ABIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.
It was on the 1st day of December, in the year 1630, that Mr. Roger Williams, with his wife, embarked at Bristol for America, in the ship Lyon, Captain William Pierce.
Two years and a half before, a number of eminent and enthusiastic men had gone forth, animated by religious principles and purposes, to seek a home and a refuge from persecution on the wild and untenanted shores of Massachusetts Bay. Charles I. had announced his design of ruling the English people by arbitrary power, only a few days before a patent for the Company of Massachusetts Bay passed the seals.[1]No provision was made in this document for the exercise of religious liberty. The emigrants were puritans, and although they had suffered long for conscience’ sake, on this subject their views were as contracted as those of their brethren who in Elizabeth’s reign sought the overthrow of England’s hierarchy.[2]The patent secured to them, however, to a great extent, a legislative independence of the mother country; but they soon employed that power to persecute differing consciences.
The emigrants landed at Salem at the end of June, 1629.A few mud hovels alone marked the place of their future abode. On their passage they arranged the order of their government, and bound themselves by solemn covenant to each other and the Lord. As religion was the cause of their abandonment of their native land, so was its establishment their first care. At their request a few of the settlers at Plymouth, where in 1620 a colony had been established by the members of Mr. John Robinson’s church, came over to assist and advise on the arrangement of their church polity. After several conferences, the order determined on was the congregational, and measures were immediately taken for the choice of elders and deacons. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed, and thirty persons covenanted together to walk in the ways of God. Mr. Skelton was chosen pastor, Mr. Higginson teacher, both puritan clergymen of celebrity, and Mr. Houghton ruling elder. They agreed with the church at Plymouth, “That the children of the faithful are church members with their parents, and that their baptism is a seal of their being so.”[3]
The church was thus self-constituted. It owned no allegiance to bishop, priest, or king. It recognized but one authority—the King of saints: but one rule—the word of God. The new system did not, however, meet with the approbation of all this little company. Some still fondly clung to the episcopacy of their native land, and to the more imposing rites of their mother church. The main body of the emigrants did not altogether refuse to have communion with the church which had so unnaturally driven them away; but, as they said, they separated from her corruptions, and rejected the human inventions in worship which they discovered in her fold. Not so all. Liberty of worship they desired indeed, but not a new form of polity. Two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, the one a lawyer, the other a merchant, were the leaders of this little band. They wished the continuance of the Common Prayer, of the ceremoniesusually observed in the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and a wider door for the entrance of members into a church state. Dissatisfied with the new order of things, they set up a separate assembly. This was a mutiny against the state, as well as against the church; and proving incorrigible, the brothers were sent home in “the Lyon’s Whelp.”[4]
In the year 1630, a large addition was made to the pilgrim band, on the arrival of Governor Winthrop. Not less than 1500 persons accompanied him, to escape the bigotry and persecuting spirit of Laud. Several new settlements were formed, and the seat of the colonial government was fixed at Boston. Though sincere in their attachment to true religion, and desirous of practising its duties unmolested by episcopal tyranny, they thought not of toleration for others. No such idea had dawned upon them. They were prepared to practise over other consciences the like tyranny to that from which they had fled.
With nobler views than these did Mr. Williams disembark at Boston, after a very tempestuous voyage, on the 5th of February in the year 1631. The infant colony had suffered very much during the winter from the severity of the weather, and the scarcity of provisions. The arrival of the Lyon was welcomed with gratitude, as the friendly interposition of the hand of God.[5]
Roger Williams was at this time little more than thirty years of age—“a young minister, godly and zealous, having precious gifts.”[6]Tradition tells us, that he was born in Wales: that he was in some way related to Cromwell: that his parents were in humble life: and that he owed his education to Sir Edward Coke, who, accidentally observing his attention at public worship, and ascertaining the accuracy of the notes he took of the sermon, sent him to the University of Oxford. All this may or may not be true; but it isevident that his education was liberal, and that he had a good acquaintance with the classics and the original languages of the scriptures.
He himself informs us, that in his early years his heart was imbued with spiritual life. “From my childhood, the Father of lights and mercies touched my soul with a love to himself, to his only begotten, the true Lord Jesus, to his holy scriptures.”[7]At this time he must have been about twelve years old. His first studies were directed to the law, probably at the suggestion of his patron. He became early attached to those democratic principles which are so ably stated in the “Bloudy Tenent,” and to those rights of liberty which found so able a defender in the aged Coke. Subsequently, however, he turned his attention to theology, and assumed the charge of a parish. It was during this period that he became acquainted with the leading emigrants to America; and he appears to have been the most decided amongst them in their opposition to the liturgy, ceremonies, and hierarchy of the English church.[8]It is probable that it was upon the subject of the grievances they endured, he had the interview with King James of which he speaks in a letter written late in life.[9]
It was a notable year, both in Old and in New England, in which Williams sought a refuge for conscience amid the wilds of America. Autocratic rule was decided upon by the infatuated Charles, and the utterance of the most arbitrary principles from the pulpits of the court clergy was encouraged. Doctrines subversive of popular rights were taught, and the sermons containing them published at the king’sspecial command. Laud assumed a similar authority in ecclesiastical affairs. With unscrupulous zeal and severity he sought to extirpate puritanism from the church. The Calvinistic interpretation of the articles was condemned, and Bishop Davenant was rebuked for a sermon which he preached upon the 17th. The puritans were to a man Calvinists, the Laudean party were Arminians. And as if to give the former practical proof of the lengths to which Laud was prepared to go, and to shut them up either to silence or to voluntary banishment, Leighton, for his “Plea against Prelacy,” was this year committed to prison for life, fined £10,000, degraded from his ministry, whipped, pilloried, his ears cut off, his nose slit, and his face branded with a hot iron. From this tyranny over thought and conscience Williams fled, only to bear his testimony against similar outrages upon conscience and human rights in the New World—to find the same principles in active operation among the very men who like him had suffered, and who like him sought relief on that distant shore.
