Chapter VII: The World-Wide Influence of Roger Williams’ (2)

Gorton wrote his side of the question in “Simplicities Defence,” in which he referred to his persecutors as “That Servant so Imperious in his Master’s Absence Revived.” This is another indictment against the persecuting Puritans by one who found shelter in the Baptist colony of Rhode Island.

_SIMPLICITIES DEFENCE_

against

SEVEN-HEADED POLICY.

OR

Innocency Vindicated, being unjustly Accused,

and sorely Censured, by that

_Seven-headed Church-Government_

United in

NEW-ENGLAND:

OR

That Servant so Imperious in his Masters Absence

Revived, and now thus re-acting in NEW-ENGLAND.

OR

The combate of the United Colonies, not onely against some of the
Natives and Subjects, but against the Authority also of the Kingdme of
_England_, with their execution of Laws, in the name and Authority of
the servant, (or of themselves) and not in the Name and Authority of
the Lord, or fountain of the Government.

Wherein is declared an Act of a great people and Country of the
_Indians_ in those parts, both Princes and People (unanimously) in
their voluntary Submission and Subjection unto the Protection and
Government of Old England (from the Fame they hear thereof) together
with the true manner and forme of it, as it appears under their own
hands and seals, being stirred up, and provoked thereto, by the
Combate and courses above-said.

Throughout which Treatise is secretly intermingled, that great
Opposition, which is in the goings forth of those two grand Spirits,
that are and ever have been, extant in the World (through the sons of
men) from the beginning and foundation thereof.

_Imprimatur, Aug. 3ᵈ. 1646._ Diligently perused, approved, and
Licensed to the Presse, according to Order by publike Authority.

_LONDON_,

Printed by _John Macock_, and are to be sold by LUKE FAVVNE, at his
shop in _Pauls Church-yard_, at the sign of the _Parrot_. 1646.

THE STORY OF THE FIRST CHARTER

As the colony grew, it was found necessary that there should be some vested authority which would command respect from the neighbors. Notwithstanding what Williams had done for the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies in connection with the Pequot War, and the personal friendships he had with the governors, they would not consider that he or his had any separate colony rights whatever. He had been their Joseph driven from home and country by hostile brethren. In exile, he became the savior of his brethren from a dreadful massacre by the Indians. Nevertheless, Plymouth claimed jurisdiction over all the plantations in Narragansett Bay, and Massachusetts claimed it over Providence, Pawtuxet, and Shawomet. The Dutch had formed a trading-post at Dutch Island and elsewhere and could strike a blow at the colony at any time. Out of these conditions grew the demand for a charter. Roger Williams, at a great personal sacrifice, went to England from Manhattan, now New York City, because the two colonies to the north forbade his departure from their ports.

Arriving in England, he found the country in the midst of the great Civil War. King Charles was powerless because Parliament controlled the realm. Parliament had placed colonial interest in charge of a committee of which the Earl of Warwick was chairman or “Governor in Chief, and Lord High Admiral of the Colonies.” From this council a charter was granted, March 17, 1644. The colony was incorporated as “Providence Plantations” and embraced the territory now covered by the State of Rhode Island. There was granted to the inhabitants of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport, a

free and absolute charter of incorporation ... together with full power and authority to govern themselves and such others as shall hereafter inhabit within any part of said tract of land by such form of civil government as by the voluntary consent of all or the greatest part of them shall be found most serviceable to their estate and condition, etc.

Upon the return of Williams, the inhabitants of Providence, learning of his approach, came out in fourteen canoes to meet him at the Seekonk. They traveled over the historic course which he had traveled six years before when he was an exile. Now in triumph they escorted their beloved leader to home and native town. A picture of his return with the charter, by Grant, is on the walls of the Court House at Providence.

The earliest published work of Mr. Williams is entitled,

A KEY INTO THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA: or, an help to the Language of the Natives in that part of America, called New-England. Together, with briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners and Worships, etc. of the aforesaid Natives, in Peace and Warre, in Life and Death. On all which are added Spirituall Observations, Generall and Particular by the Authour, of chiefe and speciall use (upon all occasions) to all the English Inhabiting those parts; yet pleasant and profitable to the view of all men: By Roger Williams of Providence in New-England. London, Printed by Gregory Dexter, 1643.

It was written at sea, en route to England, in the summer of 1643. Copies of the original edition are in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, the British Museum, also in the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Harvard College, Brown University, and the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. It comprises two hundred and sixteen small duodecimo pages, including preface and table.

The second published work of Roger Williams is entitled, “Mr. Cottons Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered. By Roger Williams of Providence, in New-England. London, Imprinted in the Yeere 1644.” Mr. Cotton had sought to “take off the edge of Censure from himself”--that he was no procurer of the sorrow which came to Williams in his flight and exile. It is a small quarto of forty-seven pages, preceded by an address of two pages. The letter referred to was written by John Cotton, and was published in London, 1643. The author vindicated the act of the magistrates in banishing Roger Williams from Massachusetts. He denies that he himself had any agency in it. It consists of thirteen small quarto pages. Good copies of both the Letter and the reply are in the Library of Brown University. Two copies of the reply are in England, one in the British Museum, the other in Bodleian Library. A mutilated copy of the reply is also in the Library of Yale College.

Roger Williams wrote also, when in England, securing the Charter for Rhode Island, a work entitled, “The Bloudy Tenent, of Persecution for cause of Conscience, discussed.” It is considered the best written of all his works. These discussions were prepared in London,

for publike view, in charge of roomes and corners, yea, sometimes in variety of strange houses, sometimes in the fields, in the midst of travel, where he hath been forced to gather and scatter his loose thoughts and papers.

