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

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 consumed cannot 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 me to steer my course to the Narraganset Bay. I took his prudent motion, and waiving all other thoughts and emotions I steered my course from Salem, though in winter snow, into these parts.” Again, “It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this bay;” which words would seem only applicable to a voyage by water. “I was sorely tossed for 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 journeyed by 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 trading was 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 so fallen 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 accounted delinquents 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 Henry Vane, 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 is democratical, 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 indissolubly allied 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 of Roger Williams a 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 the gospel, 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. Williams already printed, who, therefore, conceiving that being printed they were no longer private papers, 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 “blustering charge” 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 of one uniform order of 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 or publisher. 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 distractions and 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 what is 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. “These images and clouts it 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 displays great 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. But six copies 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.