this amounts to saying that the power is originally in the people. The people, Grotius holds, may select any form of government they please.' When an elected king dies or the royal family becomes extinct, sovereignty reverts to the people." Grotius developed the theory of contract in his Prolegomena. Though he himself does not say explicitly that the State arose from compact, he was instrumental in bringing about the predominance of the contract theory in political philosophy.

1 De Jure Belli ac Pacis, I. 3, 8.
2 Ibid., II. 9, 8.

CHAPTER VI

INDEPENDENTS, LEVELLERS, AND WHIGS

THE ideas whose development we have been tracingof natural rights, sovereignty of the people, salus populi, resistance to oppression, and others-manifested themselves in England during the Puritan Revolution. They were no longer the thoughts of a few scholars only, but had become the common property of an entire religious sect-the Independents. It was only after being popularized in this manner that these theories became of great practical importance. With the victory of Cromwell's army, in which the Independents predominated, it seemed as if the victory of these ideas had been assured, and as if they were to lead to the permanent establishment of a republic. But republicanism was contrary to the temper of the English people. It was, after all, not in England, but in America, that the principles of the Independents were destined to exert their greatest influence. There they gave rise to modern republicanism. From America they spread to France. The French Revolution disseminated them throughout Europe.

It was in English Independency or Congregationalism that the individualism of the Reformation found its most complete expression.

Luther delivered the church into the hands of temporal princes because he believed the people to be inca

pable of managing their own church affairs. Calvin admitted the people to a share in his ecclesiastical system, though his church polity was still largely aristocratic. The church system of the English Independents was entirely democratic in its nature.

1

The Independents believed in the autonomy of each congregation. They opposed the union of Church and State and all external control. A number of Independents who were accused of denying the royal supremacy, declared in the House of Lords, January 19, 1640, "that they could acknowledge no other head of the Church but Christ; that they apprehended no prince on earth had power to make laws to bind the conscience; that such laws as were contrary to the laws of God ought not to be obeyed; but that they disowned all foreign power and jurisdiction." The Congregational system was likewise based on the idea that each member of the Church had a right to participate in its administration. Robinson, one of the fathers of Congregationalism, speaking of the "proper subject of the power of Christ," says: "The papists plant it in the pope; the Protestants in the bishops, the Puritans, as you term the reformed churches and those of their mind, in the presbytery; we, whom you name Brownists, put it in the body of the congregation, the multitude called the Church."

Thus each congregation was a miniature republic. The usual form of constituting a church was by covenant. Robert Browne, who first formulated the Congregational polity, defines a church as "a company or number of Christians or believers, which, by a willing covenant made with their God, are under the govern

1 Neal, History of the Puritans, II. p. 394.

2 Justification of Separation.

ment of God and Christ, and keep His laws in one holy communion; because Christ hath redeemed them unto holiness and happiness forever, from which they were fallen by the sin of Adam."1 John Robinson, one of the earliest Congregationalist ministers, wrote: "The elders, in ruling and governing the Church, must represent the People and occupy their place. It should seem, then, that it appertains unto the People-unto the People primarily and originally, under Christ—to rule and govern the Church, that is, themselves." "

Browne describes the formation of his church at Norwich as follows: "A covenant was made and their mutual consent was given to hold together. There were certain points proved to them by the Scriptures, all of which, being particularly rehearsed unto them with exhortation, they agreed upon them . . . saying: To this we give our consent."3 Browne believed in the separation of Church and State. Half a century before Roger Williams, he taught that magistrates "have no ecclesiastical authority at all, but only as any other Christians, if so they be Christians." There can be no doubt that the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination not only influenced the formation of the Congregational system, but also intensified the growth of a democratic spirit. The members of each congregation were the elect. Every member alike had a divine call and might speak before the congregation when moved by the Spirit. "If the excellency of this calling were

1 Browne, Booke which Sheweth, Def. 35; Dexter, Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years, p. 105.

2 John Robinson, A Just and Necessary Apology, 1625; Hanbury, Memorials of the Independents, I. 379.

3 True and Short Declaration, 19; Dexter, pp. 105, 106. Treatise of Reformation, Def. 4.

well weighed and rightly prized," wrote Robinson,1“no man honored therewith should be thought worthy to be despised for any other meanness; nor without it, to be envied for any other excellency, how glorious soever in the world's eye." Under such circumstances there could be no spiritual prerogative, no caste distinction between clergy and laity, no external control.❜

A religious democracy of this sort, based on the freedom and equality of all individuals, could not but give rise to democratic political principles. The covenant by which the individual congregation is formed, applied to the State, is the contract theory of government. It was not difficult to conclude that, since any number of individuals could of their own free consent form a congregation, so they could also voluntarily contract to form a State; as the authority rested in the entire congregation, so in the body of the people; as Church members are equal, so are the citizens of the State.

The bitterness with which James I. and Charles I. attacked the Independents was due in no small degree to their realization of the fact that the heretical religious opinions of the Separatists would eventually breed liberal political views. Peter Heylyn, a creature of Laud, attacked the "puritan tenet" "that kings are but the ministers of the commonwealth; and that they have no more authority than what is given them by the people." He regards the Puritan religion as "rebellion" and their faith as "faction." 3

The Independents not only opposed the episcopal system of church government, to which the Stuarts had committed themselves by their adage "no bishop,

1 Essays or Observations Divine and Moral, 1625, Obs. 27. 2 Weingarten, H., Die Revolutionskirchen Englands, 1868, p. 28. 3 Hanbury, Memorials of the Independents, II. 15, 16.