INTOLERANCE OF PROTESTANTS WHEN IN POWER (Beebe) 1845

INTOLERANCE OF PROTESTANTS WHEN IN POWER


“According to the same author, page 218, a law was made by the court of Basle, October 29, 1538. We extract a part: ‘Whereas, there is a pernicious sect (commonly called Quakers) do take upon them to change and alter the received laudible customs of our nation, and also to destroy the order of the churches, by denying all established forms of worship; for prevention thereof, this court doth order and enact, that every person or persons being convicted to be of the sect of the Quakers, shall be sentenced to be banished upon pain of death.’

It will be observed that these laws are in perfect harmony with the confessions above given, but the principal article found in all these confessions of faith, and in that of Presbyterianism of this country, and which they believe as a positive commandment revealed to them by Almighty God, is (Confession of Faith, pages 218, 219, Ques. 108,) “the disapproving, detesting, opposing all false worship, and according to each one’s place and calling, removing it and all the monuments of idolatry.”

Here is a pretended commandment from Almighty God, directly opposed to civil and religious liberty, hostile to all other denominations, and inimical to the Constitution of the United States, as that Constitution recognizes the rights of all worshiping God according to their own predilections. We hope every friend of human right will weigh it well. It is a commandment which enjoins upon all, from the petty tipstaves in our courts up to the president of the United States, to “remove, according to each one’s place and calling, all false worship, and all the monuments of idolatry.” But this we are told means “moral influence.” We are compelled to say that this meaning is sufficiently refuted by their history, by their penal enactments, by the writings of the chief framers and expounders of their doctrines, who persecuted, and also by the scriptural quotations which they have adduced as confirming the warrant for their inhuman and intolerant persecutions. The seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, referred to particularly, is very expressive on this point. Verse 2 says, “And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.” Verse 5: “But thus ye shall deal with them, ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire,” &c.

For practical illustrations of these verses, or rather of the whole seventh chapter of Deuteronomy, and of the meaning of “moral influence,” I would merely advert to the cantons of Switzerland, where the Presbyterians banished the Baptists under penalty of death if they returned; in the canton of Zurich, where (see Roussel’s History, Protestantism in Switzerland, vol. iii. p. 99) they decreed that not only Baptists themselves, and those who protected them, should be put to death, but that all non-informants would be condemned as prejurers to imprisonment and exile; and in Berne, where they extirpated the same denomination, beheading the men and drowning the women. Singular illustrations of “removing all false worship,” truly, by “moral influence.” Look, too, in Holland, where they drove the remonstrants out of their churches, plundered them of their property; condemned the Arminians, deprived them of the exercise of their religion, banished their ministers, racked to death the [Lollards?], and quartered the Catholics. View them in Geneva, burning heretics at the stake; in Scotland, putting to death who said or heard mass three times; in England, depriving the Episcopalians of the Book of Common Prayer; in Ireland, coercing the Catholics likewise; and in New England, persecuting the Quakers, stripping men and women half naked, fastening them to cart-tails, dragging them through the surrounding towns, whipping them unmercifully upon their backs, imprisoning their contumacious spirits, confiscating their goods, cutting off their ears, boring their tongues through with red hot irons, and at last hanging them upon an ignominious gallows. Verily these are striking exemplifications of “removing all false worship” by “moral influence.”


Calvin is regarded as the founder of Presbyterianism, although few of that order retain at this day much more than his persecuting spirit, which is shown up in history in connection with acts of the most barbarous cruelty against those who refused to embrace his theory. After plundering Servetus of his property—confining him in a damp prison till “he was almost eaten up with vermin,” denying him an advocate, loading him with every indignity that barbarity could invent, and at last burning him at the stake, he wrote a work entitled “A faithful account of the errors of Michael Servetus, in which it is proved that heretics ought to be restrained with the sword.” In a letter to Marques de Poet, dated September 30th, 1551, he says, “Honor, glory, and riches, shall be the reward of your pains: but above all, do not fail to rid the country of those zealous scoundrels, who stir up the country to revolt against us.—Such monsters should be exterminated, as I have exterminated Michael Servetus, the spaniard.” (See Robinson’s Researches, p. 340.)

John Knox, the reputed founder of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and who, according to Doct. Heylin, characterized the cold-blooded assassination of Beaton as a “godly act,” laid down these principles:

“You are bound to remove from honor, and punish with death, (if the crime so require,) such as deceive the people, or defraud of that food of their souls, I mean the lively word.” Knox’s History of Reform, p. 10.

“None provoking the people to idolatry ought to be exempted from the punishment of death.”—page 21.

“It is not only lawful to punish to the death such as labor to subvert the true religion; but the magistrates and the people are bound to do so, unless they would provoke the wrath of God against themselves.” p. 25.

“Intimation was made to others as to the abbott of Corraguel, the parson of Sauglin, and such, that they should neither complain to the Queen nor council, but should execute the punishment that God has appointed idolators wherever they should be found.” p. 352.

Edwards, says Neal, when addressing the civil rulers, respecting the commandment, “removing all false worship,” declared, “A connivance at, and suffering without punishment, such false doctrines and disorders, provokes God to send judgments. A toleration doth eclipse the glory of the most excellent reformation, and makes the laws to be the sins of the legislature that countenances them. A magistrate should use coercive power to punish and suppress evil, as appears from the example of Eli.” Again, says Edwards, “Toleration will make the kingdom a chaos, a Babel, another Amsterdam, a Jordon, an

Egypt, a Babylon. Toleration is the groundwork of the devil, his master-piece and chief engine to uphold his tottering kingdom. It is a most compendious, ready, sure way to destroy all religion, lay waste, and bring in all evil. It is a most transcendent, catholic and fundamental evil. As original sin is the fundamental sin, having the seed and spawn of all sins in it, so toleration hath all errors in it and all evils.” [See Verplanck Discoveries, p. 23, 24.