It is written in an animated style and has the adornment of beautiful imagery. Original copies are rare, eight only are known to exist, one in the British Museum, one in Bodleian Library, one in Brown University Library, one in Harvard College Library.

Mʳ Cottons

LETTER

Lately Printed,

EXAMINED

AND

ANSVVERED:

By _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_
In
_New·England_.

LONDON,
Imprinted in the yeere 1644.

THE

BLOVDY TENENT,

of PERSECUTION, for cause of
CONSCIENCE, discussed, in

_A_ Conference _betweene_
TRVTH and PEACE.

WHO,

In all tender Affection, present to the High
Court of _Parliament_, (as the _Result_ of
their _Discourse_) these, (amongst other
_Passages_) of _highest consideration_.

Printed in the Year 1644.

This work is based on a Baptist publication, entitled “An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty, as it was presented 1620.” This latter was a clear and concise argument against persecution and for liberty of conscience. It was written by Murton, or some other London Baptist, who was imprisoned in Newgate for conscience sake. His confinement was so rigid that he was denied pen, paper, and ink. A friend in London sent him sheets of paper, as stoppers for the bottles containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts on these sheets with milk, returning them to his friends as stoppers for the empty bottles. They were held to the fire and thus became legible. Roger Williams based his book on the argument of this “Humble Supplication.”

In such Paper written with _Milk_ nothing will appeare, but the way of reading it by _fire_ being knowne to this _friend_ who received the Papers, he transcribed and kept together the Papers, although the _Author_ himselfe could not correct, nor view what himselfe had written.

It was in _milke_, tending to soule _nourishment_, even for _Babes_ and Sucklings in _Christ_.

It was in _milke_, spiritually _white_, pure and innocent, like those _white horses_ of the _Word_ of _truth_ and _meeknesse_, and the _white Linnen_ or _Armour_ of _rightousnesse_, in the _Army_ of _Jesus_. _Rev._ 6. & 19.

It was in _milke_, soft, meeke, peaceable and gentle, tending both to the _peace_ of _soules_, and the _peace_ of _States_ and Kingdomes.

[Sidenote: The Answer writ in Bloud.]

_Peace._ The _Answer_ (though I hope out of milkie pure intentions) is returned in _bloud_: _bloudy_ & slaughterous _conclusions_; _bloudy_ to the _souls_ of all men, forc’d to the _Religion_ and _Worship_ which every civil State or Common-weale agrees on, and compells all subjects to in a dissembled _uniformitie_.

Bloudy to the _bodies_, first of the holy _witnesses_ of _Christ Jesus_, who testifie against such invented worships.

Secondly, of the _Nations_ and Peoples slaughtering each other for their severall respective Religions and Consciences.

* * * * *

The little band which settled Providence on that June day, 1636, had grown into a large town. With other towns they suffered the same injustice from neighboring colonies. The assembly in Newport, September 19, 1642, which intrusted the work of securing a charter to Williams, was in reality fusing together these separate groups, which had a common enemy and common principles, into a State. The Town of Providence, a great monument to Roger Williams, must now give way to the State of Rhode Island, which was destined to become a still larger monument to the ideals of this great exponent of civil and religious liberty, “a liberty which does not permit license in civil matters in contempt of law and order.”

III

THE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY

Roger Williams must forever rank as one of the great epoch-makers of the world, and to him impartial historians accord the honor of being the first democrat. It was not until his expulsion from Salem Colony that he became a Baptist, but the evidence is indisputable that he had long been a Baptist at heart. He had spent much time among the Baptists in England and was familiar with their doctrines and writings. No sooner had Williams set foot in America than he found himself in conflict with the authorities, both civil and religious.--_S. Z. Batten, in “The Christian State.”_

There is not a confession of faith, nor a creed, framed by any of the Reformers, which does not give the magistrate a coercive power in religion, and almost every one at the same time curses the resisting Baptists.--_E. B. Underhill, in “Struggles and Triumphs.”_

Godly princes may lawfully issue edicts for compelling obstinate and rebellious persons to worship the true God and to maintain the unity of the faith.--_Calvin._

Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did ordeyne as a fit government eyther for Church or Commonwealth.... As for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both of them clearly approved, and directed in Scripture.--_John Cotton._

It is said that Men ought to have Liberty of their Conscience, and that it is Persecution to debar them of it; I can stand amazed than reply to this: It is an astonishment to think that the brains of men should be parboiled in such impious ignorance.--_Rev. Nathaniel Ward, Lawyer Divine, of Ipswich, who drew up the first legal code for Massachusetts Bay Colony._

THE HISTORIC CUSTODIANS OF SOUL-LIBERTY

Roger Williams, both minister and citizen, probably led the Providence planters in their religious activities. He was neither identified with the Established Church of England, nor in sympathy with the intolerance of the new established order at Boston and Salem, or even the one at Plymouth. He was a Separatist of the most pronounced type, and that was exactly the accredited Baptist position. He was one with the Baptists in his ideas concerning a complete separation from the State Church of England, one with them in the absolute separation of Church and State, one with them in insisting upon a regenerate church-membership. So according to the logic of the situation he turned to the Baptist movement. He may have been instructed as to their position by Mrs. Scott (the sister of the Antinomian, Mrs. Ann Hutchinson), who came to Providence shortly before the baptism of Williams. Roger Williams had been accused of tendencies toward the Anabaptists while in Plymouth, Salem, and Boston. Before he met Mrs. Scott, however, he held the Baptist positions of the time. It is not unlikely that she, being an intelligent Baptist, showed Williams the remarkable similarity between his position and that of the Baptists. Some time before March, 1639, Williams was baptized. In the absence of a Baptist minister, Ezekiel Holliman, an exile from Salem, baptized Roger Williams, who in turn baptized Mr. Holliman and some ten others. Like the disciple band of old the Baptist movement in Providence and America commenced with a band of twelve disciples. Their names are as follows: Roger Williams, Ezekiel Holliman, William Arnold (?),[1] William Harris, Stukely Westcott, John Green, Richard Waterman, Thomas James, Robert Cole, William Carpenter (?), Francis Weston, and Thomas Olney. Thus was organized the First Baptist Church in America.

