doctrine, contained in simple phrase the essentials of Gospel
redemption from sin through repentance and faith in the atoning work
of Christ and a life of love toward God and our neighbor, through the
strength which comes from him.--W. Walker, _Creeds and
Platforms_, p. 154.



CHAPTER III

CHURCH AND STATE IN NEW ENGLAND


For God and the Church!

With the great Puritan body in England, and with the great mass of the
English nation, whatever their religious opinions, the colonists of
Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Haven held in common one
foremost theory of civil government. Pausing for a brief consideration
of this fundamental and far-reaching theory, which created so many
difficulties in the infant commonwealths, and which confronts us again
and again as we follow their later history, we find that the Pilgrim
Separatist of Plymouth, the strict Puritan of Massachusetts, the voter
in the theocratic commonwealth of New Haven, and the holder of the
liberal franchise in Connecticut, all clung to the proposition that
the State's first duty was the maintenance and support of religion.
Thereby they meant enforced taxation for the support of its
predominant type, conformity to its mode of worship, and in the last
analysis supervision or control of the Church by the State or by the
General Court of each colony. As a corollary to this proposition, the