No sooner had Mr. Williams landed at Boston, than we find him declaring his opinion, that “the magistrate might not punish a breach of the sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table.”[10]Moreover, so impure did he deem the communion of the church of England, that he hesitated to hold communion with any church that continued in any manner favourable to it. This was, however, the case with the church at Boston. It refused to regard the hierarchy and parishional assemblies of the English church as portions of the abominations of anti-christ. It permitted its members, when in England, to commune with it, in hearing the word and in the private administration of the sacraments.[11]Thus while separating from its corruptions, the emigrants clave to it with a fond pertinacity. This was displeasing to the free soul of Williams. He refused to join the congregation at Boston. It would have been a weak and sinful compliancewith evil. He could not regard the cruelties and severities, and oppression, exercised by the church of England, with any feelings but those of indignation. That could not be the true church of Christ on whose skirts was found sprinkled the blood of saints and martyrs. He therefore gladly accepted the invitation of the church at Salem, and a few weeks after his arrival he left Boston to enter upon the pastorate there.
But on the very same day on which he commenced his ministry at Salem (April 12), the General Court of the Colony expressed its disapprobation of the step, and required the church to forbear any further proceeding. This was an arbitrary and unjust interference with the rights of the Salem church. As a congregational and independent community, it had a perfect right to select Mr. Williams for its pastor. The choice of its ministry is one of the church’s most sacred privileges, to be exercised only in subordination to the laws and to the will of its great Head. This right the General Court most flagrantly violated, and thus laid the foundation for that course of resistance which eventually led to the banishment of Mr. Williams.[12]
To the civil government of the colony Mr. Williams was prepared to give all due submission. Very soon after his arrival, he entered his name upon the list of those who desired to be made freemen, and on the 12th of May took the customary oaths. Yet as if to bring into conflict at the earliest moment, and to excite the expression of those generous sentiments on religious and civil liberty which animated the soul of Mr. Williams, on that very day the court “ordered and agreed, that for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same.” Thus a theocracy was established. The government belonged to the saints. They alone could rule in the commonwealth, or be capable of the exercise ofcivil rights. “Not only was the door of calling to magistracy shut against natural and unregenerate men, though excellently fitted for civil offices, but also against the best and ablest servants of God, except they be entered into church estate.”[13]This was to follow, according to Williams’ idea, “Moses’ church constitution,” “to pluck up the roots and foundations of all common society in the world, to turn the garden and paradise of the church and saints into the field of the civil state of the world, and to reduce the world to the first chaos or confusion.” Our readers will find his reasons at large, against this perilous course, in the subsequent pages of this volume.[14]
As peace could not be enjoyed at Salem, before the end of the summer Mr. Williams withdrew to Plymouth; “where,” says Governor Bradford, “he was freely entertained, according to our poor ability, and exercised his gifts among us; and after some time was admitted a member of the church, and his teaching well approved.”[15]Two years he laboured in the ministry of the word among the pilgrim fathers; but it would seem not without proclaiming those principles of freedom which had already made him an object of jealousy. For on requesting his dismissal thence to Salem, in the autumn of 1635, we find the elder, Mr. Brewster, persuading the church at Plymouth to relinquish communion with him, lest he should “run the same course of rigid separation and anabaptistry which Mr. John Smith, the se-baptist, at Amsterdam, had done.”[16]It was during his residence at Plymouththat he acquired that knowledge of the Indian language, and that acquaintance with the chiefs of the Narragansetts, which became so serviceable to him in his banishment.
His acceptance of their invitation afforded sincere and great pleasure to the church at Salem. His former ministry amongst them had resulted in a warm attachment, and not a few left Plymouth to place themselves under his spiritual care. Two or three weeks only could have passed after his return, when, on the 3rd of September, Mr. Cotton, his destined antagonist in the strife on liberty of conscience, landed at Boston, in company with Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone; which “glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor people in the wilderness to say, That the God of heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities:Cottonfor their clothing,Hookerfor their fishing, andStonefor their building.”[17]
John Cotton was the son of a puritan lawyer. Educated at Cambridge, he had acquired a large amount of learning; and by his study of the schoolmen sharpened the natural acuteness and subtilty of his mind. In theology he was a thorough Calvinist, and adopted in all their extent the theocratic principles of the great Genevan reformer. On his arrival in New England, he was immediately called upon to advise and arrange the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the colony. By his personal influence the churches were settled in a regular and permanent form, and their laws of discipline were finally determined by the platform adopted at Cambridge in 1648. The civil laws were adjusted to the polity of the church, and while nominally distinct, they supported and assisted each other.[18]
Matter for complaint was soon discovered against Mr. Williams. At Plymouth he had already urged objections relative to the royal patent, under which the colonists held their lands. A manuscript treatise concerning it now became the subject of consideration by the General Court. In this work, Mr. Williams appears to have questioned the King’s right to grant the possession of lands which did not belong to him, but to the natives who hunted over them. Equity required that they should be fairly purchased of the Indian possessors. Mr. Williams was “convented” before the Court. Subsequently, he gave satisfaction to his judges of his “intentions and loyalty,” and the matter was passed by. It will be seen, however, that this accusation was revived, and declared to be one of the causes of his banishment.[19]
For a few months, during the sickness of Mr. Skelton, Mr. Williams continued his ministry without interruption, and with great acceptance. On the 2nd of August, 1634, Mr. Skelton died, and the Salem church shortly thereafter chose him to be their settled teacher. To this the magistrates and ministers objected. His principles were obnoxious to them. They sent a request to the church, that they would not ordain him. But in the exercise of their undoubted right the church persisted, and Mr. Williams was regularly inducted to the office of teacher.[20]