[1] The “?” is after Arnold’s name in First Baptist Church Register.

Great was the consternation in Salem when news reached there of the baptism of Williams and others who had been members of their church. The Puritan church took action at once. The letter announcing to the church at Dorchester the exclusion of the offenders is interesting:

REVEREND AND DEARLY BELOVED IN THE LORD:

We thought it our bounden duty to acquaint you with the names of such persons, as have had the great censure passed upon them, in this our church, with the reasons thereof, beseeching you in the Lord, not only to read their names in public to yours, but also to give us the like notice of any dealt with in like manner by you, so that we may walk toward them accordingly, for some of us here have had communion ignorantly with some of other churches. 2 Thess. 3:14. We can do no less than have such noted as disobey the truth.

Roger Williams and his wife, John Throckmorton and his wife, Thomas Olney and his wife, Stukely Westcott and his wife, Mary Holliman, Widow Reeves.

These wholly refused to hear the church, denying it, and all the churches in the Bay, to be true churches, and (except two) are all rebaptized.

After some time Roger Williams left the Baptist church he had organized in Providence. Because of this fact many have asked the question, “Was Roger Williams after all a Baptist?” His life-story reveals the fact that he held the Baptist views before he left Plymouth. Elder Brewster detected the Baptist heresy in his teaching to the people of the Pilgrim colony and warned the leaders of the Bay Colony of this tendency to “Anabaptistery.” Williams’ ministry in the Bay Colony reveals the fact that he was against everything which was related to the Episcopacy or that might even lead to a “presbytery.” He refused to minister to the Boston church because it was related to the Episcopal State Church of England. He also questioned the propriety of the ministers’ conference in New England, for fear they might establish a presbytery which would rob the local church of its congregational privileges. His whole life in America was universally true to the accepted Baptist position relative to church polity.

At the time of Williams’ baptism, English Baptists were agitated in regard to the proper administrators of Christian baptism. Many crossed to the Continent and were baptized by ministers in Holland. Williams was soon troubled also in regard to the same question. Was he properly baptized? That was the question which confronted him. He would not juggle with his conscience. He knew of no Baptist minister or baptized believer ordained to the ministry in America when he was baptized. His own baptism was by an unbaptized person. He made diligent study of the question and could not satisfy his mind that there was a real succession of proper administrators. In the awful decline of the church he was convinced that the sacred succession had been broken. He believed that either that succession must be in existence, or God must raise up a new “apostolate,” to commence again the sacred succession. True to principle, he felt he must withdraw from the church at Providence. In the years which followed nothing which he said or did ever changed the facts that he was the first recognized pastor of the first Baptist church that was organized in America, that he was the first known case in America of a believer being immersed upon profession of faith into the fellowship of a local Baptist church, and that he was the organizer of the first Baptist church in America.

In the years which followed his separation from the church at Providence, he left no uncertainty as to his Baptist views on every question save that of the proper administrator of baptism and its kindred subject of ordination. In all other views he was a loyal Baptist until his death. In his day, the Baptists were divided into two recognized divisions, namely, Particular and General Baptists. Dr. Henry M. King, of Providence, one of the successors of Roger Williams in the pastorate of the Providence church, describes Roger Williams as a “High-church Baptist.”

The late Reuben A. Guild, for many years librarian of Brown University Library, and a thorough student of the original sources of information, writes thus of Roger Williams in his history of Brown University:

In regard to the other great doctrines held by the Baptists, liberty of conscience, or soul-liberty, the entire separation of Church and State, the supreme headship of Christ in all spiritual matters, regeneration through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and a hearty belief in the Bible as God’s divinely inspired and miraculously preserved word and the all-sufficient rule for faith and practice, he was throughout life a sincere believer in them all and an earnest advocate of them, as his letters and published works abundantly show.

In Williams’ book, “Christenings make not Christians,” we have the most radical Baptist teaching in regard to the errors of infant sprinkling. He attacked the very foundation of the pedobaptists. He insisted that only the regeneration of the heart, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, could make any person a Christian.

He believed that believers’ immersion is the New Testament baptism. In a letter to Governor Winthrop, dated December 10, 1649, he writes:

Mr. John Clarke hath been here lately and hath dipped them. I believe their practice comes nearer the practice of our great Founder, Jesus Christ, than any other practices of religion do.

In his debate with Fox, he writes thus, eleven years prior to his death:

That gallant and heavenly and fundamental principle of the true matter of a Christian congregation, flock or society, namely, actual believers, true disciples and converts, such as can give an account of how the grace of God hath appeared unto them.

We should think of Roger Williams as a man chosen of God to be champion of a great distinctive Baptist doctrine held by the Baptists centuries prior to his day and taught by the Baptists after his time until it was made an essential part of our national Constitution. Released from pastoral duties, Roger Williams gave himself completely to the task of establishing and guarding the sacred fires of soul-liberty which he had kindled in Rhode Island. For this sacred cause he sacrificed his comfortable home at Salem and devoted the earnings of a lifetime in trips to England to secure parliamentary protection for the colony when envious neighbors on all sides were coveting his purchased possessions. He sacrificed his opportunity to become wealthy and died a poor man. All honor to John Clarke, physician and pastor at Newport, for the splendid cooperation which he gave to Williams. They were comrades, not rivals for fame in those days. They were happy in life and should not be made enemies in death. Their names should be linked together as the pioneers and perfecters of soul-liberty in Rhode Island.

