major-Generals to achieve more than efficient government and enhanced security. They were also meant to enforce Puritan standards of behavior on the wider populace. Each Major-General was instructed not only to suppress rebellions, enforce law and order, and maintain surveillance of disaffected persons, but also to "promote godliness and virtue and discountenance all profaneness and ungodliness."[106]

To achieve this, the Major-Generals worked with local communities of "the godly," embracing both Presbyterians and the more libertarian Independents/Congregationalists, as well as some Baptists. These coalitions of the (self-proclaimed) righteous were exactly what Cromwell wanted and, with his encouragement, they set out to create a godly society.

Adulterers and fornicators were prosecuted, as well as prostitutes. The organizers and audiences of cockfights and dog-and-bear fights were fined, which accords with modern values; but those who wrestled, tossed quoits and horseshoes, or gambled, or who on Sunday (their Sabbath) raced horses or played the ancestors of football and cricket, could also find themselves in court. Celebrating traditional festivals condemned by the Puritans as "pagan," such as May Day, and, in some parts of Britain, Christmas, might also result in arrest and legal action. Clergymen whose liturgical practices departed from those sanctioned by Calvinism were reprimanded or dismissed. The opening hours of alehouses and taverns were greatly restricted, and many were forcibly closed down. Finally and menacingly, vagabonds and beggars began to be rounded up and compulsorily put to work - in a few cases, even transported as slave laborers to the plantations of Virginia.

Cromwell was delighted. He told London's city council in March 1656 that the entire country had become "stronger in virtue," while six months later, addressing the opening session of the second Protectoral Parliament, he declared that the Major-Generals' efforts had been "more effectual towards the discountenancing of vice and settling of religion than anything done these fifty years."[107] Yet for all the Lord Protector's enthusiasm, his efforts and those of the Major-Generals and local Puritans actually had a negligible effect nationwide. Drinking, debauchery, begging, football, gambling, horse racing, and Maypole dancing never stopped, because people didn't want them to stop.

Repercussions

The population in general did not share the vision of the religious radicals - rather, they resented and resisted it. The religious cultural revolution Cromwell sought never came close to being achieved. Instead, the mobilization of unpopular Puritan cliques to purge local society of allegedly irreligious and immoral elements only made the Major-Generals so unpopular that their rule forever tainted, in popular perception, government by the military. It also helped to discredit Puritanism in many regions of England, leading to the relocation of the vision of a godly nation, instead, to New England in America.

The obvious question that arises is how the same statesman who, without thought of national gain, intervened on behalf of distant, suffering minorities and constantly overrode prejudice in his own country could nevertheless impose on it such an authoritarian form of government, if only temporarily; and how he could impose such unparalleled constraints - while at the same time allowing such unprecedented liberty.

Oliver Cromwell believed that he had been called by providence, like Moses and Gideon, to lead God's people in troublesome times. It was his certainty that he knew God's will and was the agent of providence in carrying it out that empowered him to carry out unprecedented actions such as overthrowing and executing the king, and granting religious liberty to those whom existing Protestant proponents of toleration thought outside the pale. But it is also what drove him to impose direct rule by the military and "the godly." This is why his most recent biographer sums Cromwell up as "endlessly appealing and endlessly alarming ... he was true to his own vision" and would follow it wherever it led."[108]

In liberating God's people (as he believed the English to be) from the political tyranny of King Charles I, Cromwell came to feel that he should free them, too, from religious tyranny - but that included freeing them from the tyranny of sin. In working toward these goals, Cromwell was frequently frustrated, but his sense of frustration arose from his society's immorality, as well as its intolerance - both were antithetical to Christianity.

To Cromwell, liberty was important, but must not be abused. He sought to free the English people from narrow minded, exclusivist concepts of religion, so that, in Milton's terms, no one whom "Christ set free" had their conscience "forced." Cromwell was willing to extend that same freedom even to Catholics, Jews, and licentious and blasphemous nominal Protestants, because they were more likely to be brought to true religion by Christlike kindness than by persecution. But Cromwell understood Christian liberty for the nation to include "the freedom of God's children to resist vice and embrace godliness."[109] And so he was faced with the problem of what to do with those who abused the liberty of which he had been the political midwife - those who continued to live idolatrous, immodest, immoral, dissipated lives in defiance of all good example.

What Became of It?

The solution to the problem was to allow liberty in one sector of people's lives because this was doing honor to God's will, but to impose repression in another sector of people's lives because this, too, was honoring the divine purpose. Thus, religious emancipation sent hand in hand with social represssion.

By Cromwell's standards, however, there was no inconsistency. His liberal and illiberal sides alike arose from his vision of a transformed Christian nation. This is important to note because it helps to explain the paradox of a radical Religious Right in a country notable for its commitment to religious liberty.