Occasion was soon found to punish the church and its refractory minister. On November the 17th, he was summoned to appear before the Court, for again teaching publicly “against the king’s patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country: and for terming the churches of Englandanti-christian.” A new accusation was made on the 30th of the following April, 1635. He had taught publicly, it was said, “that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and very clearly confuted.”[21]In the month of July he was again summoned to Boston, and some other dangerous opinions were now laid to his charge. He was accused of maintaining:—That the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace:—That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though wife or child—That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat. But the aggravation of his offences was that, notwithstanding these crimes were charged upon him, the church at Salem, in spite of the magisterial admonitions, and the exhortations of the pastors, had called him to the office of teacher. To mark their sense of this recusancy, the Salem people were refused, three days after, the possession of a piece of land for which they had applied, and to which they had a just claim.[22]
This flagrant wrong induced Mr. Williams and his church to write admonitory letters to the churches of which these magistrates were members, requesting them to admonish the magistrates of the criminality of their conduct, it being a “breach of the rule of justice.” The letters were thus addressed because the members of the churches were the only freemen, and the only parties interested in the civil government of the colony. They were without effect. His own people began to waver under the pressure of ministerial power and influence. Mr. Williams’s health too gave way, “by his excessive labours, preaching thrice a week, by labours night and day in the field; and by travels night andday to go and come from the Court.” Even his wife added to his affliction by her reproaches, “till at length he drew her to partake with him in the error of his way.”[23]He now declared his intention to withdraw communion from all the churches in the Bay, and from Salem also if they would not separate with him. His friend Endicot was imprisoned for justifying the letter of admonition, and Mr. Sharpe was summoned to appear to answer for the same. In October he was called before the Court for the last time. All the ministers were present. They had already decided “that any one was worthy of banishment who should obstinately assert, that the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy and heresy.”[24]His letters were read, which he justified; he maintained all his opinions. After a disputation with Mr. Hooker, who could not “reduce him from any of his errors,” he was sentenced to banishment in six weeks, all the ministers, save one, approving of the deed.[25]
Before proceeding to detail the subsequent events of his history, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the topics of accusation brought against Mr. Williams, and especially since they are often referred to in the pages of the works now in the reader’s hands.
The causes of his banishment are given by Mr. Williams in p. 375 of this volume, with which agrees Governor Winthrop’s testimony cited above. Mr. Cotton, however, does not concur in this statement: the two last causes hedenies, giving as his reason, “that many are known to hold both those opinions, and are yet tolerated not only to live in the commonwealth, but also in the fellowship of the churches.” The other two points, he likewise asserts, were held by some, who yet were permitted to enjoy both civil and church liberties.[26]What then were the grounds of this harsh proceeding according to Mr. Cotton? They were as follows:—“Two things there were, which to my best observation, and remembrance, caused the sentence of his banishment: and two other fell in, that hastened it. 1. His violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent.... 2. The magistrates, and other members of the general Court upon intelligence of some episcopal and malignant practices against the country, they made an order of Court to take trial of the fidelity of the people, not by imposing upon them, but by offering to them, an oath of fidelity. This oath when it came abroad, he vehemently withstood it, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as he said, Christ’s prerogative to have his office established by oath: partly because an oath was a part of God’s worship, and God’s worship was not to be put upon carnal persons, as he conceived many of the people to be.” The two concurring causes were:—1. That notwithstanding his “heady and turbulent spirit,” which induced the magistrates to advise the church at Salem not to call him to the office of teacher, yet the major part of the church made choice of him. And when for this the Court refused Salem the parcel of land, Mr. Williams stirred up the church to unite with him in letters of admonition to the churches “whereof those magistrates were members, to admonish them of their open transgression of the rule of justice.” 2. That when by letters from the ministers the Salem church was inclined to abandon their teacher, Mr. Williams renounced communion with Salem and all the churches in the Bay, refused to resort to public worship, and preached to “sundry who began to resort to his family,” on the Lord’s day.[27]
On examination, it is evident that the two statements do not materially differ. Mr. Williams held the patents to be sinful “wherein Christian kings, so called, are invested with right by virtue of their Christianity, to take and give away the lands and countries of other men.”[28]It were easy to represent opposition to the patent of New England as overthrowing the foundation on which colonial laws were framed, and as a denial of the power claimed by the ministers and the General Court “to erect such a government of the church as is most agreeable to the word.” Such was Mr. Cotton’s view, and which he succeeded in impressing on the minds of the magistrates. Mr. Williams may perhaps have acquired somewhat of his jealousy concerning these patents from the instructions of Sir Edward Coke, who so nobly withstood the indiscriminate granting of monopolies in the parliament of his native land.[29]There can be no question that Williams was substantially right. His own practice, when subsequently laying the basis for the state of Rhode Island, evinces the equity, uprightness, and generosity of his motives. Perhaps too his views upon the origin of all governmental power may have had some influence in producing his opposition. He held that the sovereignty lay in the hands of the people. No patent or royal rights could therefore be alleged as against the popular will. That must make rulers, confirm the laws, and control the acts of the executive. Before it patents, privileges, and monopolies, the exclusive rights of a few, must sink away.