Christenings

make not

CHRISTIANS,

OR

A Briefe Discourse concerning that
name _Heathen_, commonly given to
the INDIANS.

_As also concerning that great point of their
CONVERSION._

_Published according to Order._

_London_, Printed by _Iane Coe_, for I. H. 1645.

THE HISTORY OF THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH

The early Providence Baptists met at first in a grove under the trees. In inclement weather they would meet in private homes. They adopted no articles of faith, and to this day the First Church of Providence has been without a formal creed or covenant. For sixty years the church founded by Roger Williams had no house of worship. Pardon Tillinghast, its sixth pastor, built them a house of worship in 1700 and deeded it to the Society in 1711. It stood on the corner of North Main and Smith Streets. A larger church, forty feet square, built in 1726, succeeded this first edifice. The present edifice was built in 1775, and was dedicated “for the worship of Almighty God and to hold commencements in.” It cost $35,000, a part of which was raised by a lottery, authorized by the State. The building was designed by Joseph Brown and James Sumner, who used as a model Gibb’s church in London, _St. Martin-in-the-Fields_. It is recognized as one of the finest examples of colonial architecture in America.

It has a beautiful interior. The upper gallery at the west end was originally set apart for slaves and colored people. It was removed to give place for the pipe-organ in 1832. The same year the old-fashioned square pews were exchanged for the present ones; the lofty pulpit and sounding-board were taken down. The beautiful crystal chandelier, imported from England in 1792 was lighted for the first time when Hope Brown, daughter of Nicholas Brown, was married to Thomas Poynton Ives. It was the bride’s gift to the church.

The bell in the tower weighs two thousand five hundred pounds, and bore originally this inscription:

For freedom of conscience the town was first planted;
Persuasion, not force, was used by the people;
This church is the eldest, and has not recanted,
Enjoying and granting bell, temple, and steeple.

It has been cracked three times and recast in this country. It now bears the date of the origin of the church, and the name of Roger Williams, “its first pastor and the first asserter of liberty of conscience.” The bell is rung at sunrise, at midday, and at nine o’clock as in the days of old.

In the vestries are pictures of many of the former leaders of this historic church. In the hallway, in a glass case, is a piece of the original “What Cheer Rock,” the landing-place of Williams. At the entrance to the church a bronze tablet commemorates the fact that the First Baptist Church of Providence was the first Baptist church established in America and that Roger Williams was its first pastor.

The present organization, known as the First Baptist Church of Providence, has every valid reason for claiming to be the true successor of the original church, organized before 1639, by Roger Williams. In the Rhode Island Baptist State Annual the date of the church’s organization is given as 1638. A committee appointed by the church, when reporting, on March 16, 1899, the reasons for claiming that the present organization is the true successor of the first Baptist church organized in America, quoted in defense of this position the following writers: Arnold, “History of Rhode Island”; Caldwell, “History of the First Baptist Church”; Guild, “History of Brown University and Manning”; Prof. Geo. P. Fisher, of Yale, “In Colonial Era”; Cramp, “Baptist History”; Dexter, “As to Roger Williams”; Morgan Edwards, “Materials for a History of Baptists in Rhode Island.” In the following fall this report was also presented to the Warren Association and was ordered printed in the Minutes of the Association.

In the “Historical Catalogue” of this church, a book prepared by a committee consisting of Rev. H. M. King, D. D., Pres. W. H. P. Faunce, Prof. Wm. C. Poland, and others, a committee familiar with the original sources of information, we find Roger Williams listed as the first member in its list of members and as the first pastor in its list of pastors. The bronze tablet in front of the present meeting-house and the inscription on the bell both state that Roger Williams was the first pastor.

ROGER WILLIAMS’ IDEAL, A DISTINCTIVE BAPTIST PRINCIPLE

We have already noted the fact that Roger Williams was accused of Anabaptist tendencies. The Baptists, or Anabaptists, throughout the ages have stood for the most advanced principles of Protestantism. They existed long before Luther. Many historians claim for them a historic continuity from the days of the early Christians. Their principles--democracy of the local church, sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the authority of the Scriptures--have been perpetuated by local distinct bodies rather than by the historic continuity of a general denomination with a common name and a common governing body.

The Master, in the parable of the Tares, taught the principle advocated by the Baptists and by Roger Williams. The field is the world; the good seed, the children of the kingdom; the tares are the evil-doers. Wheat and tares should be allowed to grow together in the world (not in the church) until the end of the age, when the angels, the reapers of God, will gather them together for reward or punishment. Force must never be used to make disciples for Christ.

In the early Christian centuries, the church longed for liberty to live for Christ and preach his gospel. Ten great general persecutions were launched by the Roman emperors to crush the church. The promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against it was realized. The Edict of Milan, issued in 313, by Constantine and Licinius, joint emperors, gave the church an opportunity to grow and prosper and it was soon in the lead throughout the Roman Empire. Then the church turned persecutor and put to death those who differed from the ruling order, which now had lost its democratic ideals. When the Montanists, the Donatists, the Paulicians, the Albigenses, and the Waldenses in turn resisted the evil tendencies and assumptions of a corrupt church, they were persecuted with a fierceness greater than that formerly waged by the pagans against the church. The principle of religious liberty was almost lost. It became the far-off dream of idealists. These dreamers were usually called Anabaptists. At first they were dissenters from Roman Catholicism, but afterward they were also dissenters from the dominant forms of Protestantism.

