the colony, at the time and after granting the Royal Charter, is
requisite to a correct understanding of the question, and for the
refutation of those statements by which it was misrepresented and
misunderstood.

1. The first question is, with what views was the Royal Charter granted,
and with what professed views did the Governor and his associates leave
England under the provisions of the Charter, and carrying it with them
to Massachusetts Bay?

The theory of some New England historians is, that Puritanism in England
was opposed to the Church of England, and especially to its Episcopal
government--a theory true as respects the Puritanism of the Long
Parliament after the second year of its existence, and of the
Commonwealth and Cromwell, but which is entirely at variance with facts
in respect to the Puritanism professed in England at the time of
granting the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Company in 1620, and for
twelve years afterwards. In the Millenary Petition presented by the
Puritan party in the Church to James the First, on his coming to the
throne, presbytery was expressly disclaimed; and in the first three
Parliaments of Charles the First, during which all the grievances
complained of by the Puritans were stated and discussed in the Commons,
not the slightest objection was made to Episcopacy, but, on the
contrary, reverence and fidelity in regard to it was professed without
exception; and when the Long Parliament first met, eleven years after
the granting of the Royal Charter to the Massachusetts Bay Company,
every member but one professed to be an Episcopalian, and the Holy
Communion, according to the order of the Church, was, by an unanimous
vote of the Commons, ordered to be partaken by each member. In all the
Church, as well as judicial and political, reforms of this Parliament
during its first session, Episcopacy was regarded and treated as
inviolate; and it was not until the following year, under the promptings
of the Scotch Commissioners, that the "root and branch" petition was
presented to Parliament against Episcopacy and the Prayer Book, and the
subject was discussed in the Commons. The theory, therefore, that
Puritanism in England was hostile to the Church at the period in
question is contradicted by all the "collateral" facts of English
history, as it is at variance with the professions of the first
Massachusetts Puritans themselves at the time of their leaving England.

This is true in resp