After the Restoration (1660), three of Cromwell's former Major-Generals emigrated from England to the Puritan colonies of New England. We know they did not change their opinions, for on his death in 1658 one still confidently expected the imminent inauguration of rule by Christ's saints and lamented the state "of poor England whose sins are grown to a great height." We also know they had great influence in Massachusetts and Connecticut, where, a contemporary reported, they were held "in exceeding great esteem" and "looked upon as men dropped down from heaven."[110] Increase Mather, the celebrated Congregationalist minister and later president of Harvard, studied theology in Britain during the Protectorate and was chaplain to a unit of Cromwell's army. He played a significant role in the North American counterpart to the Glorious Revolution (1688): the major rebellions in New York, Maryland, and the New England colonies against expansion of royal authority and restriction of religious liberty. In Massachusetts the rebellion sought, as on historian puts it, a return to "godly government based on the needs of a covenanted community"[111] - that is, to secure both political liberty and a godly society. Thus, we know the Cromwellian values survived in New England after their demise in England itself.

Off to America

Eventually, though, the American Revolution produced a polity in which church and state were separate - a separation formalized in the Bill of Rights, so that this separation is literally constituent of the United States of America. However, one reason that American colonists had come to believe that church and state should be separated was because "the church" meant the (Anglican) Church of England, which was unacceptable to the Puritans of New England, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics of Maryland, and so on. The separation of church and state, then, was evidence not of the demise of the Cromwellian ideal of a state acted to promote godly behavior, but of a widespread assumption that truthful doctrine and proper actions were really promoted by the rivals to the established state church. Separation of church and state of course had many roots, including the influence of a number of deists among the framers of the Constitution, but one root was actually the enduring aspiration to create a godly society - and nation.

Developments in America

Making the United States into a truly Christian nation continued to be an aspiration of influential American Protestants into the mid 19th century. As George Marsden argues, the administrators of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins - all founded as explicitly Protestant institutions - hoped to create an informal "established" American church founded in a generic, nonsectarian Protestantism that seemed the ideal common faith for an already Christian people. Evangelism went hand in hand with various reform campaigns, including those against slavery and for temperance and universal public education, as part of a wider movement for the moral transformation of American society.[112] The baton of the campaign for a godly nation was handed on in the early 20th century with the series of booklets entitled `The Fundamentals' (1910-1915), from which Fundamentalism takes its name. These tracts were not only militant in their defense of biblical infallibility, they were also urged the need to save Christian civilization in North America from decadence.

Repercussions into Our Days

Thus, the conservative Christian coalition in the United States in the past 30 years has followed a well-trodden path, originating in the mid-17th century. Many of the issues that compelled Cromwell to social intolerance and repression also drive the Religious Right. Its leaders and supporters, like Cromwell, feel anger at the prevalence and escalation of what seems immoral and irreligious in their nation; that anger is heightened by their belief that the United States was meant to be "one nation under God." Like Cromwell, to transform the nation they want the reformist will of "the godly" to be backed up by the coercive power of the state. Of course, in 21st century America, unlike 17th century England, that option is not easily legally available. However, because today's politically active conservative Christians, like Cromwell, are certain that their aims are in keeping with God's purpose, they are more willing to regard laws (even constitutional liberties) as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than as fundamental freedoms. And like Cromwell (and their more recent 19th century predecessors), they have created a broad-based coalition, transcending denominational particularity, and embracing even anti-Trinitarians, such as Mormons, in order to obtain their goals.

And yet, for all these comparisons, there are also notable contrasts. Cromwell differs from today's would-be forces of conscience not least in what the historian John Morrill sums up as "his sense of himself as the unworthy and suffering servant of a stern Lord." Cromwell, was careless of his personal appearance, refused to become king, and genuinely wanted to return to his farm, but felt called of God to a public role. There is no comparison with those who bask in the adulation of large political rallies or televised mega-congregations (and who thereby do not give credit to the many genuinely Christian and humble conservative Evangelicals). At the end of his life Cromwell could say and mean: "If here I may serve my God either by my doing or by my suffering, I shall be most glad." Too many of today's evangelists or pastors turned lobbyists or politicians are keen to do and to do to others, forgetting that as Christians we may instead to be called to suffer, whether actually or metaphorically.

Observations Affecting Future Liberty

One must also question how far the leaders of the Religious Right are committed to religious freedom. Support from conservative Christian congressmen for the Workplace Religious Freedom Act (in face of opposition from the ACLU) demonstrates respect for different faiths. But, as we have seen, many of Cromwell's contemporaries had a limited commitment to toleration; what they lacked was Cromwell's resolve to protect and defend not just those whose doctrines differed from his, but those whose beliefs and practices he found detestable. Since the 1990s, prominent Christian conservatives - judges, evangelists, legislators - have made it clear that they regard America's statutory separation of state and church as against the intentions of the Founding Fathers and thus ripe to be undone.[114] What might be the results if the First Amendment were to be repealed or radically reinterpreted by the courts? Studies have shown that, despite the Bill of Rights' protection of equal opportunities, members of religious minorities in America have often felt obliged to "hide (or change) their beliefs and denominational memberships, and minimize the expression of distinctive religious practices."[115] Given this extensive practical intolerance, if the political representatives of conservative Christianity could place outright legal limits on the distinctive practices of those whose concept of faith is unpalatably different to their own, would "moral renewal" be all they would seek? Might Jehovah;s Witnesses, Scientologists, Seventh day Adventists, "Moonies" (if they still exist), or members of "new religious movements" find some restraints put on their freedom to practice their faith or to proselytize? The experience of anti-"cult" legislation in Europe in the 1990s shows how easily religious minorities can be demonized and subjected to repressive legislation. Do the leaders of the Religious Right share Cromwell's committment to "pluck from the fire of persecution" even confessional enemies - say so-called Christian homosexuals? Their rhetoric to date suggests they do not.