The Protestant Reformation was a case of arrested development. It was like the exodus from the Egyptian bondage. There was a long lingering in the wilderness before the day dawned with full religious liberty. Henry Melville King says:

The absolute supremacy of the word of God, the spiritual nature of the Christian church, the Christian ordinances for believing souls, the divorce of Church and State, full, unrestricted religious freedom for every man, these essential truths of the gospel of Christ found no room at the inn of the sixteenth century, and were thrust aside into the manger ... the inn was not open for it, but the manger was. The principle of religious liberty did not fail to get born.

The Anabaptists of Europe kept alive the ideals of religious liberty. They sought to carry out the principles of the Protestant Reformation to its scriptural and logical conclusion. Many, called by this name, had little in common with the movement which now bears the Baptist name. The actions of the fanatics under Münzer have been cited since Williams’ day as an argument against his principles. Münzer, who “never submitted to, nor administered rebaptism, who persisted in baptizing infants, and who sought to set up the kingdom of Christ by carnal warfare, was not correctly classed.” Cornelius, Roman Catholic historian of the Münzer uprising, shows that the Anabaptists repudiated the actions of this fanatic.

The only crime of which they (the Baptists) were accused as a body by their contemporaries, and which is substantiated by evidence, the crime for which they were inhumanly persecuted by Catholics and Protestants alike, and for which they went cheerfully and in large numbers to death by drowning or the stake, was the crime of advocating soul-liberty. They claimed the right to interpret the Scriptures for themselves. They demanded freedom of faith and worship for all men. They apprehended the sublime doctrine of civil and religious liberty, and they were _the only_ men who did apprehend it.

Most of the creeds and confessions of the Reformation gave to the magistrate a coercive power in religion, and included a curse for the despised Baptists. Luther, in the early years of his Reformation work, said:

No one can command or ought to command the soul except God, who alone can show it the way to heaven. It is futile and impossible to command, or by force to compel any man’s belief. Heresy is a spiritual thing, which no iron can hew down, no fire burn, no water drown... Whenever the temporal power presumes to legislate for the soul, it encroaches.

Luther, when he was successful, turned his back upon this noble utterance and compromised with error. He stopped short of full victory and failed to secure the “full splendor of a complete triumph.” He wrote differently in after days:

Since it is not good that in one parish the people should be exposed to contradictory preaching, he (the magistrate) should order to be silent whatever does not consist with the Scriptures.

Thus the civil ruler was made the final judge of truth and given power to suppress what he would condemn. This was a case of tyranny changing hands. Luther wrote to Menius and Myconius in 1530:

I am pleased that you intend to publish a book against the Anabaptists as soon as possible. Since they are not only blasphemous but also seditious men, let the sword exercise its rights over them, for it is the will of God, that he shall have judgment who resisteth the power.

Melanchthon, in a letter to the Diet at Hamburg, in 1537, advised death by the sword to all who professed Anabaptist views. Zwingli, the Swiss Reformer, whose statue in Zurich pictures him with a Bible in his right hand and a sword in his left, also persecuted the Baptists. On January 5, 1527, Felix Mantz became the first Swiss Anabaptist martyr by drowning at Zurich. This was a hideous parody of his belief in believers’ baptism by immersion. Heinrich Bullinger, in his book against the Anabaptists, specifies thirteen distinct sects among the Anabaptists. He mentions twenty-five points of agreement among them, including the following:

That secular authority has no concern with religious belief; that the Christian resists no evil and therefore needs no law-courts; nor should ever make use of the tribunals; that Christians do not kill or punish with imprisonment or the sword, but only with exclusion from the body of believers; that no man should be compelled by force to believe, nor should any be slain on account of his faith; that Christians do _not_ resist, and hence do not go to war; that Christians may not swear; that all oaths are sinful; that infant baptism is of the pope and devil; that rebaptism, or better, adult baptism, is the only true Christian baptism.

In 1527, the Swiss Anabaptists issued a confession of faith at Schaffhausen. Its writer was Michael Sattler, an ex-monk who was martyred that same year. It was the first confession “in which Christian men claimed absolute religious freedom for themselves, and guaranteed absolute religious freedom to others.” This Baptist movement was the target of Protestant and Catholic persecution alike and its brave, spiritual men and women were driven to the martyr’s crown or to exile. Many fled to Holland. The torch of truth, the advanced ideas which they had received from the Waldensians and other pre-Reformation movements, were handed over to the Anabaptists of Holland. These increased in number rapidly under the toleration afforded them in that country. Menno Simons, a Roman priest, set to thinking by the martyrdoms about him, espoused their cause and doctrines. Baptized at the age of forty-four, he fled to Holland, where he became the leader of a host, which afterward bore his name, being called Mennonites. Charles V persecuted these Baptists, and fully fifty thousand were martyred. They were not exterminated, however, for God, as in other days, preserved a remnant to pass the torch of religious liberty on to others.

Baptist refugees from Holland crossed over to England. Henry VIII, when he made himself head of the Church, ordered their arrest and banishment from the kingdom, “on pain to suffer death, if they abide, and be apprehended and taken.” The fires of Smithfield and the inquisition of the Protestants could not crush this movement destined of God, at a later date, to change the world. Considered an obnoxious sect in the reigns of Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, they carried on their meetings secretly. They were an industrious class of skilled mechanics and introduced into England that which afterward gave that nation its commercial and manufacturing supremacy. The English passed a law that each foreign workman should take and train one English apprentice. As a result, fifty thousand English lads were trained, not only mechanically, but also in the principles of these Dutch Anabaptists. This spiritual training led to the Puritan revolution in England and to the greater movement across the seas. Each of these Dutch Baptist churches was a republic in itself, independent with its popularly elected officers, deacons, and elders. They held, as a cardinal doctrine, the separation of Church and State. From the sections in which these Dutch Anabaptists lived came fully fifty per cent of the early colonists to the New World. Fourteen English towns, in which they formed a large proportion of the population, are duplicated by New England towns of the same name. From the same district Cromwell recruited his invincible Ironsides. Back of all that was good and noble in the settlements at Plymouth and Boston and in Connecticut was the leaven of the Dutch Baptists in that part of England from which these early colonists came.

