Mr. Williams had received notice of the design of the Court, and had left Salem, in quest of a quiet refuge in the neighborhood of Narraganset Bay. It appears, that Governor Winthrop had privately advised him to leave the colony, as a measure, which the public peace required, and by which the personal interests of Mr. Williams might ultimately be best promoted. The good of the Indians, also, was a motive which operated on both their minds. Mr. Williams says, in a letter which has already been quoted: “It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this Bay, by the loving private advice of the ever honored soul, Mr. John Winthrop, the grandfather, who, though he were carried with the stream for my banishment, yet he tenderly loved me to his last breath.” The same fact is asserted, in the letter to Major Mason,[[84]] and the advice of Governor Winthrop is ascribed to “many high, and heavenly, and public ends.” The friendship of the Governor was manifested on various occasions, and he afterwards united with Mr. Williams in the purchase of the island of Prudence in Narraganset Bay.
The removal, however, if it might on general grounds have been expedient, was not now optional. Without considering the justice or injustice of his banishment, there was certainly great hardship in being forced from his home in the middle of winter. His second daughter was born in the latter part of October, 1635,[[85]] and was consequently an infant less than three months old, while his eldest child was but a little more than two years of age. The mother and her two infants he left behind. His house and land at Salem he mortgaged, to raise money for the supply of his wants.[[86]] With a heavy heart must this exiled husband and father, and this affectionate pastor, have parted from his family and flock, and plunged into the wilderness, to endure the wintry storms, and to try the hospitality of the savages.
We have thus briefly examined the reasons assigned by the mild and candid Winthrop for the expulsion of Mr. Williams from Massachusetts. We have seen, that these reasons related almost entirely to opinions, which the magistrates thought to be dangerous, and which the clergy opposed as tending to schism. It is satisfactory to observe, however, that these opinions did not refer to any of the great principles of the Gospel. The religious doctrines which Mr. Williams preached before his banishment were the same as those of Cotton and Hooker. He was not accused, while at Plymouth or at Salem, of any deviation from the established principles of the churches, on points of faith, much less was there any impeachment of his moral character. It is confessed, by the most bitter of his opponents, that both at Plymouth and at Salem, he was respected and beloved, as a pious man, and able minister.
What was there, then, it may be inquired, in the opinions of Mr. Williams, which was so offensive to the rulers in church and state? His denial of the right to possess the lands of the Indians without their own consent, needed not to disturb the colonists, for they purchased their lands from the natives. His ideas of the unlawfulness of oaths, and of the impropriety of praying with unregenerate persons, and other harmless notions of this kind, were surely too unimportant to excite the fears and provoke the ire of the government. We are led to the conclusion, that the cause of Mr. Williams’ banishment is to be found in the great principle which has immortalized his name, that THE CIVIL POWER HAS NO JURISDICTION OVER THE CONSCIENCE. This noble doctrine, which the Scriptures clearly teach, and which reason itself proclaims, was, at that time, viewed, by most men, to be as heterodox, in morals, as the Copernican theory was considered by the Inquisition to be false in philosophy; and he who maintained it was liable to the fate of Galileo. The Papists abhorred it, for it would have subverted the Papal throne. The English Church rejected it, for it would have wrested from the hierarchy its usurped authority, and led the Church away from the throne of an earthly monarch to the footstool of the King of kings, as her only head and sovereign. The Puritans themselves disowned it, for they were so firmly convinced of the truth of their doctrines, that they deemed him, who was so obstinate as not to embrace them, to be worthy of punishment for acting in opposition to his own conscience.[[87]] They refused to conform to the ceremonies of the English Church, but it was because they believed those ceremonies to be idolatrous, and not because they denied to men the power to enforce the belief of doctrines and the practice of rites. They opposed the Prelates, but they believed that a similar sway might be safely intrusted to their own hands. They resisted and for a while triumphed over the Lords Bishops, but they forgot that the despotism of the Lords Brethren, as Blackstone termed them, might be quite as intolerable. They did not understand the nature of that liberty which the Gospel bestows. They were misled by the analogies which they drew from the Mosaic institutions, and felt it to be their duty to extirpate heresy, with as unsparing rigor, as the Jews were required to exercise against those who despised or violated their ritual.
