History of New England (Volume 1) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1865. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... may be preserved of honest and good men," it was "ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no, . man shall be admitted to the freedom of this io-forth. * . fraucliiso. body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."1 The men who laid this singular foundation for the commonwealth which they were instituting, had been accustomed to feel responsibility, and to act upon wellconsidered reasons. By charter from the English crown, the land was theirs as against all other civilized people, and they had a right to choose according to their own rules the associates who should help them to occupy and govern it. Exercising this right, they determined that magistracy and citizenship should belong only to Christian men, ascertained to be such by the best test which they knew how to apply. They established a kind of aristocracy hitherto unknown. Not birth, nor wealth, nor learning, nor skill in war, was to confer political power; but personal character, ---goodness of the highest type, -- goodness of that purity and force which only the faith of Jesus Christ is competent to create. The conception, if a delusive and impracticable, was a noble one. Nothing better can be imagined for the welfare of a country than that it shall be ruled on Christian principles; in other words, that its rulers shall be Christian men, -- men of disinterestedness and integrity of the choicest quality that the world knows, -- men whose fear of God exalts them above every other fear, and whose controlling love of God and of man consecrates them to the most generous aims.2 The conclusive objection to the 1 Mass. Col. Rcc, I. 87. same. Their liberties, among others, 2 "None are so fit to be trusted with are chiefly these: -- 1. To choose ...