Moreover, it is clear, from Cotton’s own statement, that this question of the patent involved that of religious liberty. The colony claimed under it the right of erecting a church, of framing an ecclesiastical polity: and it exercised it. Ecclesiastical laws were made every whit as stringent as the canons of the establishment of the mother country. Already we have seen that church members alone could be freemen. Every adult person was compelled to be present at public congregational worship, and to support both ministry and church with paymentof dues enforced by magisterial power.[30]“Three months was, by the law, the time of patience to the excommunicate, before the secular power was to deal with him:” then the obstinate person might be fined, imprisoned, or banished. Several persons were banished for noncompliance with the state religion.[31]In 1644, a law was promulgated against the baptists, by which “it is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants,” or seduce others, or leave the congregation during the administration of the rite, they “shall be sentenced to banishment.” The same year we accordingly find that a poor man was tied up and whipped for refusing to have his child sprinkled.[32]Heresy, blasphemy, and some other the like crimes, exposed the culprit to expatriation. It was against this course that Mr. Williams afterwards wrote his “Bloudy Tenent;” and through the “sad evil” “of the civil magistrates dealing in matters of conscience and religion, as also of persecuting and hunting any for any matter merely spiritual and religious,” which he opposed, was he banished.[33]
The question of the patent could not therefore be discussed in the General Court without involving a discussion upon religious liberty. Mr. Cotton has chosen to make most prominent, in his articles of accusation, the question of theorigin of the patent; the magistrate, whose statement is adduced by Mr. Williams, places in the forefront that of the magistrate’s power over conscience. As the matter stood, these two subjects were allied. To doubt the one was to doubt the other. But Mr. Williams was decided as to the iniquity of both.
On the subject of the denial of the oath of fidelity, it is evident, from Mr. Cotton’s statement, that the oath owed its origin to intolerance. Episcopacy should have no place under congregational rule, no more than independency could be suffered to exist under the domination of the English hierarchy. But Mr. Williams appears to have objected to the oath chiefly on other grounds: it was allowed by all parties that oath-taking was a religious act. If so, it was concluded by Mr. Williams, in entire consistency with his other views, that, 1, It ought not to be forced on any, so far as it was religious; nor, 2, could an unregenerate man take part in what was thought to be an act of religious worship. Whether an oath be a religious act, we shall not discuss; but on the admitted principles of the parties engaged in this strife, Mr. Williams’s argument seems to us irrefragable.
On the concurring causes referred to by Mr. Cotton, it will be unnecessary to make extended comment. The first of these is treated of at length in the second piece of this volume. Mr. Cotton and Mr. Williams were representatives of the two great bodies of dissentients from the law-established church of England. One party deemed it to be an anti-christian church, its rites to be avoided, its ministry forsaken, its communion abjured: these were the Separatists, or true Nonconformists, to whom Mr. Williams belonged.[34]The other party, although declaiming against the supposed corruptions of the church, loved its stately service, its governmental patronage, its common prayer, and its parishionalassemblies:[35]these were the puritans who, in New England, became Independents, or Congregationalists[36]—in Old England, during the Commonwealth, chiefly Presbyterians, and some Independents: to these Mr. Cotton belonged.
Mr. Williams thought it his duty to renounce all connection with the oppressor of the Lord’s people, and also with those who still held communion with her.[37]Let us not deem him too rigid in these principles of separation. There can be no fellowship between Christ and Belial. And if, as was indeed the case, the Anglican church too largely exhibited those principles which were subversive of man’s inalienable rights, exercised a tyrannous and intolerable sway over the bodies and consciences of the people, and drove from her fold, as outcasts, many of her best and holiest children,—it is no wonder that they should in return regard her touch as polluting, her ecclesiastical frame as the work of anti-christ. The Congregationalists introduced her spirit and practice into the legislation of the New World, and it behoved every lover of true liberty to stand aloof and separate from the evil. This did Mr. Williams. He was right in regarding the relation of the Congregational polity to the civil state in New England asimplicitlya national church state, although that relation was denied to beexplicitlynational by Mr. Cotton and his brethren. “I affirm,” said Williams, “that that church estate, that religion and worship which is commanded, or permitted to bebut onein a country, nation, or province,thatchurch is not in the nature of the particular churches of Christ, but in the nature of a national or state church.”[38]
It is, however, to this controversy that we are indebtedfor the second of the pieces reprinted in this volume. While wandering among the uncivilized tribes of Indians, Mr. Cotton’s letter came into Mr. Williams’s hands.[39]It seems to have been a part of a somewhat extended correspondence between them, and to have originated in Mr. Cotton’s twofold desire to correct the aberrations, as he deemed them, of his old friend, and to shield himself from the charge of being not only an accessory, but to some degree the instigator of the sentence of banishment decreed against him. His defence of himself is unworthy of his candour, and betrays, by its subtle distinctions and passionate language, by his cruel insinuations and ready seizure of the most trifling inaccuracies, a mind ill at ease and painfully conscious that he had dealt both unjustly and unkindly with his former companion in tribulation. By some means, but without his knowledge, Mr. Cotton’s letter got into print, to him most “unwelcome;” and while in England, in 1644, Mr. Williams printed his reply. It will be seen that Mr. Williams has given the whole of it: and with scrupulous fidelity, adding thereto his remarks and reasonings. Mr. Cotton, however, did not hesitate to aver the righteousness of the persecution and banishment which Williams endured.[40]
