See James Ross, History of Congregational Independency in Scotland (Glasgow, 1900).
Thenceforth 4 The opposite of this external Independency, admission of civil oversight even for churches enjoying internal ecclesiastical selfgovernment, was also common, being the outcome of the traditional Puritan attitude to the state.
Church and State, citizenship in the one and membership in the other, thus became identical, and the foundation was laid for those troubles and consequent severities that vexed and shamed the early history of Independency in New England, natural enough when all their circumstances are fairly considered, indefensible when we regard their idea of the relation of the civil power to the conscience and religion, but explicable when their church idea alone is regarded.
The remarkable junction or fusion of the Independents or " Separatists " who emigrated from Leiden to Plymouth, Massachusetts, with the Puritan Nonconformists of Massachusetts Bay, modified Independency by the introduction of positive fraternal relations among the churches.
Episcopacy, Erastianism and Independency, though of little account in the assembly, were to bulk largely in England's future; while the church polity which the assembly favoured and recommended was to be almost unknown.
