The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience...

[41] Cotton says, “Some of his friends went to the place appointed by himself beforehand, to make provision of housing and other necessaries against his coming.” Answer p. 8. This, however, is very doubtful.

[42] See p. 388. Knowles, p. 73. Backus, i. 70. Governor Winthrop had privately advised him to leave the colony. The friendship of this eminent man was of frequent service to our exile. Cotton declares that the officer who served the warrant saw “no sign of sickness upon him.” Answer, p. 57. This he might not choose to see.

[43] See p. 370. Knowles, p. 395.

[44] Now called Rehoboth.

[45] Quoted from his “Key,” &c., by Knowles, p. 101.

[46] The land at this spot still bears the designation of “What Cheer.”

[47] The vivid and dramatic poem of Judge Durfee, entitled “What Cheer?” is founded on the supposed events of his journey through this howling wilderness, and amid its savage inhabitants.

[48] Letter to Major Mason. Knowles p. 394, Benedict, p. 449.

[49] This view has been ably advocated by General Fessenden, from whose manuscript some of the above particulars are taken by Benedict, in the new edition of his Hist. of the Baptists, p. 449.

[50] Knowles, p. 103, 112. Backus, i. 90, 94.

[51] Letter to Mason. Knowles, p. 398.

[52] Backus, i. 95, 115. Knowles, p. 148.

[53] Knowles, p. 149, 395.

[54] Knowles, p. 165. Benedict, p. 441. Backus, i. 105.

[55] Backus, i. 107. Knowles, p. 176. Hanbury, iii. 571.

[56] Backus, i. 107, 108. Knowles, p. 170.

[57] As p. 40. Cotton says, he fell “from all ordinances of Christ dispensed in any church way, till God shall stir up himself, or some new apostles, to recover and restore all ordinances, and churches of Christ out of the ruins of anti-christian apostacy.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 2. The insinuation in this passage is both unjust and untrue.

[58] Pp. 4, 379. Knowles, p. 172. Callender’s Historical Discourse, by Dr. R. Elton, p. 101.

[59] Cotton’s Answer, p. 9.

[60] Knowles, p. 181. Callender, p. 159. Backus, i. 112. Bancroft, i. 380. The attachment of the Rhode Islanders to this great principle receives a curious illustration in the case of one Joshua Verin, who was deprived for a time of his franchise for refusing to his wife liberty of conscience, in not permitting her to go to Mr. Williams’s meeting as often as requisite. Backus, i. 95.

[61] Backus, i. 147.

[62] Backus, i. 148. Knowles, p. 198.

[63] Elton, in notes to Callender, p. 230. Knowles, p. 208.

[64] See p. 36.

[65] See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, pp. 214-225.

[66] Bloudy Tenent Washed, p. 1.

[67] Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody, pp. 4, 290. The only edition known to us of the prisoner’s arguments with Mr. Cotton’s reply, is of the date 1646, with the following title: “The Controversie concerning Liberty of Conscience in Matters of Religion, truly stated, and distinctly and plainly handled by Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New England. By way of answer to some arguments to the contrary sent unto him, wherein you have, against all cavils of turbulent spirits, clearly manifested wherein liberty of conscience in matters of religion ought to be permitted, and in what cases it ought not, by the said Mr. Cotton. London. Printed for Thomas Banks. 1646.” It is a quarto pamphlet of fourteen pages, and signed John Cotton, and agrees with Williams’s copy of it in the “Bloudy Tenent.”

[68] See p. 189.

[69] Bloody Tenent Washed, pp. 150, 192.

[70] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, pp. 222, 291.

[71] Mather’s Magnalia, iii. 128, v. 22.

[72] Backus, i. 66.

[73] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 38.

[74] Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614-1661. Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846.

[75] The Second Part of the Vanity and Childishness of Infants’ Baptism. By A. R. p. 27. London, 1642.

[76] In “M. S. to A. S. with a Plea for Liberty of Conscience in a Church Way, &c.” London, 1644. 4to. pp. 110. Also in “Θεομαχία; or, the grand imprudence of fighting against God,” &c., 4to. 1644.

[77] London, 4to. 1644, p. 13. Cotton’s Answer, p. 2. Orme’s Life of Owen, p. 100.

[78] Tracts on Lib. of Conscience, p. 270.

[79] These differences are stated by Mr. Gammell in his Life of Williams, p. 215, to exist in the two copies he has seen in America. The only copies we have seen in this country, are those in the Bodleian Library, and the British Museum; both of which have the table of errata.

[80] Baillie’s Dissuasive. Epist. Introd. ed. 1645. Hanbury’s Memorials, ii. 403; iii. 110, 127.