Robert Browne, who is the reputed founder of English Congregationalism, advocated his peculiar views after dwelling for some time in a Dutch Anabaptist community. Here he promulgated his ideas. A part of his congregation fled to Middleburg, a Baptist stronghold. After two years he quarreled with these folks and returned to England, where he became reconciled to the Established Church and for forty years afterward administered to an Established Church parish. The Baptist principle, however, had been stamped upon the few years of his ministry when he started a new order.

At the close of the sixteenth century most of the Anabaptists in England were Dutch. Slowly, however, English Baptists were coming into existence, and they soon formed themselves into small groups. Browne did not go so far as the Baptists, but in church government he took their New Testament position. As far as is known, the first definite English Baptist church was organized in London in 1611, with Thomas Helwys as pastor. The members had been exiles in Holland and were baptized there by Rev. John Smith, the famous Se-Baptist, formerly a Church of England clergyman.

This English Baptist church formulated a confession which contains the first declaration of faith to include, as the teaching of Christ, the absolute separation of Church and State.

The magistrate by virtue of his office, is not to meddle with religion or matters of conscience, nor to compel men to this or that form of religion or doctrine; but to leave the Christian religion free to every man’s conscience.

Prof. Mason says:

It was, in short, from their little dingy meeting-house, somewhere in old London, that there flashed out, first in England, the absolute doctrine of religious liberty.

These of whom mention has just been made, were called General Baptists.

In 1644, the Particular Baptists issued a confession, equally explicit and clear. Religious liberty to them was the right, and good citizenship the duty, of every Christian man. Their historic confession, a confession of seven associated churches, was the first declaration, in England or in Christendom, by a body of associated churches on the question of absolute religious liberty. Many of these Baptists were imprisoned.

Many denominations which today favor religious liberty, were opposed to it in those days of Baptist persecution. For example, the Presbyterian ministers of Lancashire declared, “A toleration would be putting a sword in a madman’s hands, a cup of poison into the hand of a child, a letting loose of madmen with firebrands in their hands, etc.” The Presbyterians, then, would gladly have been a national church. The Puritans of the Bay Colony had no higher thought than a theocracy for themselves. To insure uniformity of worship in their colony they resorted to whippings, banishments, fines, and hangings. The Pilgrim Fathers were farther advanced, but historians fail to find that they had a higher ideal than to secure a freedom to worship God for themselves. They certainly never dreamed of extending an equal freedom to all who differed from them in religious opinions. John Robinson, the renowned pastor of the Pilgrims, defended earnestly the use of the magistrate’s power “to punish religious actions, he (the magistrate) being the preserver of both tables, and so to punish all breaches of both.”

By Protestants, with the exception of the Baptists, full religious toleration and liberty was feared and hated. The most advanced were far from the Baptist position. This explains the bitterness of the persecution against Roger Williams and the Baptists. In fact, Roger Williams was so far in advance of his age, and that in common with the noble host of martyred Baptists, that he seemed dwarfed in the distance. The future even more than the present time will enable us to value his and their worth.

IV

SOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH

It is his unique title to preeminence and fame that he was the first to found an absolutely free church in an absolutely free State, and Rhode Island and Providence Plantations remain a monument of his sagacity and daring and penetration, a center from which the light of soul-liberty has radiated far and wide till it has flooded a whole continent, and shines with concentrated splendor in the constellation of States which now form the great Western Republic.--_J. Gregory, a British writer on Puritanism._

Against the somber background of early New England, two figures stand above the rest--John Winthrop and Roger Williams. The first--astute, reactionary, stern--represented Moses and the law. The second--spontaneous, adaptable, forgiving--represented Christ and the individual. It is needless to say with which lay the promise and the dawn.--_I. B. Richman._

He was the first man in modern Christendom to establish civil government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions before the law, and in its defence he was the harbinger of Milton, the precursor and the superior of Jeremy Taylor.... Let then the name of Roger Williams be preserved in universal history as one who advanced moral and political science, and made himself a benefactor of his race.--_George Bancroft, in “History of the United States.”_

In the seventeenth century there was no place but the wilderness for such a John the Baptist of the distant future as Roger Williams. He did not belong among the diplomatic builders of churches, like Cotton, or the political founders of States, like Winthrop. He was but a babbler to his own time, but the prophetic voice rings clear and far, and ever clearer as the ages go on.--_Edward Eggleston, in “The Beginners of a Nation.”_

SOUL-LIBERTY AT HOME IN A COMMONWEALTH

Portsmouth, Newport, and Rhode Island, with common interests and ideals, were protected and throve under the original charter granted in 1644. Charles I was surrendered to the Parliamentary forces in January, 1647. The colony, therefore, felt strong to act under the Parliamentary charter granted them. A general assembly of the people was called, and the charter was adopted. Shawomet, settled by the Gortonists, had also received a charter from the same source and, in honor of Warwick, their protector, they changed the name of their town to Warwick. They were admitted also to the General Assembly. The first meeting of the Assembly declared that the form of government in Providence Plantations was “democratical,” that is to say, “government held by the free and voluntary consent of all or of the greater part of the free inhabitants.” The seal of the colony was an anchor. The executive branch of the government was vested in a president of the colony and four assistants, one from each town. These officers, elected by the General Assembly, had no part in legislation. The Assembly at that time was not composed of delegates, but included all the freemen of the colony. Each town had a court of commissioners composed of six members. These four town courts combined became a General Court of Trials, having to do with the weightier offenses, and also acted as a Court of Appeals from the town courts. There was also a general treasurer, a general recorder, a general sergeant, and later a general solicitor.

