THE REFORMATION                      299

were the Independents and the Quakers, The Inde-
pendents had almost the same doctrines as the Presby-
terians. They were the most rigid and the most intol-
erant of all the Protestants: they passed their time in
reading the Scriptures or in prayer, and declared that
they would accept nothing but the pure doctrine; from
this came the name Puritan under which they have
become celebrated. They condemned all diversions,
the dance, the theatre, all games at cards and the
arts, as inventions of the devil; the Christian, they
said, who desires to merit pardon, should not be occu-
pied with anything but the service of God. That
which separated them from the other Calvinists is
that they admitted no sort of ecclesiastical govern-
ment; they would have neither synod nor consistory,
nor any regular office. The members gathered to-
gether in order to celebrate their worship and to regu-
late their affairs as they understood them; the pastor
chosen by the members has no established authority
over them. Each church is.absolutely sovereign, and
in the bosom of the church all members are equal;
they themselves censure or excommunicate the mem-
bers who are judged unworthy. Each member
thus lives under the perpetual surveillance of all the
others.

The Quakers.—The Quakers will not even have
pastors.1 "Religion," they say, "tends especially to
withdraw man from the vain spirit of this world in
order to lead him into a silent communion with God."
Each one is for himself his own pastor; for each mem-
ber can be enlightened and sanctified directly by the
* The Hicksite Quakers have pastors.—Ep,