emphasis to what is fundamental, and by the extrusion of all else. It was
his desire to maintain what is essential that caused him to say: "I am
fully assured that God does not, and therefore that man ought not, to
require any more of any man than this--to believe the Scripture to be God's
word, to endeavor to find the true sense of it, and to live according to
it."[7]

He would therefore leave every man free to interpret the Bible for himself,
and he would make no dogmatic test to deprive any man of this right. The
chief fact in the Bible being Christ, he insisted that Christianity is
loyalty to his spirit. "To believe only in Christ" is his definition of
Christianity, and he would add nothing to this standard. He would put no
church or creed or council between the individual soul and God; and he
would direct every believer to the Bible as the free and open way of the
soul's access to divine truth. He found that the religion of Protestants
consisted in the rational use of that book, and not in the teachings of the
Reformers or in the confessions they devised. It is the great merit of
Chillingworth that he vindicated the spirit of toleration in a broad and
noble manner, that he was without sectarian prejudice or narrowness in his
desire for an inclusive church, and that he spoke and wrote in a truly
rational temper. He applied reason to all religious problems, and he
regarded it as the final judge and arbiter. Religious freedom received from
him the fullest recognition, and no one has more clearly indicated the
scope and purpose of toleration.

Another English religious leader, much read in New England, was Archbishop
Tillotson. It has been said of him that "for the first time since the
Reformation the voice of reason was now clearly heard in the high places of
the church."[8] He was an Arminian in his sympathies, and held that the way
of salvation is open to all who choose to accept its opportunities. He