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Puritanism was necessary to develop the moral fibre of the English race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical domination over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of thought in the distant future; still, culture points out that the harmonious perfection of generations of Puritans and Nonconformists have been, in consequence, sacrificed.
Apparently anxious to repel the imputation of nonconformity against "our New England colony," he adds the confident assertion that John Winthrop, the chosen governor, has been "in every way regular and conformable in the whole course of his practice"; and that "three parts of four of the men planted in New England are able to justify themselves to have lived in a constant conformity unto our church government and orders."
Nonconformity in Bungay seems to have originated in the days of the Lord Protector, in the person of Zephaniah Smith, who was the author of: ‘The Dome of Heretiques; or, a discovery of subtle Foxes who were tyed tayle to tayle, and crept into the Church to do mischief’; ‘The Malignant’s Plot; or, the Conspiracie of the Wicked against the Just, laid open in a sermon preached at Eyke, in Suffolk, January 23, 1697.
By absenting themselves from parliament, and refusing the oath, they had plainly disowned his title and renounced his government. He therefore resolved to mortify the church, and gratify his own friends at the same time, by removing the obstacles affixed to nonconformity, that all protestant dissenters should be rendered capable of enjoying and exercising civil employments.
And, again, as culture's way of working for reason and the will of God is by directly trying to know more about them, while the Dissidence of Dissent is evidently in itself no effort of this kind, nor is its Free Church, in fact, a church with worthier conceptions of God and the ordering of the world than the State Church professes, but with mainly the same conceptions of these as the State Church has, only that every man is to comport himself as he likes in professing them, this being so, I cannot at once accept the Nonconformity any more than the industrialism and the other great works of our liberal middle-class as proof positive that this class is in possession of light, and that here is the true seat of authority for which we are in search; but I must try a little further, and seek for other indications which may enable me to make up my mind.
Nailing his colours to the mast of the good ship "Nonconformity," he has all along contended for religious equality and toleration throughout the whole Empire; and if his specialité is not that of "darkening counsel with vain words," he has given his best services since he entered Parliament to the advancement of the true and permanent interests of his constituents, by unremitting application to such duties as came within his reach.
It is the evil influences of such irresponsible men as Mr. Courtland, whose ill-directed enterprise we cannot in justice to him refrain from acknowledging, that retard the efforts of those noble pioneers of Nonconformity who have already made such sacrifices for the cause, and who rejoice at the difficulties with which they find themselves beset.
When he finally decided on withdrawing himself from the Anglican and giving in his adhesion to the Roman communion, he set an example that has not yet ceased to be imitated, to the incalculable damage of the English Establishment. Happily the massive Nonconformity of the country was hardly touched either by his influence or his example.
But it appears that the old system of hocus- pocus is still to be carried on. This is no question of Manchester against Essex of town against country of Church against Nonconformity. It is a question in which we all have an interest, and in which our children may be more deeply interested than we are ourselves.
He would have had the Church make peace with the Dissenters; he was all for upsetting tests so far as Nonconformity was concerned. But he drew the most rigid line between belief and unbelief. He would not have dined at the same table with a Unitarian if he could have helped it.
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