Freely practicing, or not practicing, one’s religion was a right the Dutch extended to all. This freedom meant that the Pilgrim elders could not enforce their beliefs with the help of civil law. And living with ungodly non-Pilgrims degraded their followers’ faith. They wanted religious uniformity, not freedom. They wanted a government based on their god, on their religion, and to meld the civil and religious authority into one alliance. They wanted theocracy—they just wanted the “right” theocracy.
