toleration, of liberty of conscience, which was the one leading
principle of his life.[31:2] It was precisely such men who were to
proclaim to the rulers of the nation--"That matters of religion and the
ways of God's worship are not at all entrusted by us to any human
power, because therein we cannot remit or exceed a tittle of what our
consciences dictate to be the mind of God without wilful sin." But who
themselves were tolerant enough to be willing that "nevertheless the
public way of instructing the nation (_so it be not compulsive_) is
referred to their discretion."[32:1]

"So it be not compulsive!" in these words we have the key to the
position of the great body of sectarians known under the name of
Independents. They recognised, to use the words of their immortal
leader, that "it's one thing to love a brother, to bear with and love a
person of different judgement in matters of religion; and another thing
to have anybody so far set in the saddle on that account, as to have all
the rest of his brethren at mercy." So it be not compulsive! in these
words, too, we have the secret of their subsequent attitude toward the
Long Parliament and its successors. As Gardiner forcibly expresses
it--"Men who longed for religious toleration with a stern conviction
were impatient of parliamentary majorities working for uniformity." To
their opponents, more especially to those of the strict Presbyterian
school, toleration may have seemed of the devil, incompatible with
individual salvation, and injurious alike to Church and to State; to the
Independents, on the other hand, it was a necessary condition of
continued existence. They had no desire to establish a State Church of
their own; they were not prepared to deny that at least "a public way of
instructing the nation" might be necessary; but they were determined
that any such Church should be tolerant of the claims of men like
themselves, who could not conform their conscience to its requirements.