man stands shepherd, as to a converted people and flock of Christ, a
dangerous disorder. God’s people must seek after a ministry sent by
Christ to convert.]
This passage I present for two reasons; First because so many excellent
and worthy persons mainly preach for conversion, as conceiving, and
that truly, the body of the people of England to be in a natural and
unregenerate estate; and yet account they themselves fixed and constant
officers and ministers to particular parishes or congregations, unto
whom they also administer the holy things of God, though sometimes few,
and sometimes none regenerate or new born have been found amongst them;
which is a matter of high concernment touching the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the souls of men. Secondly, that in these great earthquakes,
wherein it pleaseth God to shake foundations civil and spiritual,
such a ministry of Christ Jesus may be sought after whose proper work
is preaching, for converting and gathering of true penitents to the
fellowship of the Son of God.
CHAP. XXVI.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cotton.]
The second thing which Mr. Cotton himself hath professed concerning
English preachers is, that “although the word, yet not the seals may
be received from them: because,” saith he, “there is no communion in
hearing, and the word is to be preached to all, but the seals,” he
conceives, and that rightly, “are profaned in being dispensed to the
ungodly, &c.”
[Sidenote: The communion or fellowship of the word taught in a church
estate.]
_Answer._ Mr. Cotton himself maintaineth, that “the dispensing of the
word in a church estate, is Christ’s feeding of his flock, Cant. i. 8:
Christ’s kissing of his spouse, or wife, Cant. i. 2: Christ’s embracing
of his spouse in the marriage bed, Cant. i. 16: Christ’s nursing of his
children at his wife’s breast, Cant. iv.:” and is there no communion
between the shepherd and his sheep? the husband and his wife in chaste
kisses and embraces? and the mother and her child at the breast?
Besides, he confesseth, that that fellowship in the gospel, Phil. i.
5, is a fellowship or communion in the apostles’ doctrine, community,
breaking of bread, and prayer, in which the first church continued, Acts
ii. 46. All which overthrows that doctrine of a lawful participation
of the word and prayer in a church estate, where it is not lawful to
communicate in the breaking of bread or seals.[272]
CHAP. XXVII.
[Sidenote: Eminent ministers, so accounted in Old England, profess
themselves private Christians in New England.]
Thirdly, concerning the lawful commission or calling of English
preachers. Mr. Cotton himself, and others most eminent in New England,
have freely confest, that notwithstanding their former profession of
ministry in Old England, yea, in New England, until they received
a calling from a particular church, that they were but private
Christians.[273]
Secondly, that Christ Jesus hath appointed no other calling to the
ministry, but such as they practise in New England; and therefore
consequently, that all other which is not from a particular congregation
of godly persons, is none of Christ’s.[274]
[Sidenote: False callings or commissions for the ministry.]
As first, a calling or commission received from the bishops.
Secondly, from a parish of natural and unregenerate persons.
Thirdly, from some few godly persons, yet remaining in church fellowship
after the parish way.
Lastly, that eminent gifts and abilities are but qualifications fitting
and preparing for a call or office, according to 1 Tim. iii. Tit. i. All
which premises duly considered, I humbly desire of the Father of lights,
that Mr. Cotton, and all that fear God, may try what will abide the
fiery trial in this particular, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed in
flaming fire, &c.
CHAP. XXVIII.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cotton.]
The close of his letter is an answer to a passage of mine, which he
repeateth in an objection thus: “But this you fear is to condemn the
witnesses of Jesus, the separate churches in London and elsewhere, and
our jealous God will visit us for such arrearages: yea, the curse of
the angel to Meroz will fall upon us, because we come not forth to help
Jehovah against the mighty: we pray not for them, we come not at them,
(but at parishes frequently); yea, we reproach and censure them.”
To which he answereth, “that neither Christ nor his apostles after him,
nor prophets before him, ever delivered that way. That they fear not the
angel’s curse, because it is not to help Jehovah but Satan, to withdraw
people from the parishes where they have found more presence of Christ,
and evidence of his Spirit, than in separated churches: that they pray
not for them, because they cannot pray in faith for a blessing upon their
separation: and that it is little comfort to hear of separated churches,
as being the inventions of men; and blames them, that being desirous of
reformation, they stumble not only at the inventions of men, but for
their sakes at the ordinances of the Lord: because they separate not only
from the parishes, but from the church at Plymouth, and of that whereof
Mr. Lathrop was pastor,[275] who, as he saith, not only refuse all the
inventions of men, but choose to serve the Lord in his own ordinances.