A code of laws was drawn up. One, the Statute of Archery, shows the isolation of this colony. It required that every man between seventeen and seventy should keep a bow and four arrows. Fathers should furnish each of their sons, between the ages of seven and seventeen, with “a bow, two arrows, and a shaft, and to bring them up to shooting.” This was done because the colony could not get gunpowder for firearms, since the other colonies refused to sell them any, or allow it to be exported through their posts to them.

The Fourth Paper,

Presented by

Maior Butler,

To the Honourable Committee of
Parliament, for the Propagating the
Gospel of _Christ_ JESUS.

VVhich Paper was humbly owned, and
was, and is attended to be made good

{ Major _Butler_. } { Mr. _Jackson_.
By { Mr. _Charles Vane_. } { Mr. _VVall_. And
{ Col. _Danvers_. } { Mr. _Turner_.

ALSO

A Letter from Mr. _Goad_, to Major
BUTLER, upon occasion of the said
PAPER and PROPOSALS.

_Together with_

A Testimony to the said fourth Paper,
By way or Explanation upon the four
PROPOSALS of it.

_BY_ R. W.

Unto which is subjoyned the Fifteen Proposals
of the MINISTERS.

_London_, Printed for _Giles Calvert_, at the Black-spred-Eagle at the
West-end of _Pauls_. _M DC LII._

ROGER WILLIAMS’ SECOND VISIT TO ENGLAND

The ambitious designs of Coddington in seeking to divide the colony were such that Williams and Clarke were obliged to go to England in 1651. Coddington had secured a charter making him governor for life of Rhode Island, then the richest portion of the State. Williams and Clarke in 1652 secured an order-in-council nullifying Coddington’s commission. Williams remained in England until the summer of 1654 and labored there for the interests of the colony and also for the general benefit of all oppressed people, including the Jews. In his appeal to the Parliament, found as a comment in the tract entitled “Butler’s Fourth Paper,” an original copy of which is in the John Carter Brown Library, at Providence, he says:

Oh, that it would please the Father of Spirits to affect the heart of Parliament with such a merciful sense of the Soul-Bars and Yokes which our fathers have laid upon the neck of this nation, and at last to proclaim a true and absolute Soul-Freedom to all the people of the land impartially, so that no person be forced to pray nor pay, otherwise than as his Soul believeth and consenteth.

He plead especially that permission be granted the Jews “to live freely and peaceably amongst them.”

He was on intimate terms with Milton, to whom he read and from whom he received instruction in certain languages. He also was associated with Sir Henry Vane. Returning to his colony in 1654, he at once exercised his influence in smoothing out its many and varied difficulties.

During this second visit to England he issued three publications. John Cotton had written a reply to the “Bloody Tenent,” publishing it in London, in 1647. It had the following title:

The Bloudy Tenent, washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of bloud-guiltinesse by just Defence.

Roger Williams in 1652 printed his rejoinder to Cotton’s book. Its title is descriptive of its contents:

The Bloody Tenent yet More Bloody: by Mr Cottons endevour to wash it white in the Blood of the Lambe; of whose precious Blood, spilt in the Blood of his Servants; and of the blood of Millions spilt in former and later Wars for Conscience sake, that Most Bloody Tenent of Persecution for cause of Conscience, upon a second Tryal, is found now more apparently and more notoriously guilty, etc., etc. By R. Williams of Providence in New-England. London, Printed for Giles Calvert, and are to be sold at the black-spread-Eagle, at the West-end of Pauls, 1652.

It is a small quarto of three hundred and seventy-three pages. Two copies are in the Library of Brown University, one, a presentation copy from Williams to his friend, Dr. John Clarke, of Newport.

THE

BLOUDY TENENT,

_WASHED_,

And made white in the bloud of the
Lambe: being discussed and discharged of
bloud-guiltinesse by just Defence.

WHEREIN

The great Questions of this present time are
handled, _viz._ How farre Liberty of Conscience
ought to be given to those that truly feare God? And how farre
restrained to turbulent and pestilent persons, that not onely
raze the foundation of Godlinesse, but disturb the Civill
Peace where they live? Also how farre the Magistrate may proceed
in the duties of the first Table? And that all Magistrates
ought to study the word and will of God, that they may frame
their Government according to it.

DISCUSSED.

As they are alledged from divers Scriptures, out of
the Old and New Testament. Wherein also the practise of
Princes is debated, together with the Judgement of Ancient
and late Writers of most precious esteeme.

_Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr._ WILLIAMS
Answer, to Mr. COTTONS Letter.

_BY_ JOHN COTTON Batchelor in Divinity, and
Teacher of the Church of Christ at _Boston_ in _New-England_.

_LONDON_,
Printed by _Matthew Symmons_ for _Hannah Allen_, at the _Crowne_ in
_Popes-Head_-Alley. 1647.

THE

BLOODY TENENT

YET

More Bloody:

BY

Mr _Cottons_ endevour to wash it white in the
BLOOD of the _LAMBE_;

Of whose precious Blood, spilt in the
Blood of his Servants; and

Of the blood of Millions spilt in former and
later Wars for Conscience sake,

THAT

Most Bloody Tenent of Persecution for cause of
Conscience, upon a second Tryal, is found now more
apparently and more notoriously guilty.