“My judgment,” (says Baxter, another celebrated divine,) “I have always freely made known. I abhor unlimited liberty, or toleration of all.”

As we have before said, we would by no means single out the Presbyterians as the only sect possessing a spirit of intolerance: the same proscriptive and intolerant spirit has always characterized every system of worldly religion, from the days of Cain to the present time, and at this day that spirit is as rife among those Baptists who have drunk in the worldly principles of Protestants and Catholics, as among any other sects, according to the degree of worldliness, human wisdom, human power, and human means, they have incorporated into their religious faith and practice. The poor Old School Baptists would not long escape the prison, the cart-tail scourge, or the stake, if the secular power were in the hands of New School Baptists. Already have some of them recommended the penitentiary, for the correction of Old School Baptists; and others have prayed that we may be laid quietly away, where our “croaking may no longer disturb the onward movement of their car of salvation.”

That there are, or may be many among the Presbyterians, who cherish no such feeling against their religious opponents, as those attributed to their order in the foregoing examples, we will not dispute; and there may be some exceptions also among other worldly sects of religionists: but it is too palpably true to admit of contradiction, that at this day, the various orders of Presbyterians lead the van, in pressing upon our legislatures, that it is their duty to use the sword, in defence of their religious tenets. Who are they at this very time laboring to persuade the legislatures to incorporate religious drilling under legal provisions and penal enactments with our common school instructions? And who are loudest and foremost in asking for, and receiving from our government chartered privileges and exemptions? And who are now receiving from the funds of our state and nation more than three-fourths of all the money appropriated for educational purposes, and thereby enabled to grasp the control of by far the greater number of all the collegiate institutions of our country? Let the Presbyterians themselves answer these interrogatories: Doct. E. S. Ely declared, years ago, that “Two thirds of all the colleges, theological Seminaries, and academical institutions in this country, are under the instruction and control of the Presbyterians.” Another of their divines (Doct. Barton) has said, “When all our colleges are under our control, it will establish our sentiments and influence so that we can manage the civil government as we please.” “They aim,” as Jefferson said truly, “at engrossing the education of the country.” In what way, their own publications will best illustrate. The Sunday School Union have in various reports declared their intention “to force out of circulation” all such elementary books as disagree with their views, to “revise and alter”—“yet keep their titles”—to change the ideas of authors, and to become “dictators to the consciences of thousands of immortal beings!” See Appendix to Doct. Ely’s Sermon, published with remarks by himself in 1828. Also Preface to the catalogue of Sunday School Books by him of 1826. And what is their object in thus dictating to the consciences of thousands of immortal beings? The Appendix to Second Annual Report of Sunday School Union, 1826, page 93, gives the answer: “In ten years, or certainly in twenty, the political power of our country would be in the hands of men whose characters have been formed under the influence of Sabbath Schools.”

In perfect harmony with these declarations, the Presbyterians, aided by other sects, including New School Baptists, have been operating, by manufacturing public opinion, through the agency of Sunday Schools, and other kindred institutions, and in dictating to the consciences of thousands of immortal beings, through the legislatures, until now, their plans of operation are so far matured, and so firmly established, as to almost defy opposition.

In regard to their seizure of our Schools, perhaps they have gone further in this than in any other state. Here they have not only managed to place about two-thirds of all our educational funds at the disposal of the Regents of the University, composed in part of clergymen, and by appropriations made by the legislature to the use of colleges and academies, which, by their own admission, are principally under the control of Presbyterians; but they have got a Normal School established at Albany, under the supervision and control of the Regents and the State Superintendent, to drill those who are to have charge of our common schools,—thus by one sweeping stroke of legislative power, all the educational institutions of our state, and according to their own declarations, they have now the instruments of controlling the political affairs of our state, and of dictating to the consciences of thousands of immortal beings. All that is now wanting for the consummation of their most ambitious desires, is to first have time to prepare a sufficient number of pupils at the Normal School, to monopolize all the common schools of our state, and then persuade the other states of the Union to imitate the example of this state. Let this policy be extended, as powerful efforts are now being made to extend it throughout the U. S., and the entire rising generation must be at the mercy of those conscience dictators; parents are no longer to choose what books shall be read; all books obnoxious to the interests of Sunday Schools, or of the church and state establishment, must be forced out of use. Already has the legislature vested a power in the superintendents to remove books from our school libraries which they may deem objectionable; but this is not all,—the people are not to be allowed to judge for themselves as to the qua

Agents, subservient to the wishes of the Regents, are to decide who shall teach and what shall be taught. “Religion, but not sectarianism,” they say, “must be taught in our schools”—But what kind of religion is there in which all sects agree? It is idle to talk of all agreeing upon religious subjects. But if all the human family was perfectly agreed in their preference for pure Bible religion, that religion could not be taught in schools as a science, for it is purely a revelation.

The following article, which we copy from the New England Puritan, goes to establish the correctness of our position, that no religion can be taught that is not sectarian, and also that the Presbyterian Puritans desire to avail themselves of our schools, for the inculcation of their sectarian tenets. The editor of the Puritan, however, is less reserved in avowing the convictions of his own mind upon the subject, and so far we commend his honesty: if others would speak out as plainly what they mean, we think there would be less danger of misleading the public mind.