. Milton, whose clear and
practical views of civil and ecclesiastical relations were only equaled
by his lofty poetic conceptions of man's moral nature and history, says:
"When the church, without temporal support, is able to do her great
works upon the enforced obedience of man, it argues a divinity about
her. But when she thinks to credit and better her spiritual efficacy,
and to win herself respect and dread by strutting in the false vizard of
worldly authority, it is evident that God is not there, but that her
apostolic virtue is departed from her, and has left her key-cold; which
she perceiving, as in a decayed nature, seeks to the outward
fermentations and chafings of worldly help and external flourishes, to
fetch, if it be possible, some motion into her extreme parts, or to
hatch a counterfeit life with the crafty and artificial heat of
jurisdiction. But it is observable that so long as the church, in true
imitation of Christ, can be content to ride upon an ass, carrying
herself and her government along in a mean and simple guise, she may be
as she is a Lion of the tribe of Judah; and in her humility all men,
with loud hosannas, will confess her greatness. But when, despising the
mighty operation of the Spirit by the weak things of this world, she
thinks to make herself bigger and more considerable, by using the way of
civil force and jurisdiction, as she sits upon this Lion she changes
into an ass, and instead of hosannas, every man pelts her with stones
and dirt."[233]

The peculiarities which have characterized the history of the American
church are well defined, and of the greatest value in all estimates of
the theological status of the popular mind. They are grouped by
Professor Smith in the following concise terms: "_First._ It is not the
history of the conversion of a new people, but of the transplantation of
old races, already Christianized, to a new theatre, comparatively
untrammeled by institutions and traditions. _Second._ Independence of
the civil power. _Third._ The voluntary principle applied to the support
of religious institutions. _Fourth._ Moral and ecclesiastical, but not
civil power, the means of retaining the members of any communion.
_Fifth._ Development of the Christian system in its practical and moral
aspects, rather than in its theoretical and theological. _Sixth._
Stricter discipline in the churches than is practicable where church and
state are one. _Seventh._ Increase of the churches,