Such a flight was out of the question. The weight of his name and the protection given his supporters by the power of his family in England could not be dispensed with, and therefore the Boston congregation intervened. After a day’s reflection he seems himself to have become convinced that he had gone too far to recede, so he “expressed himself to be an obedient child to the church and therefore ... durst not go away.” [Footnote: Idem, i. 208.]
That a young and untried man like Vane should have grown weary of his office and longed to escape will astonish no one who is familiar with the character and the mode of warfare of his adversaries.
In that society a layman could not retort upon a minister who insulted him, nor could Vane employ the arguments with which Cromwell so effectually silenced the Scotch divines. The following is a specimen of the treatment to which he was probably almost daily subjected, and the scene in this instance was the more mortifying because it took place before the assembled legislature.
“The ministers had met a little before and had drawn into heads all the points wherein they suspected Mr. Cotton did differ from them, and had propounded them to him, and pressed him to a direct answer ... to every one; which he had promised. ... This meeting being spoke of in the court the day before, the governour took great offence at it, as being without his privity, &c., which this day Mr. Peter told him as plainly of (with all due reverence), and how it had sadded the ministers’ spirits, that he should be jealous of their meetings, or seem to restrain their liberty, &c. The governour excused his speech as sudden and upon a mistake. Mr. Peter told him also, that before he came, within less than two years since, the churches were in peace.... Mr. Peter also besought him humbly to consider his youth and short experience in the things of God, and to beware of peremptory conclusions which he perceived him to be very apt unto.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 209.] This coarse bully was the same Hugh Peters of whom Whitelock afterward complained that he often advised him, though he “understood little of the law, but was very opinionative,” [Footnote: Memorials, p. 521.] and who was so terrified at the approach of death that on his way to the scaffold he had to drink liquor to keep from fainting. [Footnote: Burnet, i. 162.]
“Mr. Wilson” also “made a very sad speech to the General Court of the condition of our churches, and the inevitable danger of separation, if these differences ... were not speedily remedied, and laid the blame upon these new opinions ... which all the magistrates except the governour and two others did confirm and all the ministers but two.” [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 209.] Those two were John Cotton and John Wheelwright, the preachers of the covenant of grace.
Their brethren might well make sad speeches, for their cup of bitterness was full; but they must be left to describe for themselves the tempest of fear and wrath that raged within them. “Yea, some that had beene begotten to Christ by some of their faithfull labours in this land” (England, where the tract was published,) “for whom they could have laid downe their lives, and not being able to beare their absence followed after them thither to New England to enjoy their labours, yet these falling acquainted with those seducers, were suddenly so altered in their affections toward those their spirituall fathers, that they would neither heare them, nor willingly come in their company, professing they had never received any good from them.” ... “Now the faithfull ministers of Christ must have dung cast on their faces ... must be pointed at as it were with the finger, and reproached by name, such a church officer is an ignorant man, and knows not Christ; such an one is under a covenant of works: such a pastor is a proud man, and would make a good persecutor ... so that through these reproaches occasion was given to men, to abhorre the offerings of the Lord.” [Footnote: Welde’s Short Story, Pref. Sections 7-11.]
“Now, one of them in a solemne convention of ministers dared to say to their faces, that they did not preach the Covenant of Free Grace, and that they themselves had not the seale of the Spirit.... Now, after our sermons were ended at our publike lectures, you might have seene halfe a dozen pistols discharged at the face of the preacher (I meane) so many objections made by the opinionists in the open assembly against our doctrine ... to the marvellous weakening of holy truths delivered ... in the hearts of all the weaker sort.” [Footnote: Welde’s Short Story, Pref. Sections 7-11.]
John Wheelwright was a man whose character extorts our admiration, if it does not win our love. The personal friend of Cromwell and of Vane, with a mind vigorous and masculine, and a courage stern and determined even above the Puritan standard of resolution and of daring, he spoke the truth which was within him, and could neither be intimidated nor cajoled. In October an attempt had been made to have him settled as a teacher of the Boston church in conjunction with Wilson and Cotton, but it had miscarried through Winthrop’s opposition, and he had afterward taken charge of a congregation that had been gathered at Mount Wollaston, in what is now Quincy.
On the 19th of January a fast was held on account of the public dissensions, and on that day Wheelwright preached a great sermon in Boston which brought on the crisis. He was afterward accused of sedition: the charge was false, for he did not utter one seditious word; but he did that which was harder to forgive, he struck at what he deemed the wrong with his whole might, and those who will patiently pore over his pages until they see the fire glowing through his rugged sentences will feel the power of his blow. And what he told his hearers was in substance this: It maketh no matter how seemingly holy men be according to the law, if ... they are such as trust to their own righteousness they shall die, saith the Lord. Do ye not after their works; for they say and do not. They make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the borders of their garments; and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues; and greetings in the market place and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved, for being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And the way we must take if so be we will not have the Lord Jesus Christ taken from us is this, we must all prepare a spiritual combat, we must put on the whole armor of God, and must have our loins girt up and be ready to fight, ... because of fear in the night if we will not fight the Lord Jesus Christ may come to be surprised.
And when his brethren heard it they sought how they might destroy him; for they feared him, because all the people were astonished at his doctrine.