While in some ways Oliver Cromwell stands as a model for religious libertarians, his exceptionalism in championing the rights of minorities at home and abroad must not blind us to his enthusiasm for enforcing certain patterns of behavior. The Cromwellian legacy, then, is an ambivalent one. As is so often the case, where there is great certainty of belief, there also can be great intolerance. But Cromwell was committed, ultimately, to allowing freedom of thought and worship even to those whose views he abhorred. Those who seek to weaken the constitutional commitment to religious liberty in order to impose their values on the population at large are only living up to the least admirable and least successful side of the Cromwellian legacy. [Because of its importance for our time adopted from D.J.B. Trim, "A Moral Vision," in Liberty, Jan/Feb 2007.]

[24] "The same [the observance of the seventh day] likewise being revived in Luther's time by Carolastadius, Sternebergius, and by some sectarians among the Anabaptists hath both then and ever since been censured as Jewish and heretical." - - "The ancient Sabbath was retained and observed by a portion of the Anabaptists, or, to use a more proper term, Baptists." {John N. Andrews, `History of the Sabbath and the First Day of the Week,' (AHS) 1998, p. 459.6, p. 425.1}
Their main differences with all other religions were:

1. Adult baptism, making all infant baptisms invalid (AHS, p. 424)
   
2. the sleep of the dead {March 23, 1888 ATJ, SITI 183.2}
   
3. and for some (Seventh Day Baptists) the keeping of the 7th day Sabbath.

[28] A people which cannot live in piece with a neighbor of another persuasion, is not a Christian; he has never learned the patience, forebearance and graces of Christ. That is an indightment of the majority church, for the parents and priests do not raise their children or those they have contact with as they ought to have done.

[50] Starting in 1541/42 the anti-Habsburg coalition started a far reaching war against Charles V. The fighting against the Turks in Hungary was a disaster. The Turks kept Hungary under their control. The Protestants of Germany agreed to aid Charles against the Turks and French. Charles V also had now Henry VIII. as his ally, because Francis I. had supported the Scotts in their freedom fights against England. Charles V. forced Francis I. to sign a peace treaty at Crespy in 1544, in which the latter lost Italy besides Savoy and the Netherlands and promised to aid against the Turks, with whom he finally made an inglorious peace in order to be able to decide the religious issues in Germany. Now Charles V. had his hands free to act against the Protestants, who were now also supported by the Elector of the Palatine. In place of the older generation of Evangelical princes, a new generation arrived who were more ambitious and less scrupulous. One of them was Duke Moritz von Saxony who secretly, along with several others, went over to the emperor's side. Luther did not live to see this apostasy and the start of the Schmalkaldik** War (1546) during which Charles V. might arose as never before. At the pinnacle of his power he tried to bring about a reform of the Church and to bring the various Confessions to reunite. At the `Augsburg Interim' (1548) he let the Protestants keep their Lord's Supper and marriage of their pastors, while at keeping the basic elements of Roman Catholicism intact. ... None of the plans of Charles V. were fulfilled. All Europe rose up in opposition. The war with the Turks erupted again and not good for Charles. [** (Long. ca. 10.4; Lat. 57)] [Adopted from Fernis & Haverkamp, `Grundzuege der Geschichte,' 1962, p. 166-168.]

[101] "To the Lord General Cromwell on the Proposals of Certain Ministers. . ." (1652), lines 11-14.

[102] Quoted in John Morrill, "Cromwell, Oliver," in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004), p. 346.

[103] Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. Wilbur Cortez Abbott, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937-1947), 2:303.

[104] "On the New Forces of Conscience Under the Long Parliament" (1646), lines 5,6.

[105] Writings and Speeaches, 4:368.

[106] Quoted in Christopher Durston, Cromwell's Major Generals: Godly Government During the English Revolution (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2001). 22 (spelling modernized).

[107] Quoted in Ibid., p. 178.

[108] Morrill, p, 178.

[109] Ibid., p. 339.

[110] Quoted in Durston, 44, 236.

[111] David S. Lovejoy, "Two American Revolutions, 1689 and 1776," in J.G.A. Pocock (ed.), Three British Revolutions: 1641. 1688, 1776 Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 255.

[112] George M. Marsden, The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief (NY/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

[113] Morrill, 352.

[114] E.g., "Obiter," Liberty, May-June 2000; Michael Peabody, "Toward a Medieval Model: Deconstructing the Constitution Restoration Act," Liberty, March-April 2006.

[115] Gloria T. Beckley and Paul Burstein, "Religious Pluralism, Equal Opportunity and the State," The Western Political Quarterly 44.4 (March 1991), 185.