In this Rejoynder to Mr _Cotton_, are principally

I. _The Nature of Persecution_, }
} Examined;
II. _The Power of the Civill Sword }
in Spirituals_ }

III. _The Parliaments permission of_ } Justified.
_Dissenting Consciences_ }

Also (as a Testimony to Mʳ _Clarks_ Narrative) is added
a Letter to Mr _Endicot_ Governor of the _Massachusets_ in _N. E._

By R. WILLIAMS of _Providence_ in _New-England_.

_London_, Printed for _Giles Calvert_, and are to be sold at
the black-spread-Eagle at the West-end of _Pauls_, 1652.

Roger Williams published his fifth work in 1652. It was a pamphlet of forty-four small quarto pages, entitled:

The Hireling Ministry None of Christs, or A Discourse touching the Propagating the Gospel of Christ Jesus. Humbly Presented to such Pious and Honourable Hands, whom the present Debate thereof concerns. By Roger Williams, of Providence, in New England. London Printed in the second Moneth, 1652.

The purpose of this work was to oppose a legal establishment of religion, and the compulsory support of the clergy. An original copy is in the Library of Brown University, two copies are in the American Antiquarian Society Library at Worcester, and one in the John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R. I.

The same year he issued a pamphlet entitled:

Experiments of Spiritual Life & Health, And their Preservatives, In which the weakest Child of God may get Assurance of his Spirituall Life and Blessednesse, and the Strongest may finde proportionable Discoveries of his Christian Growth, and the means of it. By Roger Williams of Providence in New-England. London, Printed, in the Second Month, 1652.

This book is in the form of a letter addressed to his wife, upon her recovery from a dangerous sickness. A limited edition was published, comprising sixty small quarto pages. For years no original copy has been found. There is an original copy now in the John Carter Brown Library at Providence, R. I.

The

Hireling Ministry

_None of_

CHRISTS,

OR

A Discourse touching the Propagating
the Gospel of CHRIST
JESUS.

_Humbly Presented to such Pious
and Honourable Hands, whom
the present Debate thereof concerns._

_By_ ROGER WILLIAMS, _of_ Providence
in New England.

_London_ Printed in the second
Moneth, 1652.

EXPERIMENTS

OF

Spiritual Life & Health,

And their

PRESERVATIVES

In which the _Weakest_ Child of _God_ may
get _Assurance_ of his Spirituall _Life_
and _Blessednesse_

And the _Strongest_ may finde proportionable _Discoveries_
of his _Christian Growth_, and the _means_ of it.

By _Roger Williams_ of _Providence_ in
_New-England_.

London, Printed, in the Second Month,
1652.

From time to time local difficulties arose in the various towns. Ambitious men, seeking their personal welfare, rather than the public weal, disturbed the serenity of the colony. Certain settlers at Pawtuxet sought to be part of the Bay Colony; Coddington, at Newport, desired to be governor for life of the Islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut. Two rival assemblies were organized at Newport and Providence. Roger Williams used his influence and greatly helped to solve the vexing problems. A new colony, with a new and revolutionary ideal, was being born, and the birth-throes were great, owing to the fact that they were pioneers in this work of building a democracy. They had no illustrious precedent to follow. It is a marvel that their difficulties were not more and greater.

In 1656, the United Colonies urged the Providence Colony to banish all Quakers from their realm. They replied that “_FREEDOM of Conscience is the ground of our charter, and it shall be maintained_.” In 1658, the United Colonies threatened the Providence Colony with exclusion from all intercourse or trade with all the rest of the colonies, if they did not banish the Quakers. Meanwhile the Bay Colony was unrelenting in its persecution of the Quakers. Some were banished, and a few were put to death.

In September, 1658, Cromwell died. His son Richard succeeded him, and after a short time retired. Charles II ascended the English throne in June, 1660. Immediately all acts of the Parliament under Cromwell were repealed, and Providence Plantations lost its charter. The Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut colonies immediately asserted anew their claims for the territory about the Narragansett Bay. Dr. John Clarke, of Newport, was in England representing the claims of the Providence Colony, and, in 1663, secured for it a new royal charter. The old Colony of Providence Plantations ceased to exist. The new colony was called “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” The charter defined the bounds of the colony, gave it freedom in all religious matters, a system of government, a power to organize courts and to enforce their decisions, power to raise a standing army of defense, and other essential things. The new seal of the colony was “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations” with an anchor and the word, “Hope,” above it.

George Fox

Digg’d out of his

Burrovves,

Or an Offer of

DISPUTATION

On fourteen _Proposalls_ made this last Summer 1672 (so call’d)
unto _G. Fox_ then present on _Rode-Island_
in _New-England_, by _R.W._

As also how (_G. Fox_ slily departing) the Disputation went on
being managed three dayes at _Newport_ on _Rode-Island_, and
one day at _Providence_, between _John Stubs, John Burnet, and
William Edmundson_ on the one part, and _R.W._ on the other.

In which many _Quotations_ out of _G. Fox_ & _Ed. Barrowes_ Book
in _Folio_ are alleadged.

WITH AN

APENDIX

Of some scores of _G. F._ his simple lame Answers to his Opposites
in that Book, quoted and replyed to
By R. W. of _Providence_ in N.E.
_Roger Williams_

BOSTON
Printed by _John Foster_, 1676.

The Model of a Southern New England Indian Village

Oval House of Birch Bark and Mats Corn-field

Women Smoking Fish

Round House of Grass Long Council Chamber Making a Long House

Indian Men Feeding Dogs