With this charter Mr. Williams, in the summer of the same year, returned to New England, and landed at Boston, Sept. 17th, emboldened to tread this forbidden ground by a commendatory letter to the Governor and Assistants of the Bay, from several noblemen and members of parliament. The first elections under this charter were held at Portsmouth in May 1641, when the General Assembly then constituted, proceeded to frame a code of laws, and to commence the structure of their civil government. It was declared in the act then passed, “that the form of government established in Providence Plantations is democratical, that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of the free inhabitants.” The conclusion of this Magna Charta of Rhode Island is in these memorable words: “These are the laws that concern all men, and these are the penalties for the transgression thereof, which, by common consent, are ratified and established throughout the whole colony. And otherwise than thus, what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever.”[63] Mr. Roger Williams was chosen assistant, and in subsequent years governor. Thus under the auspices of this noble-minded man was sown the germ of modern democratic institutions, combining therewith the yet more precious seed of religious liberty.
We here trace no further the history of Roger Williams in relation to the state of which he was the honoured founder. To the period at which we have arrived, their story is indissolubly allied together. Others, imbued with his principles, henceforth took part in working out the great and then unsolved problem—how liberty, civil and religious, could exist in harmony with dutiful obedience to rightful laws. Posterity is witness to the result. The great communities of the Old World are daily approximating to that example, and recognizing the truth and power of those principles which throw around the name of Roger Williams a halo of imperishable glory and renown.
The work of this eminent man, reprinted in the following pages, owes its origin to the events we have detailed, and to some other very interesting circumstances. In the first volume of the publications of the Hanserd Knollys Society, will be found a piece, entitled “An Humble Supplication to the King’s Majesty, as it was presented, 1620.” This was a baptist production. It is a well arranged, clear, and concise argument against persecution, and for liberty of conscience. Mr. Williams informs us that this treatise was written by a prisoner in Newgate for conscience’ sake. So rigid was his confinement that paper, pens, and ink were denied him. He had recourse to sheets of paper sent, by a friend in London, as stoppers to the bottle containing his daily allowance of milk. He wrote his thoughts in milk on the paper thus provided, and returned them to his friend in the same way. “In such paper, written with milk, nothing will appear; but the way of reading it by fire being known to this friend who received the papers, he transcribed and kept together the papers, although the author himself could not correct, nor view what himself had written.”[64]
From this treatise was taken those arguments against persecution,[65] which being replied to by Mr. Cotton, gave rise to the work of Mr. Williams, and which he has so significantly called “The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution Discussed.” Mr. Cotton tells us that this excerpt was sent to him about the year 1635, by Mr. Williams, and that Mr. Williams, against the “royal law of the love of the gospel, and without his knowledge, published it, with his reply, adding thereto a refutation.”[66] A contradictory and more particular account is, however, given of the affair by Mr. Williams. No such letter or intercourse, he tells us, passed between him and Mr. Cotton on this subject. The prisoner’s arguments against persecution were presented to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Hall, a congregational minister at Roxbury, to whom also Mr. Cotton’s answer was addressed. Mr. Hall not being satisfied, sent the papers to Mr. Williams already printed, who, therefore, conceiving that being printed they were no longer private papers, felt at liberty to publish his discussion of Mr. Cotton’s principles.[67] At the time when Mr. Cotton wrote the letter to Mr. Hall, he tells us that Mr. Williams “did keep communion with all his brethren, and held loving acquaintance with myself.” It must therefore have been written some time before the banishment of Mr. Williams, and soon after the arrival of Mr. Cotton in New England.