Only, lastly, he professeth his inward sorrow that myself help erring,
though zealous souls, against the mighty ordinances of the Lord, which
whosoever stumble at shall be broken, because whosoever will not kiss the
Son, that is, will not hear and embrace the words of his mouth, shall
perish in their way.”
_Answer._ However Mr. Cotton believes and writes of this point, yet hath
he not duly considered these following particulars.
[Sidenote: The garden of the churches of both Old and New Testament,
planted with an hedge or wall of separation from the world. When God’s
people neglect to maintain that hedge or wall, God hath turned his garden
into a wilderness.]
First, the faithful labours of many witnesses of Jesus Christ, extant to
the world, abundantly proving, that the church of the Jews under the Old
Testament in the type, and the church of the Christians under the New
Testament in the antitype, were both separate from the world; and that
when they have opened a gap in the hedge, or wall of separation, between
the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever
broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, &c. and made his
garden a wilderness, as at this day. And that therefore if he will ever
please to restore his garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be
walled in peculiarly unto himself from the world, and that all that shall
be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of
the world, and added unto his church or garden.[276]
[Sidenote: The nonconformist’s grounds necessarily enforce a separation
of the church from the unclean, in clean and holy things.]
Secondly, that all the grounds and principles leading to oppose bishops,
ceremonies, common prayer, prostitution of the ordinances of Christ to
the ungodly, and to the true practice of Christ’s own ordinances, do
necessarily, as before I intimated, and Mr. Canne hath fully proved,
conclude a separation of holy from unholy, penitent from impenitent,
godly from ungodly, &c; and that to frame any other building upon such
grounds and foundations, is no other than to raise the form of a square
house upon the keel of a ship, which will never prove a soul saving true
ark or church of Jesus Christ, according to the pattern.
[Sidenote: The great suffering for this cause.]
Thirdly, the multitudes of holy and faithful men and women, who since
Queen Mary’s days have witnessed this truth by writing, disputing, and
in suffering loss of goods and friends, in imprisonments, banishments,
death, &c.—I confess the nonconformists have suffered also; but they that
have suffered for this cause, have far exceeded, in not only witnessing
to those grounds of the nonconformists, but to those truths also, the
unavoidable conclusions of the nonconformists’ principles.
[Sidenote: Mr. Cotton’s and others’ zealous practice of separation in New
England. Mr. Cotton allowing liberty to frequent those parishes in Old
England: which parishes he himself persecutes in New England.]
Fourthly, what is that which Mr. Cotton and so many hundreds fearing
God in New England walk in, but a way of separation? Of what matter do
they profess to constitute their churches, but of true godly persons?
In what form do they cast this matter, but by a voluntary uniting, or
adding of such godly persons, whom they carefully examine, and cause to
make a public confession of sin, and profession of their knowledge and
grace in Christ?[277] Nay; when other English have attempted to set up
a congregation after the parishional way, have they not been suppressed?
Yea; have they not professedly and lately answered many worthy persons,
whom they account godly ministers and people, that they could not permit
them to live in the same commonwealth together with them, if they set
up any other church and worship than what themselves practise?[278]
Let their own souls, and the souls of others seriously ponder in the
fear of God, what should be the reason why themselves so practising,
should persecute others for not leaving open a gap of liberty to escape
persecution and the cross of Christ, by frequenting the parishes in Old
England, which parishes themselves persecute in New England, and will not
permit them to breathe in the common air amongst them.
[Sidenote: A great mystery in the escaping of the cross of Christ.]
Fifthly, in the parishes, which Mr. Cotton holds but the inventions of
men,[279] however they would have liberty to frequent the worship of the
word, yet they separate from the sacraments; and yet, according to Mr.
Cotton’s own principles, as before, there is as true communion in the
ministration of the word in a church estate as in the seals: what mystery
should be in this, but that here also the cross or gibbet of Christ may
be avoided in a great measure, if persons come to church, &c.
[Sidenote: The New English churches pretended by some to be purer than
the first established by the apostles.]
Lastly, however, he saith, he hath not found such presence of Christ,
and evidence of his Spirit in such churches, as in the parishes: what
should be the reason of their great rejoicings and boastings of their
own separations in New England, insomuch that some of the most eminent
amongst them have affirmed that even the apostles’ churches were not so
pure? Surely if the same New English churches were in Old England, they
could not meet without persecution, which therefore in Old England they
avoid by frequenting the way of church worship, which in New England they
persecute—the parishes.
