The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered

by Roger Williams

[51] Letter to Mason. Knowles, p. 398.

[52] Backus, i. 95, 115. Knowles, p. 148.

[53] Knowles, p. 149, 395.

[54] Knowles, p. 165. Benedict, p. 441. Backus, i. 105.

[55] Backus, i. 107. Knowles, p. 176. Hanbury, iii. 571.

[56] Backus, i. 107, 108. Knowles, p. 170.

[57] As p. [40]. Cotton says, he fell “from all ordinances of Christ dispensed in any church way, till God shall stir up himself, or some new apostles, to recover and restore all ordinances, and churches of Christ out of the ruins of anti-christian apostacy.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 2. The insinuation in this passage is both unjust and untrue.

[58] Pp. [4], [379]. Knowles, p. 172. Callender’s Historical Discourse, by Dr. R. Elton, p. 101.

[59] Cotton’s Answer, p. 9.

[60] Knowles, p. 181. Callender, p. 159. Backus, i. 112. Bancroft, i. 380. The attachment of the Rhode Islanders to this great principle receives a curious illustration in the case of one Joshua Verin, who was deprived for a time of his franchise for refusing to his wife liberty of conscience, in not permitting her to go to Mr. Williams’s meeting as often as requisite. Backus, i. 95.