In the Colonial Records, the date of Mr. Williams’s sentence is November 3, (1635). He immediately withdrew from all church communion with the authors of his sufferings. A few attached friends assembled around him, and preparations were made for departure.[41]It would seem that he had, for some time, contemplated the formation of a settlement where liberty, both civil and religious, should be enjoyed. This reached the ears of his adversaries. HisLord’s day addresses were attractive to many, and withdrew them from the congregations of the dominant sect. Provoked at “the increase of concourse of people to him on the Lord’s days in private,” and fearing the further extension of principles so subversive of their state-church proceedings, they resolved on Mr. Williams’s immediate deportation. Two or three months had to elapse, of the additional time granted for his departure, before their sentence could take effect. Delay was dangerous: therefore the Court met at Boston on the 11th of January, 1636, and resolved that he should immediately be shipped for England, in a vessel then riding at anchor in the bay. A warrant was despatched summoning him to Boston. He returned answer that his life was in hazard; and came not. A pinnace was sent to fetch him; “but when they came at his house, they found he had been gone three days before; but whither they could not learn.”[42]
His wife and two children, the youngest less than three months old, were left behind. By a mortgage on his property at Salem he had raised money to supply his wants. He then plunged into the untrodden wilds; being “denied the common air to breathe in, and a civil cohabitation upon the same common earth; yea, and also without mercy and human compassion, exposed to winter miseries in a howling wilderness.”[43]
After fourteen weeks’ exposure to frost and snow, “not knowing what bread or bed did mean,” he arrived at Seekonk,[44]on the east bank of Pawtucket river. Here he began to build and plant. In the following expressive lines he seems to refer to the kind support afforded him by the Indians:—
“God’s providence is rich to his,Let none distrustful be;In wilderness, in great distress,These ravens have fed me.”[45]
“God’s providence is rich to his,Let none distrustful be;In wilderness, in great distress,These ravens have fed me.”[45]
“God’s providence is rich to his,Let none distrustful be;In wilderness, in great distress,These ravens have fed me.”[45]
“God’s providence is rich to his,
Let none distrustful be;
In wilderness, in great distress,
These ravens have fed me.”[45]
Their hospitality he requited throughout his long life by acts of benevolence, and by unceasing efforts to benefit and befriend them. He taught them Christianity; and was the first of the American pilgrims to convey to these savage tribes the message of salvation.
Before his crops were ripe for harvest, he received intimation from the governor of Plymouth, that he had “fallen into the edge of their bounds,” and as they were loath to offend the people of the Bay, he was requested to remove beyond their jurisdiction. With five companions he embarked in his canoe, descending the river, till arriving at a little cove on the opposite side, they were hailed by the Indians with the cry of “What cheer?”[46]Cheered with this friendly salutation they went ashore. Again embarking, and descending the stream, they reached a spot at the mouth of the Mohassuck river, where they landed, near to a spring—remaining to this day as an emblem of those vital blessings which flow to society from true liberty. That spot is “holy ground,” where sprung up the first civil polity in the world permitting freedom to the human soul in things of God. There Roger Williams founded the town of Providence. It was, and has ever been, the “refuge of distressed consciences.” Persecution has never sullied its annals. Freedom to worship God was the desire of its founder—for himself and for all, and he nobly endured till it was accomplished.
It has been generally held that the fourteen weeks above referred to were spent by Mr. Williams in traversing the wilderness, and in penetrating the vast forests which separated Salem from Seekonk by land. Some doubts have of late, however, been thrown upon this view.
It can scarcely be supposed that so long a time could have been occupied in the land journey from Salem to Seekonk. The distance is about fifty miles. Even if we allow a considerable addition to this, occasioned by the detour rendered necessary to avoid the settlements on the Bay, the time consumedcannot be accounted for. He himself has given us no details of this eventful journey. Only passing references to it occur in his various works. Yet these are of such a kind as to render it more probable that his journey was made by sea, coasting from place to place, holding intercourse with the native tribes, whose language he had previously acquired.[47]His route by sea would be not less than 200 miles, to accomplish which by his own unaided arm, together with the interviews he undoubtedly held with the aborigines, and the time necessarily allotted for repose, or spent in waiting for favourable weather, might well fill the fourteen weeks he tells us his journey lasted. His language supports this view, “Mr. Winthrop, he says, privately wrote meto steer my courseto the Narraganset Bay. I took his prudent motion, and waiving all other thoughts and emotionsI steered my coursefrom Salem, though in winter snow, into these parts.” Again, “It pleased the Most High to direct my stepsinto this bay;” which words would seem only applicable to a voyage by water. “I was sorelytossedfor one fourteen weeks.” This language is evidently such as would be most natural in referring to a passage by sea.[48]But there is one paragraph in the present volume which would seem to decide the question. It is found at page 386. “Had his soul [Cotton’s] been in my soul’s case, exposed to the miseries, poverties, necessities, wants, debts,hardships of sea and land, in a banished condition, he would, I presume, reach forth a more merciful cordial to the afflicted.” Here distinct reference is made to the sea as the scene of some of those hardships he endured. It is moreover known that travelling at that time was chiefly by water, that Williams was a skilful boatman, and that he possessed a boat of his own soon after his settlement at Providence. In the view of these particulars, we are constrained to the conclusion that Mr. Williams journeyedby sea, often landing to seek for food, and to hold intercourse with the natives as to his final settlement.[49]
On reaching Providence, the first object of Mr. Williams would be to obtain possession of some land. This he acquired from the Narragansett Indians, the owners of the soil surrounding the bay into which he had steered his course. By a deed dated the 24th March, 1638, certain lands and meadows were made over to him by the Indian chiefs which he had purchased of them two years before, that is, at the time of his settlement amongst them. He shortly after reconveyed these lands, to his companions. In a deed dated 1661, he says, “I desired it might be for a shelter for persons distressed for conscience. I then considering the condition of divers of my distressed countrymen, I communicated my said purchase unto my loving friends [whom he names], who then desired to take shelter here with me.”[50]This worthy conception of his noble mind was realized, and he lived to see a settled community formed wherein liberty of conscience was a primary and fundamental law. Thirty-five years afterward he could say, “Here, all over this colony, a great number of weak and distressed souls, scattered, are flying hither from Old and New England, the Most High and Only Wise hath, in his infinite wisdom, provided this country and this corner as a shelter for the poor and persecuted, according to their several persuasions.”[51]
