Mr. Williams probably preached this doctrine at Salem, and Mr. Endicott deemed it his duty, as a magistrate, to remove from the colors the cross, which was the favorite symbol of Popery.[[73]] Dr. Bentley asserts, that Mr. Williams was the “innocent, though the real cause of it.”[[74]] Mr. Endicott was summoned before the Court, admonished, and declared incapable, for one year, of holding any public office, as a punishment for the act; but neither he, nor the Court, appear to have attributed any blame to Mr. Williams, which we may, without a want of charity, suppose they would have done, if there had been any reasonable pretence.
CHAPTER V.
Proceedings which led to his banishment—freeman’s oath—various charges against him—sentence—birth of his second child—leaves Salem for Narraganset Bay—review of the causes of his banishment.
We will now proceed to narrate the measures which issued in the banishment of Mr. Williams. We shall follow the guidance of Winthrop, as to the facts, because this truly great man wrote without the angry temper which most of the early writers on the subject exhibited.
“1634, Nov. 27. The Court was informed, that Mr. Williams, of Salem, had broken his promise to us, in teaching publicly against the King’s patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country, &c. and for usual terming the churches of England antichristian. We granted summons to him for his appearance at the next Court.” Winthrop, vol. i. p. 151.
We are not informed of the terms of Mr. Williams’ promise, here referred to, and cannot decide how far he had broken it. The epithet which he is said to have applied to the churches in England, might, in his judgment, have been well deserved by many of them. He, of course, referred to the established churches, then practising, as the Puritans believed, idolatrous ceremonies, and under the direction of wicked men. Mr. Cotton, in his “Bloody Tenet Washed,” (p. 109) acknowledges it to be a source of grief to himself and others, “that there is yet so much of those notorious evils still continuing in the parishes, (in England) worldliness, ignorance, superstition, scoffing, swearing, cursing, whoredom, drunkenness, theft, lying; I may add, also, murder, and malignity against the godly, suffered to thrust themselves into the fellowship of the churches, and to sit down with the saints at the Lord’s table.” We may be allowed to think, that Roger Williams was not remarkably bigoted, if he did call such churches as these antichristian, and deem it a sin to hold fellowship with them. He obeyed the summons of the Court:
“1635, Mo. 2, 30.[[75]] The Governor and Assistants sent for Mr. Williams. The occasion was, for that he had taught publicly, that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and very clearly confuted. Mr. Endicott was at first of the same opinion, but he gave place to the truth.” Vol. i. p. 157.
We may repeat, here, what, ought to be constantly borne in mind, that the statements of Mr. Williams’ opinions come, not from himself, but from his opponents. We need not insist on the liability to mistake, in cases where a man’s sentiments are thus disjoined from all those explanations and arguments with which he would himself have accompanied them. In the present case, we are not informed of the precise views of Mr. Williams respecting oaths.[[76]] He had taken the freeman’s oath in 1631. Many others have entertained doubts of the propriety of oaths, in any case, and our laws allow an individual, who feels these scruples, to substitute an affirmation. The unlawfulness of all oaths might be plausibly argued, from the words of our Saviour, Matthew, v. 34, and from those of the Apostle James, v. 12. On this ground, however, they would be equally unlawful to all men, and the distinction which Mr. Williams is said to have made between Christians and unregenerate men could not be sustained. If, however, an oath were considered, as he viewed it, as a religious act, implying devout reverence for the Supreme Being, a fear of His displeasure and desire of His favor, it would not be easy to show how an irreligious man can sincerely take an oath. Mr. Williams had probably seen oaths taken in England with such scandalous levity, and used for purposes so iniquitous, as to awaken in his mind a strong aversion to their being administered indiscriminately to the pious and the profane. We may, nevertheless, admit, that he was unnecessarily scrupulous on this point, without impeaching either his piety or his judgment. The ministers seem to have been satisfied with their success in confuting him. It is usual for disputants to claim the victory. Perhaps if Mr. Williams had recorded the event, he might have told us of the unimpaired vigor of his arguments. We have reason to believe, however, that the offensiveness of Mr. Williams’ opinions respecting oaths consisted not so much in his abstract objections to their use, as in his opposition to the new oath of fidelity which the Court thought proper to require of the citizens. Mr. Cotton[[77]] states the case thus: “The magistrates and other members of the General Court, upon intelligence of some Episcopal and malignant practices against the country, made an order of Court, to take trial of the fidelity of the people, not by imposing upon them, but by offering to them, an oath of fidelity, that in case any should refuse to take it, they might not betrust them with place of public charge and command. This oath, when it came abroad, he (Mr. Williams) vehemently withstood, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, he said, Christ’s prerogative to have his office established by an oath; partly because an oath was part of God’s worship, and God’s worship was not to be put upon carnal persons, as he conceived many of the people to be. So the Court was forced to desist from that proceeding.”
The reasons assigned by Mr. Cotton for Mr. Williams’ opposition to the oath are, we suspect, not all the reasons which really moved him to this course. He probably viewed the act of the Court in absolving the citizens from the oath which they had already taken, and substituting another, as an illegal assumption of power. It might be understood to claim for the Court an authority superior to the charter, for it omitted the clause of the former oath, which required of the subject obedience to laws which should be “lawfully” made by the Court, and, instead of it, obliged men to swear to submit to the “wholesome” regulations which might be established. As the charter prohibited the passage of laws contrary to the laws of England, the first oath bound the citizen to obey the Court only while they adhered to the charter; but the new oath required submission to all the “wholesome” acts of the government, who were, of course, the sole judges of the wholesomeness of their own measures. Mr. Cotton says, that the oath was only offered, not imposed, but it was, by a subsequent act of the Court, enforced on every man above the age of sixteen years, on penalty of punishment at the discretion of the Court.[[78]]
To this oath, under such circumstances, Mr. Williams, as a friend of liberty, was opposed. He would not renounce an oath which he had taken, and substitute another, which bound him to obey whatever laws the magistrates might deem wholesome. The reason assigned for the new oath, moreover, was to guard against “Episcopal and malignant practices.” This gave it the appearance of a law to restrain liberty of conscience; and Mr. Williams’ principles were totally opposed to any measure which tended to that result, however specious its professed object might be.