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.
E. B. U.
_Newmarket House, August 9th, 1848._
A TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS OF THE BOOK.
PAGE.
[SYLLABUS OF THE WORK 1
ADDRESS TO PARLIAMENT 3
ADDRESS TO EVERY COURTEOUS READER 7
SCRIPTURES AND REASONS AGAINST PERSECUTION 10
MR. JOHN COTTON’S ANSWER TO THE AFORESAID ARGUMENTS 19]
A REPLY TO THE AFORESAID ANSWER OF MR. COTTON.
Truth and Peace, their rare and seldom meeting 31
Two great complaints of Peace 33
Persecutors seldom plead Christ but Moses for their author 34
Strife, Christian and unchristian 34
A threefold doleful cry 35
The wonderful providence of God in the writing of the arguments
against persecution 36
A definition of persecution discussed 37
Conscience will not be restrained from its own worship, nor
constrained to another 38
A chaste soul in God’s worship compared to a chaste wife 38
God’s people have erred from the very fundamentals of visible
worship 39
Four sorts of spiritual foundations in the New Testament 39
The six fundamentals of the Christian religion 40
The coming out of Babel not local, but mystical 40
The great ignorance of God’s people concerning the nature of a
true church 41
Common prayer written against by the New English ministers 43
God’s people have worshipped God with false worships 43
God is pleased sometimes to convey good unto his people beyond
a promise 44
A notable speech of King James to a great nonconformist turned
persecutor 45
Civil peace discussed 45
The difference between spiritual and civil state 46
Six cases wherein God’s people have been usually accounted
arrogant, and peace breakers, but most unjustly 48
The true causes of breach and disturbance of civil peace 52
A preposterous way of suppressing errors 53
Persecutors must needs oppress both erroneous and true consciences 53
All persecutors of Christ profess not to persecute him 55
What is meant by the heretic, Tit. iii. 58
The word _heretic_ generally mistaken 59
Corporal killing in the law, typing out spiritual killing in
the gospel 62
The carriage of a soul sensible of mercy, towards others in their
blindness, &c. 64
The difference between the church and the world, wherein it is,
in all places 65
The church and civil state confusedly made all one 66
The most peaceable accused for peace breaking 67
A large examination of what is meant by the tares, and letting
of them alone 68
Satan’s subtlety about the opening of scripture 69
Two sorts of hypocrites 74
The Lord Jesus the great teacher by parables, and the only
expounder of them 75
Preaching for conversion is properly out of the church 76
The tares proved properly to signify anti-christians 77
God’s kingdom on earth the visible church 78
The difference between the wheat and the tares, as also between
these tares and all others 78
A civil magistracy from the beginning of the world 79
The tares are to be tolerated the longest of all sinners 81
The danger of infection by permitting of the tares, assoiled 82
The civil magistrate not so particularly spoken to in the New
Testament as fathers, masters, &c., and why? 85
A twofold state of Christianity: persecuted under the Roman
emperors, and apostated under the Roman popes 85
Three particulars contained in that prohibition of Christ Jesus
concerning the tares, _Let them alone_, Matt. xiii. 86
Accompanying with idolaters, 1 Cor. v. discussed 88
Civil magistrates never invested by Christ Jesus with the power and
title of defenders of the faith 92
God’s people [Israel] ever earnest with God for an arm of flesh 93
The dreadful punishment of the blind Pharisees in four respects 94
The point of seducing, infecting, or soul-killing, examined 96
Strange confusions in punishments 100
The blood of souls, Acts xx., lies upon such as profess the
ministry: the blood of bodies only upon the state 100
Usurpers and true heirs of Christ Jesus 101
The civil magistrate bound to preserve the bodies of their
subjects, and not to destroy them for conscience’ sake 103
The fire from heaven, Rev. xiii. 13, 2 Tim. ii. 25, 26, examined 104
The original of the Christian name, Acts xi. 105
A civil sword in religion makes a nation of hypocrites, Isa. x. 107
A difference of the true and false Christ and Christians 109
The nature of the worship of unbelieving and natural persons 109
Antoninus Pius’s famous act concerning religion 110
Isa. ii. 4, Mic. iv. 3, concerning Christ’s visible kingdom,
discussed 110
Acts xx. 29, the suppressing of spiritual wolves, discussed 112
It is in vain to decline the name of the head of the church, and
yet to practise the headship 114
Titus i. 9, 10, discussed 115
Unmerciful and bloody doctrine 116
The spiritual weapons, 2 Cor. x. 4, discussed 117
Civil weapons most improper in spiritual causes 118
The spiritual artillery, Eph. vi., applied 119
Rom. xiii., concerning civil rulers’ power in spiritual causes,
largely examined 121
Paul’s appeal to Cæsar, examined 128
And cleared by five arguments 128
Four sorts of swords 131
What is to be understood by _evil_, Rom. xiii. 4 133
Though evil be always evil, yet the permission of it may sometimes
be good 136
Two sorts of commands, both from Moses and Christ 138
The permission of divorce in Israel, Matt. xix. 17, 18 138
Usury in the civil state lawfully permitted 139
Seducing teachers, either pagans, Jewish, Turkish, or
anti-christian, may yet be obedient subjects to the civil laws 141
Scandalous livers against the civil state 142
Toleration of Jezebel and Balaam, Rev. ii. 14, 20, examined 143
The Christian world hath swallowed up Christianity 145
Christ Jesus the deepest politician that ever was, yet commands
he a toleration of anti-christians 149
The princes of the world seldom take part with Christ Jesus 150
Buchanan’s item to King James 151
King James’s sayings against persecution 151
King Stephen’s, of Poland, sayings against persecution 152
Forcing of conscience a soul-rape 152
Persecution for conscience hath been the lancet which hath let
blood the nations. All spiritual whores are bloody 152
Polygamy, or the many wives of the fathers 153
David advancing of God’s worship against order 153
Constantine and the good emperors, confessed to have done more
hurt to the name and crown of Christ, than the bloody Neros did 154
The language of persecutors 156
Christ’s lilies may flourish in the church, notwithstanding the
weeds in the world permitted 156
Queen Elizabeth and King James, their persecuting for cause of
religion examined 157
Queen Elizabeth confessed by Mr. Cotton to have almost fired the
world in civil combustions 158
The wars between the papists and the protestants 159
The wars and success of the Waldensians against three popes 159
God’s people victorious overcomers, and with what weapons 160
The Christian church doth not persecute, but is persecuted 160
The nature of excommunication 161
The opinion of ancient writers examined concerning the doctrine
of persecution 163
Constraint upon conscience in Old and New England 164
The Indians of New England permitted in their worshipping of devils 165
In two cases a false religion will not hurt 167
The absolute sufficiency of the sword of the Spirit 168
A national church not instituted by Christ 169
Man hath no power to make laws to bind conscience 169
Hearing of the word in a church estate a part of God’s worship 173
Papists’ plea for toleration of conscience 173
Protestant partiality in the cause of persecution 174
Pills to purge out the bitter humour of persecution 175
Superstition and persecution have had many votes and suffrages
from God’s own people 176
Soul-killing discussed 176
Phineas’s act discussed 179
Elijah’s slaughters examined 180
Dangerous consequences flowing from the civil magistrate’s power
in spiritual cases 183
The world turned upside down 184