The character of the Puritans has been greatly misunderstood on this point, and there has been much common-place declamation respecting their bigotry and inconsistency in persecuting others, after having suffered persecution themselves. But a candid mind, which understands their principles, will not, while it must lament and condemn their conduct, use the language of harsh censure. They were so far from believing, that liberty of conscience in religious concerns ought to be extended to all men, that they regarded toleration as a crime. They argued, that they ought to promote truth, and oppose error, by all the methods in their power. If they were able to suppress false doctrines, it was, they believed, a solemn duty to God to employ force, if necessary, for their suppression. They thought, that he who permitted error to be believed and preached, was chargeable with a participation in the guilt. Intolerance became, in their view, a paramount duty to God and to the heretic himself; and the greater their love of God and of truth, the greater was their zeal to extirpate, with a strong hand, every noxious weed from the garden of the Lord.[[88]] It was not, therefore, a bigoted preference merely for their own views which made them persecute others, but a conviction that they only embraced the truth, and that all opposing doctrines were pernicious, and must not be allowed. It was not, in their judgment, inconsistent to act thus towards others, after having themselves endured persecution; for they regarded themselves as having been sufferers for the truth, and they were urged, by these very sufferings, to be more faithful in upholding that truth, and suppressing what they deemed to be error. It is due to the Pilgrims to remember, that they acted from principles, erroneous certainly, and deplorable in their effects, but sincerely adopted and cherished in hearts which, nevertheless, glowed with love to God. The grand doctrine of LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE was then a portentous novelty, and it was the glory of Roger Williams, that he, in such an age, proclaimed it, defended it, suffered for it, and triumphantly established it.
The principles of Roger Williams stood in the attitude of irreconcilable opposition to the system which the Pilgrims had established in New-England. They could not blend with it. They came into collision with it, at every point. We have accordingly seen, that Mr. Williams was continually at variance with the government, because their measures were adjusted to their settled policy, but were repugnant to his great doctrine. There could be no peace between them, unless he yielded, or they abandoned their system. He was firm, and they were unconvinced. They possessed the power, and they banished him; not so much to punish him, as to remove from the colony a man whose doctrines they believed to be wrong, whose influence they feared, and whom they could neither intimidate nor persuade to abandon his principles.
It is intimated by Dr. Bentley,[[89]] that the rivalry of Salem and Boston had some effect to induce a rigorous treatment of Mr. Williams. He had great influence in Salem. He had drawn thither some persons from Plymouth, and it was, perhaps, feared, that his popularity gave an importance to Salem, which might be prejudicial to the metropolis.
It is due to the principal actors in these scenes, to record the fact, of which ample evidence exists, that personal animosity had little, if any, share in producing the sentence of banishment. Towards Mr. Williams, as a Christian and a minister, there was a general sentiment of respect. Governor Winthrop was a generous friend to him throughout his life; and it is asserted by Dr. Bentley, that “had Governor Winthrop been at liberty to concur with Endicott, and not have been deterred by the competition of Boston and Salem, Williams would have lived and died at Salem.”
Mr. Haynes was Governor at the time Mr. Williams was banished, and Mr. Winthrop lost for a while his salutary influence over the public councils.[[90]] He endeavored, at a subsequent period, to procure a repeal of the sentence of banishment against Mr. Williams; but a more rigid policy prevailed, and the founder of Rhode-Island continued till his death an outlaw from Massachusetts.
Mr. Cotton was, at that time, the most powerful man in the commonwealth; and well did his piety, learning and intrepid love of pure religion merit the respect and affections of the colonists. Whatever share he may have had in procuring the banishment of Mr. Williams,[[91]] it is certain, that there was no personal feud between them. They had been acquainted with each other in England, and had alike suffered from the intolerance of the Prelates. Mr. Cotton sincerely thought Mr. Williams’ principles wrong, and dangerous to the church and the state. He felt it to be the duty of the government to protect the colony, by removing from it this source of peril. In the controversy which subsequently arose between Mr. Cotton and Mr. Williams, the latter uniformly spoke of Mr. Cotton in the most respectful terms;[[92]] a circumstance, which is the more remarkable, because at that day the style of polemic discussion was less decorous than it is at the present time, and disputants lavished upon each other, with unsparing virulence, the bitterest epithets of obloquy. While we lament, therefore, that a man of so many admirable qualities as Mr. Cotton, was misled by wrong views of religious liberty, and thus betrayed into intolerance, we owe it to his honorable fame to remember, that the best men are imperfect, and that no personal hostility inflamed his zeal.