Thy purchase feigned was by the prophet shown
To Dudley, and by him to us made known.
Williams, in his letter to Mason, says, that Governor Winthrop and some of the council of Massachusetts were disposed to recall him from banishment, and confer upon him some mark of distinguished favor for his services. “It is known,” says Williams, “who hindered—who never promoted the liberty of other men’s consciences.” Mr. Davis, in a note to his edition of the New England Memorial, conjectures that he alludes to Mr. Dudley. The reader will not consider me as doing violence to historical probability, by supposing that this man gave information to the magistrates of Plymouth that Williams had established himself within the limits of their patent, and required his expulsion. He was the author of the following lines:
“Let men of God in courts and churches watch
O’er such as do a toleration hatch,
Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice
To poison all with heresy and vice.
If men be left and otherwise combine,
My epitaph’s I dy’d no libertine.”