The year 1638 witnessed the settlement of Rhode Island, from which the state subsequently took its name, by some other parties, driven from Massachusetts by the persecution of the ruling clerical power. So great was the hatred or the envy felt towards the new colony, that Massachusetts framed a law prohibiting the inhabitants of Providence from coming within its bounds.[52]This was a cruel law, for thus tradingwas hindered with the English vessels frequenting Boston, from whence came the chief supplies of foreign goods. So great was the scarcity of paper from this cause among the Rhode Islanders, that “the first of their writings that are to be found, appear on small scraps of paper, wrote as thick, and crowded as close as possible.” “God knows,” says Williams, “that many thousand pounds cannot repay the very temporary losses I have sustained,” by being debarred from Boston.[53]
In March 1639, Mr. Williams became a baptist, together with several more of his companions in exile. As none in the colony had been baptized, a Mr. Holliman was selected to baptize Mr. Williams, who then baptized Mr. Holliman and ten others. Thus was founded the first baptist church in America.[54]On the 1st of the following July, Mr. Williams and his wife, with eight others, were excommunicated by the church at Salem, then under the pastoral care of the celebrated Hugh Peters. Thus was destroyed the last link which bound these exiles to the congregational churches of New England, where infant baptism and persecution abode, as in other churches, in sisterly embrace together.[55]
Mr. Williams appears to have remained pastor of the newly formed church but a few months. For, while retaining all his original sentiments upon the doctrines of God’s word, and the ordinances of the church, he conceived a true ministry must derive its authority from direct apostolic succession or endowment: that, therefore, without such a commission he had no authority to assume the office of pastor, or be a teacher in the house of God, or proclaim to the impenitent the saving mercies of redemption. It is, however, by no means clear that he regarded the latter as wrong, for we find him in after days desiring to print several discourses which he had delivered amongst the Indians.[56]He seems rather to have conceived that the church of Christ had sofallen into apostacy, as to have lost both its right form and the due administration of the ordinances, which could only be restored by some new apostolic, or specially commissioned messenger from above. Various passages in the present volume will be met with which favour this view:[57]the following is from his “Hireling Ministry:” “In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a diligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged, in city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches, in Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God, bring in the result of a satisfying discovery, that either the begetting ministry of the apostles or messengers to the nations, or the feeding and nourishing ministry of pastors and teachers, according to the first institution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored and extant.”[58]From this passage it would seem that his objections were rather owing to the imperfection of the church in its revived condition, than to the want of a right succession in the ministry. These imperfections could be removed by a new apostolic ministry alone. He therefore was opposed to “the office of any ministry, but such as the Lord Jesus appointeth.” Perhaps in the following assertion of Mr. Cotton we have the true expression of Mr. Williams’s views. He conceived “that the apostacy of anti-christ hath so far corrupted all, that there can be no recovery out of that apostacy till Christ shall send forth new apostles to plant churches anew.”[59]
The constantly increasing number of settlers in the new colony rendered a form of civil government necessary. A model was drawn up, of which the essential principles were democratic. The power was invested in the freemen, orderly assembled, or a major part of them. None were to be accounteddelinquents for doctrine, “provided it be not directly repugnant to the government or laws established.” And a few months later this was further confirmed by a special act, “that that law concerning liberty of conscience in point of doctrine, be perpetuated.” Thus liberty of conscience was the basis of the legislation of the colony of Rhode Island, and its annals have remained to this day unsullied by the blot of persecution.[60]But many were the examples of an opposite course occurring in the neighbouring colony of Boston. Not satisfied with having driven Williams and many more from their borders by their oppressive measures against conscience, the General Court laid claim to jurisdiction over the young and rapidly increasing settlements of the sons of liberty. This, concurring with other causes, led the inhabitants of Rhode Island and Providence to request Mr. Williams to take passage to England; and there, if possible, obtain a charter defining their rights, and giving them independent authority, freed from the intrusive interference of the Massachusetts Bay.
In the month of June 1643, Mr. Williams set sail from New York for England, for he was not permitted to enter the territories of Massachusetts, and to ship from the more convenient port of Boston, although his services in allaying Indian ferocity, and preventing by his influence the attacks of the native tribes upon their settlements, were of the highest value and of the most important kind.[61]
At the time of his arrival in England, the country was involved in the horrors of civil war. By an ordinance dated Nov. 3, 1643, the affairs of the colonies were intrusted to a board of commissioners, of which Lord Warwick was the head. Aided by the influence of his friend, Sir HenryVane, Mr. Williams quickly obtained the charter he sought, dated March 14, 1644, giving to the “Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay,” full power to rule themselves, by any form of government they preferred.[62]
With this charter Mr. Williams, in the summer of the same year, returned to New England, and landed at Boston, Sept. 17th, emboldened to tread this forbidden ground by a commendatory letter to the Governor and Assistants of the Bay, from several noblemen and members of parliament. The first elections under this charter were held at Portsmouth in May 1641, when the General Assembly then constituted, proceeded to frame a code of laws, and to commence the structure of their civil government. It was declared in the act then passed, “that the form of government established in Providence Plantations isdemocratical, that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of the free inhabitants.” The conclusion of this Magna Charta of Rhode Island is in these memorable words: “These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the penalties for the transgression thereof, which, by common consent, are ratified and established throughout the whole colony. And otherwise than thus, what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God.And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever.”[63]Mr. Roger Williams was chosen assistant, and in subsequent years governor. Thus under the auspices of this noble-minded man was sown the germ of modern democratic institutions, combining therewith the yet more precious seed of religious liberty.