[Sidenote: The reformation desired now had been accounted heresy in
Edward the Sixth’s days.]
Upon these considerations, how can Mr. Cotton be offended that I should
help (as he calls them) any zealous souls, not against the mighty
ordinances of the Lord Jesus, but to seek after the Lord Jesus without
halting? Yea; why should Mr. Cotton, or any desirous to practise
reformation, kindle a fire of persecution against such zealous souls,
especially considering that themselves, had they so inveighed against
bishops, common prayer, &c., in Edward the Sixth’s days, had been
accounted as great heretics, in those reforming times, as any now can
be in these? yet would it have been then, and since hath it been, great
oppression and tyranny to persecute their consciences, and still will it
be for them to persecute the consciences of others in Old or New England.
[Sidenote: Persecution is unjust oppression wheresoever.]
How can I better end than Mr. Cotton doth, by warning, that all that will
not kiss the Son, that is, hear and embrace the words of his mouth, shall
perish in their way, Ps. ii. 12. And I desire Mr. Cotton, and every soul
to whom these lines may come, seriously to consider in this controversy,
if the Lord Jesus were himself in person in Old or New England, what
church, what ministry, what worship, what government he would set up, and
what persecution he would practise toward them that would not receive
Him?[280]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Bancroft’s Hist. of U. S. i. 342. Knowles’ Life of R. Williams, p. 31.
[2] See Broadmead Records, Introd. p. xxii.
[3] Neal’s Hist. of N. England, i. 141, 144. Baillie’s Dissuasive, p. 66.
Mather’s Magnalia, i. 19.
[4] Neal, i. 144. Bancroft, i. 350. Cotton Mather’s Magnalia, book i. p.
19. Backus’ Hist. of Baptists in New England, i. 45.
[5] Knowles, p. 37.
[6] Bancroft, i. 367.
[7] Knowles, p. 23, 391. Backus, i. 508.
[8] “Master Cotton may call to mind that the discusser [Williams], riding
with himself and one other of precious memory, Master Hooker, to and
from Sempringham, presented his arguments from scripture, why he durst
not join with them in their use of Common Prayer.” Bloody Tenent more
Bloody, p. 12. See also pp. 43 and 374 of the present volume. Baillie’s
Dissuasive, p. 55.
[9] In his letter to Major Mason, he refers to “King James, whom I have
spoke with.” Knowles, p. 31.
[10] Such is Governor Winthrop’s testimony. Knowles, p. 46.
[11] Welde’s Answer to W. R. p. 10. 4to. 1644.
[12] Backus, i. 54, 57.
[13] See pp. 287, 247, 353. Knowles, pp. 45, 49. Backus, i. 49. Bancroft,
i. 360. At Taunton, the minister, Mr. Streete, “publicly and earnestly
persuaded his church members to give land to none but such as might be
fit for church members: yea, not to receive such English into the town.”
Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 283. By a subsequent law no church could be
constituted without the sanction of the magistrates: and the members of
any church formed without it, were deprived of the franchise. Backus, i.
77.
[14] See pp. 247, 287, 353, &c. “Mr. Cotton effectually recommended,
that none should be elected nor electors therein, except such as were
visible subjects of our Lord Jesus Christ, personally confederated in our
churches.” Mather’s Magnalia, b. iii. p. 21.
[15] Backus, i. 54. Knowles, p. 50.
[16] Knowles, p. 53. Mr. Cotton, in his Answer to Roger Williams, tells
us that “elder Brewster warned the whole church of the danger of his
spirit, which moved the better part of the church to be glad of his
removal from them into the Bay.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 4.
[17] Mather’s Magnalia, iii. 20. Cotton’s Way of Cong. Churches, pp. 16,
30.
[18] Knowles, pp. 42, 43. “It was requested of Mr. Cotton,” says his
descendant Cotton Mather, “that he would from the laws wherewith God
governed his ancient people, form an abstract of such as were of a moral
and lasting equity; which he performed as acceptably as judiciously....
He propounded unto them, an endeavour after a theocracy, as near as might
be to that which was the glory of Israel, the peculiar people.” Magnalia,
iii. 20. Backus, i. 79.
