The religious liberty that
we enjoy to-day is largely the consequence of their work; but it is a
consequence that was unforeseen, while the direct and conscious aim of
their labours was something that has never been realized, and probably
never will be. [Sidenote: The migration was not intended to promote what
we call religious liberty]
The aim of Winthrop and his friends in coming to Massachusetts was the
construction of a theocratic state which should be to Christians, under
the New Testament dispensation, all that the theocracy of Moses and
Joshua and Samuel had been to the Jews in Old Testament days. They
should be to all intents and purposes freed from the jurisdiction of
the Stuart king, and so far as possible the text of the Holy Scriptures
should be their guide both in weighty matters of general legislation and
in the shaping of the smallest details of daily life. In such a scheme
there was no room for religious liberty as we understand it. No doubt
the text of the Scriptures may be interpreted in many ways, but among
these men there was a substantial agreement as to the important points,
and nothing could have been further from their thoughts than to found
a colony which should afford a field for new experiments in the art of
right living. The state they were to found was to consist of a united
body of believers; citizenship itself was to be co-extensive with
church-membership; and in such a state there was apparently no more room
for heretics than there was in Rome or Madrid.
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