We here trace no further the history of Roger Williams in relation to the state of which he was the honoured founder. To the period at which we have arrived, their story is indissolublyallied together. Others, imbued with his principles, henceforth took part in working out the great and then unsolved problem—how liberty, civil and religious, could exist in harmony with dutiful obedience to rightful laws. Posterity is witness to the result. The great communities of the Old World are daily approximating to that example, and recognizing the truth and power of those principles which throw around the name ofRoger Williamsa halo of imperishable glory and renown.
The work of this eminent man, reprinted in the following pages, owes its origin to the events we have detailed, and to some other very interesting circumstances. In the first volume of the publications of the Hanserd Knollys Society, will be found a piece, entitled “An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty, as it was presented, 1620.” This was a baptist production. It is a well arranged, clear, and concise argument against persecution, and for liberty of conscience. Mr. Williams informs us that this treatise was written by a prisoner in Newgate for conscience’ sake. So rigid was his confinement that paper, pens, and ink were denied him. He had recourse to sheets of paper sent, by a friend in London, as stoppers to the bottle containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts in milk on the paper thus provided, and returned them to his friend in the same way. “In such paper, written with milk, nothing will appear; but the way of reading it by fire being known to this friend who received the papers, he transcribed and kept together the papers, although the author himself could not correct, nor view what himself had written.”[64]
From this treatise was taken those arguments against persecution,[65]which being replied to by Mr. Cotton, gave rise to the work of Mr. Williams, and which he has so significantly called “The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution Discussed.” Mr. Cotton tells us that this excerpt was sent to him about the year 1635, by Mr. Williams, and that Mr. Williams, against the “royal law of the love of thegospel, and without his knowledge, published it, with his reply, adding thereto a refutation.”[66]A contradictory and more particular account is, however, given of the affair by Mr. Williams. No such letter or intercourse, he tells us, passed between him and Mr. Cotton on this subject. The prisoner’s arguments against persecution were presented to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Hall, a congregational minister at Roxbury, to whom also Mr. Cotton’s answer was addressed. Mr. Hall not being satisfied, sent the papers to Mr. Williamsalready printed, who, therefore, conceiving that being printed they were no longerprivatepapers, felt at liberty to publish his discussion of Mr. Cotton’s principles.[67]At the time when Mr. Cotton wrote the letter to Mr. Hall, he tells us that Mr. Williams “did keep communion with all his brethren, and held loving acquaintance with myself.” It must therefore have been written some time before the banishment of Mr. Williams, and soon after the arrival of Mr. Cotton in New England.
At the close of Mr. Cotton’s letter is found a reference to “a treatise sent to some of the brethren late of Salem, who doubted as you do.” This treatise is the “Model of Church and Civil Power,” the examination of which forms the second part of the “Bloudy Tenent.”[68]The authorship of it is attributed to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Williams. This Mr. Cotton denies. He charges Mr. Williams with a “double falsehood:” First, in saying that he wrote it; second, that the ministers who did write it sent it to Salem.[69]This “blusteringcharge” Mr. Williams repudiates. He refers to the closing paragraph of Cotton’s own letter, and avers, “to my knowledge it was reported, according to this hint of Mr. Cotton’s, that from the ministers of the churches such a model composed by them was sent to Salem.” He then adds, that hearing of it he wrote to “his worthy friend Mr. Sharp, elder of the church at Salem, for the sight of it, who accordingly sent it to him.” Moreover, Mr. Cotton approved of it, promoted it, and directed others to repair to it for satisfactory information:[70]it was therefore unworthy of him to pass so “deep censures for none or innocent mistakes.” The real author of it was probably Mr. Richard Mather, of whom we are told that “when the platform of Church Discipline was agreed—in the year 1647, Mr. Mather’s model was that out of which it was chiefly taken.”[71]Or perhaps it may preferably be regarded as the result of an act passed by the General Court in the year 1634, wherein the elders of every church were entreated to “consult and advise ofone uniform orderof discipline in the churches ... and to consider how far the magistrates are bound to interpose for the preservation of that uniformity and peace of the churches.”[72]Certain it is, that the principles of this document pervade all the subsequent legislation of the colony, and many of its conclusions were embodied in the ecclesiastical and civil laws. Mr. Williams did well in selecting these two pieces for discussion. They broadly state those views which are antagonist to intellectual and religious freedom. Other treatises were published to defend New England practices against the observations of friends in Old England, which are occasionally referred to by Mr. Williams; but in none of them were developed to the same extent, that persecuting spirit and theocratic legislation which Mr. Williams so ably, so patiently, and so thoroughly confronts and confutes in the following pages.
The “Bloudy Tenent” was published in England in the year 1644, and without the name either of the author orpublisher. It was written while he was occupied in obtaining the charter for Rhode Island. In many parts it bears evident tokens of haste, and occasional obscurities show that he had found no time to amend his work. Indeed he tells us, “that when these discussions were prepared for public in London, his time was eaten up in attendance upon the service of the parliament and city, for the supply of the poor of the city with wood, during the stop of coal from Newcastle, and the mutinies of the poor for firing.”[73]Nevertheless, his style is generally animated, the discussion acutely managed, and frequent images of great beauty adorn his page.