[19] Knowles, p. 57, 61. Master John Cotton’s Answer to Master Roger
Williams, p. 4. This is usually bound up with the “Bloudy Tenent Washed,”
and cited as part II.: it is, however, a separate piece, and separately
paged, and is Cotton’s Answer to the second treatise in this volume.
[20] Cotton’s Answer, p. 4. Knowles, p. 61. Mather, vii. 7. Backus, i. 57.
[21] Knowles, p. 66.
[22] So Winthrop. Knowles, pp. 68-70. Backus, i. 67, 68. See also p. 422
of this volume. Cotton’s Answer, p. 4.
[23] See p. 372. Cotton’s Answer, pp. 5, 9. Cotton treats his sickness as
a “check from the hand of God,” p. 56.
[24] See pp. 387, 388. Bancroft, i. 373.
[25] Knowles, pp. 71, 72. The sentence was as follows:—“Whereas Mr. Roger
Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and
divulged divers new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of
magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates
and churches here, and that before any conviction, and yet maintaineth
the same without any retractation; it is therefore ordered that the said
Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks, now
next ensuing, which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the
governor and two of the magistrates to send him to some place out of this
jurisdiction, not to return any more without licence from the Court.”
Backus, i. 69, 70.
[26] Cotton’s Answer, p. 26.
[27] Cotton’s Answer, pp. 27-30.
[28] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 276.
[29] Bancroft, i. 327.
[30] See pp. 249, 257, 262. Mr. Cotton pleads that anabaptists and others
were not compelled _against_ conscience; nor were they punished for
conscience’ sake; but for _sinning_ against conscience. Tenent Washed,
pp. 165, 189; Backus, i. 98.
[31] See pp. 186, 331; Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 122. By the law of
September 6, 1638, the time was extended to six months. Backus, i. 45,
98; Bancroft, i. 349.
[32] “The Lady Moody, a wise and amiable religious woman, being taken
with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt withal by many
of the elders and others, and admonished by the church at Salem.” To
avoid more trouble, she went amongst the Dutch; but was excommunicated.
In 1651, the Rev. J. Clarke and Mr. O. Holmes, of Rhode Island, for
visiting a sick baptist brother in Massachusetts, were arrested, fined,
imprisoned, and whipped. At an earlier period, they had been compelled to
leave Plymouth for their opinions. Mr. Cotton approved of this. Backus,
i. 146, 207, 225.
[33] Williams’s Letter to Endicot. Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 305. See
p. 245.
[34] “Whilst he lived at Salem, he neither admitted, nor permitted
any church members but such as rejected all communion with the parish
assemblies, so much as in hearing the word amongst them.” Cotton’s
Answer, p. 64. See p. 397 of this volume.
[35] “The substance of the true estate of churches abideth in their
congregational assemblies.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 109. Cotton refers here
to the parish congregations.
[36] See pp. 243, 244, 392. Mather’s Magnalia, i. 21.
[37] Cotton charges Williams with attempting to draw away the Salem
church from holding communion with all the churches of the Bay, “because
we tolerated our members to hear the word in the parishes of England.”
Tenent Washed, p. 166.
[38] See p. 246. Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 230.
[39] It must have reached Williams _after_ his settlement at Providence.
Cotton, in 1647, says he wrote it about “half a score years ago,” which
would give the date of 1637.
[40] See p. 377. Cotton’s Answer, p. 8, 9, 13, 36-39. “I did never intend
to say that I did not consent to the justice of the sentence when it was
passed.”
[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.
[81] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 38.
[82] The two parts of this work are quoted in the notes to this volume,
as “Cotton’s Reply,” and “Cotton’s Answer.”
[83] [See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, p. 217.
Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846.]
[84] Essay of Religion. [Eos qui conscientias premi, iisque vim inferri
suadent, sub illo dogmate, cupiditates suas subtexere, illamque rem sua
interesse, putare. De Unitate Ecclesiæ.]
[85] It is rarely seen that ever persons were persecuted for their
conscience, but by such persecution they were confirmed and hardened in
their conscience.
[86] [See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, pp. 214-224.]
[87] Sozom. lib. 1. Eccles. Hist. chap. 19, 20. [Fleury, Eccles. Hist.
Liv. xi. c. 23. “The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote
provinces of Illyricum.... The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of
controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to
inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the
enemies of Christ.” Gibbon, Decline and Fall, p. 317. 8vo. edit.]