I cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of the reformed
churches, who are come to a period in religion. . . . Luther and
Calvin were great and shining lights in their times, yet they
penetrated not into the whole counsel of God." Now John Robinson,
like Oliver Cromwell, never set foot on American soil, but he is
identified, none the less, with the spirit of American liberalism
in religion.
In political discussion, the early emergence of that type of
independence familiar to the decade 1765-75 is equally striking.
In a letter written in 1818, John Adams insisted that "the
principles and feelings which produced the Revolution ought to be
traced back for two hundred years, and sought in the history of
the country from the first plantations in America." "I have
always laughed," he declared in an earlier letter, "at the
affectation of representing American independence as a novel
idea, as a modern discovery, as a late invention. The idea of it
as a possible thing, as a probable event, nay as a necessary and
unavoidable measure, in case Great Britain should assume an
unconstitutional authority over us, has been familiar to
Americans from the first settlement of the country.
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