Why were the Rogerenes fined for observing the seventh day instead of the first day of the week, consistently with their profession? Why fined for absenting themselves from the meetings of the Congregational church? Why forbidden to hold meetings of their own? Why was John Rogers fined for every one he baptized by immersion, and for entertaining Quakers, as we have seen? And why did the Hartford jailer say to him: “I will make you comply with their worship if the Authority cannot”?
Miss Caulkins, though writing in partial defence of the Church, speaks truthfully on this subject when she says:—
It was certainly a great error in the early planters of New England to endeavor to produce uniformity in doctrine by the strong arm of physical force. Was ever religious dissent subdued either by petty annoyance or actual cruelty? Is it possible to make a true convert by persecution? The principle of toleration was, however, then less clearly understood.
This self-justification of Mr. Saltonstall would seem to vie for insincerity with the language used by papists, as they handed over heretics to the civil power, asking that they be treated with mercy and that not a drop of blood be shed, meaning that they be burned.
It is not unlike what that most cruel persecutor, Philip II of Spain, husband of Bloody Mary, said of himself: “that he had always from the beginning of his government followed the path of clemency, according to his natural disposition, so well known to the world;” or what Virgilius wrote of the merciless Duke of Alva, while the latter was carrying out some of the most diabolical devices of the Inquisition, under the orders of this same king Philip: “All,” said Virgilius, “venerate the prudence and gentleness of the Duke of Alva.”
Mr. Saltonstall’s words also run in a groove with those of Peter Pratt, the great traducer. “In short,” says Pratt, “he never suffered the loss of one hair of his head by the Authority for any article of his religion, nor for the exercise of it.”
To which John Rogers, 2d, replies:—
In answer to this last extravagant assertion, which the whole neighborhood knows to be false, I shall only mention the causes of some few of his sufferings, which I am sure that both the records and neighborhood will witness the truth of.
In the first place, he lost his wife and children on the account of his religion, as has been fully proved.
The next long persecution, which both himself and all his Society suffered for many years, was for refusing to come to Presbyterian meetings; upon which account, their estates were extremely destroyed and their bodies often imprisoned.