“Samuel Gilbert, aged sixty-two years, testifieth and saith: That at the time when John Rogers, late of New London, deceased, was a prisoner several years at Hartford, I did at the same time keep a public house of entertainment near the prison, and was well knowing to the concerns of the said Rogers all the time of his imprisonment, and I do farther testify that New London meeting-house was burnt at the time while he was a prisoner in said prison, but no part of his imprisonment was upon that account.
Samuel Gilbert, October, 1725.”
Thus it plainly appears that this affirmation concerning New London meeting-house is a positive falsehood.
He (Pratt) further says that “Rogers held downright that man had no soul at all, and that though he used the term, yet intended by it either the natural life, or else the natural faculties, which he attributed to the body, and held that they died with it, even as it is with a dog.”
In answer to this notorious falsehood charged upon John Rogers, I shall boldly appeal to all mankind who had conversation with him in his lifetime; for that they well knew it to be utterly false: and for the satisfaction of such as had not acquaintance with him, I shall refer them to his books, and particularly in this point to his “Exposition on the Revelations,” beginning at page 232, where he largely sets forth the Resurrection of the Body, both of the just and unjust, and of the eternal judgment which God shall then pass upon all, both small and great. All which sufficiently proves Peter Pratt guilty of slandering and belying a dead man, a crime generally abhorred by all sober people; and so shall pass to his 3d chapter, judging that by these few remarks which have been taken, the reader may plainly see that the account he pretends to give of John Roger’s principles is so false and self-contradictory that it deserves no answer at all, and that it was great folly in Peter Pratt so to expose himself as to pretend to give an account of John Roger’s principles in such a false manner; since John Rogers himself has largely published his own principles in print, which books are plenty, and will fully satisfy every one that desires satisfaction in that matter of what I have here asserted.
In page 48 he (Pratt) tells the reader as follows: “But John Rogers held three ordinances of religious use; viz., Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and imposition of hands.” Again, “that all worship is in the heart only, and there are no external forms.”
Here the reader may observe that, first, he owns that Rogers held three external ordinances, viz., Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and imposition of hands; and in the very next words forgets himself and tells the reader that Rogers held all worship to be in the heart only, and that there were no external forms. See how plainly he contradicts himself.
Here we ought to say, without soiling our pen with his obscene language, that what Peter Pratt said and others have quoted about John Roger’s “maid” has reference to his second wife, an account of his marriage to whom, with other facts of the case, we now give to the reader, in the words of John Rogers, 2d, in his “Reply” to Peter Pratt:—
After John Roger’s first wife had left him, on account of his religion, he remained single for more than twenty-five years, in hopes that she would come to repentance and forsake her unlawful companions. But, seeing no change in her, he began to think of marrying another woman, and, accordingly, did agree upon marriage with a maid belonging to New London, whose name was Mary Ransford. They thereupon agreed to go into the County Court and there declare their marriage; and accordingly they did so, he leading his bride by the hand into court, where the judges were sitting and a multitude of spectators present, and then desired the whole assembly to take notice that he took that woman to be his wife; his bride also assenting to what he said. Whereupon, the judge offered to marry them in their form, which John Rogers refused, telling him that he had once been married by their Authority, and by their Authority they had taken away his wife again and rendered him no reason why they did it. Upon which account, he looked at their form of marriage to be of no value, and therefore would be married by their form no more, etc. And from the court he went to the Governor’s house with his bride, and declared their marriage to the Governor,[[12]] who seemed to like it well enough, and wished them much joy, which is a usual compliment.
And thus having given a true and impartial relation of the manner of his marriage to his second wife, which I doubt not but every unprejudiced person will judge to be as authentic as any marriage that was ever made in Connecticut Colony, in the next place, I shall proceed to inform the reader in what manner he came to be deprived of this his second wife; for, after they had lived together about three years and had had two children, the court had up John Roger’s wife and charged her with fornication, for having her last child, pretending no other reason than that the marriage was not lawful; and thereupon called her Mary Ransford, after her maiden name. And then vehemently urged her to give her oath who was the father of her child, which they charged to be by fornication, her husband standing by her in court, with the child in his arms, strictly commanding her not to take the oath, for these three following reasons:—