At the close of Mr. Cotton’s letter is found a reference to “a treatise sent to some of the brethren late of Salem, who doubted as you do.” This treatise is the “Model of Church and Civil Power,” the examination of which forms the second part of the “Bloudy Tenent.”[68] The authorship of it is attributed to Mr. Cotton by Mr. Williams. This Mr. Cotton denies. He charges Mr. Williams with a “double falsehood:” First, in saying that he wrote it; second, that the ministers who did write it sent it to Salem.[69] This “blustering charge” Mr. Williams repudiates. He refers to the closing paragraph of Cotton’s own letter, and avers, “to my knowledge it was reported, according to this hint of Mr. Cotton’s, that from the ministers of the churches such a model composed by them was sent to Salem.” He then adds, that hearing of it he wrote to “his worthy friend Mr. Sharp, elder of the church at Salem, for the sight of it, who accordingly sent it to him.” Moreover, Mr. Cotton approved of it, promoted it, and directed others to repair to it for satisfactory information:[70] it was therefore unworthy of him to pass so “deep censures for none or innocent mistakes.” The real author of it was probably Mr. Richard Mather, of whom we are told that “when the platform of Church Discipline was agreed—in the year 1647, Mr. Mather’s model was that out of which it was chiefly taken.”[71] Or perhaps it may preferably be regarded as the result of an act passed by the General Court in the year 1634, wherein the elders of every church were entreated to “consult and advise of one uniform order of discipline in the churches ... and to consider how far the magistrates are bound to interpose for the preservation of that uniformity and peace of the churches.”[72] Certain it is, that the principles of this document pervade all the subsequent legislation of the colony, and many of its conclusions were embodied in the ecclesiastical and civil laws. Mr. Williams did well in selecting these two pieces for discussion. They broadly state those views which are antagonist to intellectual and religious freedom. Other treatises were published to defend New England practices against the observations of friends in Old England, which are occasionally referred to by Mr. Williams; but in none of them were developed to the same extent, that persecuting spirit and theocratic legislation which Mr. Williams so ably, so patiently, and so thoroughly confronts and confutes in the following pages.
The “Bloudy Tenent” was published in England in the year 1644, and without the name either of the author or publisher. It was written while he was occupied in obtaining the charter for Rhode Island. In many parts it bears evident tokens of haste, and occasional obscurities show that he had found no time to amend his work. Indeed he tells us, “that when these discussions were prepared for public in London, his time was eaten up in attendance upon the service of the parliament and city, for the supply of the poor of the city with wood, during the stop of coal from Newcastle, and the mutinies of the poor for firing.”[73] Nevertheless, his style is generally animated, the discussion acutely managed, and frequent images of great beauty adorn his page.
Although not the first in England among the baptist advocates for the great principle of liberty of conscience, Roger Williams holds a preeminent place. Previous to the Bloudy Tenent, several pieces had been published, of great interest and value. Some of these have been reprinted;[74] and we have already seen how one of them gave rise to the present work of Williams. In 1642 we find a baptist asserting as one of the results of infant baptism, that “hence also collaterally have been brought the power of the civil magistrate into the church ... being willingly ignorant that the state and church of the Jews is to be considered in a twofold respect, one as it was a civil state and commonwealth and kingdom, in respect whereof it was common to other civil states and kingdoms in the world; the other as it was the church of God, and in relation thereto had worship, commandments, a kingly office, and government, which no other state and kingdom had or ought to have: for herein it was altogether typical. This state (the church) being spiritual admits of none but Him, their spiritual Head, Lawgiver, James iv. 12.”[75]
In 1643 another most able piece appeared, entitled, “Liberty of Conscience; or the sole means to obtain peace and truth.” The author expresses his opinion that the distractions and troubles of the nation were owing in great measure to the general obstinacy and averseness of most men of all ranks and qualities to tolerate and bear with tender consciences, and different opinions of their brethren.
The same year in which the “Bloudy Tenent” was published, there issued from the press “The Compassionate Samaritan, Unbinding the Conscience, and pouring oil into the wounds which have been made upon the separation.” This piece likewise asserts the rights of conscience with great clearness and power.
Until now the baptists stood alone in this conflict, they were the only known advocates for perfect liberty; but in this year Mr. John Goodwin also came forth to aid them,[76] and by his powerful writings did much to disseminate right views on this great subject.