Although not the first in England among the baptist advocates for the great principle of liberty of conscience, Roger Williams holds a preeminent place. Previous to the Bloudy Tenent, several pieces had been published, of great interest and value. Some of these have been reprinted;[74]and we have already seen how one of them gave rise to the present work of Williams. In 1642 we find a baptist asserting as one of the results of infant baptism, that “hence also collaterally have been brought the power of the civil magistrate into the church ... being willingly ignorant that the state and church of the Jews is to be considered in a twofold respect, one as it was a civil state and commonwealth and kingdom, in respect whereof it was common to other civil states and kingdoms in the world; the other as it was the church of God, and in relation thereto had worship, commandments, a kingly office, and government, which no other state and kingdom had or ought to have: for herein it was altogether typical. This state (the church) being spiritual admits of none but Him, their spiritual Head, Lawgiver, James iv. 12.”[75]
In 1643 another most able piece appeared, entitled, “Liberty of Conscience; or the sole means to obtain peace and truth.” The author expresses his opinion that the distractionsand troubles of the nation were owing in great measure to the general obstinacy and averseness of most men of all ranks and qualities to tolerate and bear with tender consciences, and different opinions of their brethren.
The same year in which the “Bloudy Tenent” was published, there issued from the press “The Compassionate Samaritan, Unbinding the Conscience, and pouring oil into the wounds which have been made upon the separation.” This piece likewise asserts the rights of conscience with great clearness and power.
Until now the baptists stood alone in this conflict, they were the only known advocates for perfect liberty; but in this year Mr. John Goodwin also came forth to aid them,[76]and by his powerful writings did much to disseminate right views on this great subject.
The activity of Mr. Williams, and his deep interest in whatever concerned the well-being of his fellow countrymen, are still more illustrated by the publications which he put forth while in England. For he not only published his “Key into the Language of America,” composed while on his voyage to this country, and the two treatises reprinted in this volume; but also an anonymous piece, entitled “Queries of Highest Consideration proposed to Mr. Thomas Goodwin—presented to the High Court of Parliament,”[77]containing clear and accurate observations on the respective provinces of civil and ecclesiastical authority.
The publication of the “Bloudy Tenent” was most offensive to the various parties into which the ruling powers of the State were divided. The presbyterians exclaimed against it as full of heresy and blasphemy. If we may believe Mr. Richardson, they even proceeded so far as to burn it.[78]To this we are inclined to attach some confidence, as thereby we may account for the extreme rarity of the book, and for whatis in fact a second edition, published in the same year. The existing copies of the work do not quite agree. While they are page for page and line for line the same, they differ in the fact of a table of errata being found in some, which errata are corrected in others. There is also a slight difference in the type and orthography of the title page.[79]
Baillie informs us that Williams’s work did not meet with the approbation of the English Independents. Its toleration was too unlimited for their taste. They were willing to grant liberty only to those sound in fundamentals—the identical views of their brother Congregationalists of America.[80]Yet we are informed in a subsequent work by Mr. Williams, that it operated most beneficially on the public mind. “Theseimagesandcloutsit hath pleased God to make use of to stop no small leaks of persecution, that lately began to flow in upon dissenting consciences, and to Master Cotton’s own, and to the peace and quietness of the Independents, which they have so long and so wonderfully enjoyed.”[81]
In the year 1647, Mr. Cotton attempted a reply to Mr. Williams. He entitled his work, “The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltinesse by just Defence, &c. Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr. Williams’s Answer to Mr. Cotton’s Letter. By John Cotton, Batchelor in Divinity, and Teacher of the Church of Christ at Boston in New England. London. 1647.” 4to. pp. 195 and 144. In the notes of the present volume,[82]various examples are given of the character of this reply, and of the tortuous constructions adopted to escape the home thrusts of Mr. Williams. As compared with Williams’s work it displaysgreat unfairness, and a most lamentable want of Christian temper and spirit—it is “wormwood and gall,” to use Mr. Williams’s own words.
A rejoinder appeared in the year 1652. It is entitled “The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton’s endevour to wash it white in the blood of the Lambe, &c. By R. Williams, of Providence in New-England. London, 1652.” 4to. pp. 373. It is characterized by the kindest tone, the most affectionate spirit, and a considerate treatment of Mr. Cotton’s perversions, errors, and mistakes, which he did not deserve. It is proposed to reprint this volume as necessary to the completeness of the present.
The work it is now the editor’s great pleasure and satisfaction to place in the hands of the subscribers is of great rarity. Butsixcopies are at present known to exist of the original editions. Three of these are in America; two in the Library of Brown University, Rhode Island, and one in the library of Harvard College. Three are in this country; one in the library of the present American Consul, Colonel Aspinall; one in the British Museum; and one in the Bodleian Library. From the latter the present reprint is made by the kind permission of the Librarian. It is a volume of two hundred and forty-seven pages, in small quarto. The original table of Contents is given with the pagination only altered. Mr. Williams’s Reply to Mr. Cotton’s Letter, is of still greater rarity. Two copies are in America; one in Yale College which is much mutilated, and one in the possession of the family of the late Moses Brown, Esq., of Providence. Two are in this country; one in the British Museum, and one in the Bodleian Library, which is also somewhat mutilated. This reprint is from the latter. The proof sheets have been compared with the very fine copy in the British Museum, by my kind friend George Offor, Esq.
E. B. U.
Newmarket House, August 9th, 1848.