But most important of all, in its influence on religious and civil liberty, was the attachment of the puritans to a popular church government. And of the origin of this system, we have the following account from 'the judicious Hooker,' prefixed to his famous work on Ecclesiastical Polity, written expressly against it. "A founder it had, whom, for mine own part, I think incomparably the wisest man that ever the French (protestant) church, did enjoy, since the hour it enjoyed him. His bringing up was in the civil law. Divine knowledge he gathered, not by hearing or reading, so much as by teaching others. For thousands were debtors to him, as touching knowledge in that kind, yet he to none, but only to God, the author of that most blessed fountain the Book of Life, and of the admirable dexterity of wit, together with the helps of other learning, which were his guides. Two things of principal moment there are, which have deservedly procured him honour throughout the world; the one, his exceeding pains in composing the institutions of the christian religion; this other, his no less industrious travels for the exposition of holy scripture, according to the same institutions. In which two things, whosoever they were that after him bestowed their labour, he gained the advantage, of prejudice against them if they gainsayed, and of glory above them if they consented. Of what account the Master of Sentences was in the church of Rome, the same, and more, among the preachers of the reformed churches, Calvin had purchased; so that the perfectest divines were judged they who were skilfulest in Calvin's writings; his books being almost the very canon to judge both doctrine and discipline by."
"These statements are confirmed by abundant testimony from writers of authority who had no good opinion of Calvin or his principles. Says Hume, (History of England, iii. 57,) "These disputes [about ceremonies, &c.] which had been started during the reign of Edward, were carried abroad by the protestants who fled from the persecutions of Mary; and as the zeal of these men had received an increase from the pious zeal of their enemies, they were generally inclined to carry their opposition to the utmost extremity against the practices of the church of Rome. Their communication with Calvin, and the other reformers who followed the discipline and worship of Geneva, confirmed them in this obstinate reluctance; and though some of the refugees, particularly those who were established at Frankfort, still adhered to king Edward's Liturgy, the prevailing spirit carried these confessors to seek a still further reformation."
"The celebrated Dean Swift, in a sermon preached on what tories and high churchmen in England, have styled, "the martyrdom of king Charles I." makes the following statements:--Upon the cruel persecution raised against the protestants under queen Mary, among great numbers who fled the kingdom to seek for shelter, several went and resided at Geneva, which is a commonwealth, governed without a king, where the religion contrived by Calvin is without the order of bishops. When the protestant faith was restored by queen Elizabeth, those who fled to Geneva returned, among the rest, home to England, and were grown so fond of the government and religion of the place they had left, that they used all possible endeavours to introduce both into their own country; at the same time continually preaching and railing against ceremonies and distinct habits of the clergy, taxing whatever they disliked as a remnant of popery; and continued exceedingly troublesome to the church and state, under that great queen, as well as her successor, king James I. These people called themselves puritans, as pretending to a purer faith than those of the established church. And these were the founders of our dissenters. They did not think it sufficient to leave all the errors of popery; but threw off many laudable and edifying institutions of the primitive church, and at last even the government of bishops, which, having been ordained by the apostles themselves, had continued without interruption, in all christian churches, for above fifteen hundred years. And all this they did, not because those things were evil, but because they were kept by the papists. From hence they proceeded, by degrees, to quarrel with the kingly government, because, as I have already said, the city of Geneva, to which their fathers had flown for refuge, was a commonwealth, or government of the people." Having thus stated the foundation and principles of puritanism, the Dean proceeds with an account of its growth till the breaking out of the civil war, and concludes the narrative as follows: "That odious parliament had early turned the bishops out of the House of Lords, in a few years after they murdered their king; then immediately abolished the whole House of Lords; and so, at last obtained their wishes of having a government of the people, and a new religion, both after the manner of Geneva, without a king, a bishop, or a nobleman; and this they blasphemously called, 'The kingdom of Christ and His Saints.'"