The activity of Mr. Williams, and his deep interest in whatever concerned the well-being of his fellow countrymen, are still more illustrated by the publications which he put forth while in England. For he not only published his “Key into the Language of America,” composed while on his voyage to this country, and the two treatises reprinted in this volume; but also an anonymous piece, entitled “Queries of Highest Consideration proposed to Mr. Thomas Goodwin—presented to the High Court of Parliament,”[77] containing clear and accurate observations on the respective provinces of civil and ecclesiastical authority.
The publication of the “Bloudy Tenent” was most offensive to the various parties into which the ruling powers of the State were divided. The presbyterians exclaimed against it as full of heresy and blasphemy. If we may believe Mr. Richardson, they even proceeded so far as to burn it.[78] To this we are inclined to attach some confidence, as thereby we may account for the extreme rarity of the book, and for what is in fact a second edition, published in the same year. The existing copies of the work do not quite agree. While they are page for page and line for line the same, they differ in the fact of a table of errata being found in some, which errata are corrected in others. There is also a slight difference in the type and orthography of the title page.[79]
Baillie informs us that Williams’s work did not meet with the approbation of the English Independents. Its toleration was too unlimited for their taste. They were willing to grant liberty only to those sound in fundamentals—the identical views of their brother Congregationalists of America.[80] Yet we are informed in a subsequent work by Mr. Williams, that it operated most beneficially on the public mind. “These images and clouts it hath pleased God to make use of to stop no small leaks of persecution, that lately began to flow in upon dissenting consciences, and to Master Cotton’s own, and to the peace and quietness of the Independents, which they have so long and so wonderfully enjoyed.”[81]
In the year 1647, Mr. Cotton attempted a reply to Mr. Williams. He entitled his work, “The Bloudy Tenent washed, and made white in the bloud of the Lambe: being discussed and discharged of blood-guiltinesse by just Defence, &c. Whereunto is added a Reply to Mr. Williams’s Answer to Mr. Cotton’s Letter. By John Cotton, Batchelor in Divinity, and Teacher of the Church of Christ at Boston in New England. London. 1647.” 4to. pp. 195 and 144. In the notes of the present volume,[82] various examples are given of the character of this reply, and of the tortuous constructions adopted to escape the home thrusts of Mr. Williams. As compared with Williams’s work it displays great unfairness, and a most lamentable want of Christian temper and spirit—it is “wormwood and gall,” to use Mr. Williams’s own words.
A rejoinder appeared in the year 1652. It is entitled “The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by Mr. Cotton’s endevour to wash it white in the blood of the Lambe, &c. By R. Williams, of Providence in New-England. London, 1652.” 4to. pp. 373. It is characterized by the kindest tone, the most affectionate spirit, and a considerate treatment of Mr. Cotton’s perversions, errors, and mistakes, which he did not deserve. It is proposed to reprint this volume as necessary to the completeness of the present.
The work it is now the editor’s great pleasure and satisfaction to place in the hands of the subscribers is of great rarity. But six copies are at present known to exist of the original editions. Three of these are in America; two in the Library of Brown University, Rhode Island, and one in the library of Harvard College. Three are in this country; one in the library of the present American Consul, Colonel Aspinall; one in the British Museum; and one in the Bodleian Library. From the latter the present reprint is made by the kind permission of the Librarian. It is a volume of two hundred and forty-seven pages, in small quarto. The original table of Contents is given with the pagination only altered. Mr. Williams’s Reply to Mr. Cotton’s Letter, is of still greater rarity. Two copies are in America; one in Yale College which is much mutilated, and one in the possession of the family of the late Moses Brown, Esq., of Providence. Two are in this country; one in the British Museum, and one in the Bodleian Library, which is also somewhat mutilated. This reprint is from the latter. The proof sheets have been compared with the very fine copy in the British Museum, by my kind friend George Offor, Esq.
E. B. U.
Newmarket House, August 9th, 1848.