No sooner had Mr. Williams landed at Boston, than we find him declaring his opinion, that “the magistrate might not punish a breach of the sabbath, nor any other offence, as it was a breach of the first table.”[10] Moreover, so impure did he deem the communion of the church of England, that he hesitated to hold communion with any church that continued in any manner favourable to it. This was, however, the case with the church at Boston. It refused to regard the hierarchy and parishional assemblies of the English church as portions of the abominations of anti-christ. It permitted its members, when in England, to commune with it, in hearing the word and in the private administration of the sacraments.[11] Thus while separating from its corruptions, the emigrants clave to it with a fond pertinacity. This was displeasing to the free soul of Williams. He refused to join the congregation at Boston. It would have been a weak and sinful compliance with evil. He could not regard the cruelties and severities, and oppression, exercised by the church of England, with any feelings but those of indignation. That could not be the true church of Christ on whose skirts was found sprinkled the blood of saints and martyrs. He therefore gladly accepted the invitation of the church at Salem, and a few weeks after his arrival he left Boston to enter upon the pastorate there.
But on the very same day on which he commenced his ministry at Salem (April 12), the General Court of the Colony expressed its disapprobation of the step, and required the church to forbear any further proceeding. This was an arbitrary and unjust interference with the rights of the Salem church. As a congregational and independent community, it had a perfect right to select Mr. Williams for its pastor. The choice of its ministry is one of the church’s most sacred privileges, to be exercised only in subordination to the laws and to the will of its great Head. This right the General Court most flagrantly violated, and thus laid the foundation for that course of resistance which eventually led to the banishment of Mr. Williams.[12]
To the civil government of the colony Mr. Williams was prepared to give all due submission. Very soon after his arrival, he entered his name upon the list of those who desired to be made freemen, and on the 12th of May took the customary oaths. Yet as if to bring into conflict at the earliest moment, and to excite the expression of those generous sentiments on religious and civil liberty which animated the soul of Mr. Williams, on that very day the court “ordered and agreed, that for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same.” Thus a theocracy was established. The government belonged to the saints. They alone could rule in the commonwealth, or be capable of the exercise of civil rights. “Not only was the door of calling to magistracy shut against natural and unregenerate men, though excellently fitted for civil offices, but also against the best and ablest servants of God, except they be entered into church estate.”[13] This was to follow, according to Williams’ idea, “Moses’ church constitution,” “to pluck up the roots and foundations of all common society in the world, to turn the garden and paradise of the church and saints into the field of the civil state of the world, and to reduce the world to the first chaos or confusion.” Our readers will find his reasons at large, against this perilous course, in the subsequent pages of this volume.[14]
As peace could not be enjoyed at Salem, before the end of the summer Mr. Williams withdrew to Plymouth; “where,” says Governor Bradford, “he was freely entertained, according to our poor ability, and exercised his gifts among us; and after some time was admitted a member of the church, and his teaching well approved.”[15] Two years he laboured in the ministry of the word among the pilgrim fathers; but it would seem not without proclaiming those principles of freedom which had already made him an object of jealousy. For on requesting his dismissal thence to Salem, in the autumn of 1635, we find the elder, Mr. Brewster, persuading the church at Plymouth to relinquish communion with him, lest he should “run the same course of rigid separation and anabaptistry which Mr. John Smith, the se-baptist, at Amsterdam, had done.”[16] It was during his residence at Plymouth that he acquired that knowledge of the Indian language, and that acquaintance with the chiefs of the Narragansetts, which became so serviceable to him in his banishment.
His acceptance of their invitation afforded sincere and great pleasure to the church at Salem. His former ministry amongst them had resulted in a warm attachment, and not a few left Plymouth to place themselves under his spiritual care. Two or three weeks only could have passed after his return, when, on the 3rd of September, Mr. Cotton, his destined antagonist in the strife on liberty of conscience, landed at Boston, in company with Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone; which “glorious triumvirate coming together, made the poor people in the wilderness to say, That the God of heaven had supplied them with what would in some sort answer their three great necessities: Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, and Stone for their building.”[17]
John Cotton was the son of a puritan lawyer. Educated at Cambridge, he had acquired a large amount of learning; and by his study of the schoolmen sharpened the natural acuteness and subtilty of his mind. In theology he was a thorough Calvinist, and adopted in all their extent the theocratic principles of the great Genevan reformer. On his arrival in New England, he was immediately called upon to advise and arrange the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the colony. By his personal influence the churches were settled in a regular and permanent form, and their laws of discipline were finally determined by the platform adopted at Cambridge in 1648. The civil laws were adjusted to the polity of the church, and while nominally distinct, they supported and assisted each other.[18]
Matter for complaint was soon discovered against Mr. Williams. At Plymouth he had already urged objections relative to the royal patent, under which the colonists held their lands. A manuscript treatise concerning it now became the subject of consideration by the General Court. In this work, Mr. Williams appears to have questioned the King’s right to grant the possession of lands which did not belong to him, but to the natives who hunted over them. Equity required that they should be fairly purchased of the Indian possessors. Mr. Williams was “convented” before the Court. Subsequently, he gave satisfaction to his judges of his “intentions and loyalty,” and the matter was passed by. It will be seen, however, that this accusation was revived, and declared to be one of the causes of his banishment.[19]
For a few months, during the sickness of Mr. Skelton, Mr. Williams continued his ministry without interruption, and with great acceptance. On the 2nd of August, 1634, Mr. Skelton died, and the Salem church shortly thereafter chose him to be their settled teacher. To this the magistrates and ministers objected. His principles were obnoxious to them. They sent a request to the church, that they would not ordain him. But in the exercise of their undoubted right the church persisted, and Mr. Williams was regularly inducted to the office of teacher.[20]
Occasion was soon found to punish the church and its refractory minister. On November the 17th, he was summoned to appear before the Court, for again teaching publicly “against the king’s patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country: and for terming the churches of England anti-christian.” A new accusation was made on the 30th of the following April, 1635. He had taught publicly, it was said, “that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man, for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers, and very clearly confuted.”[21] In the month of July he was again summoned to Boston, and some other dangerous opinions were now laid to his charge. He was accused of maintaining:—That the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace:—That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though wife or child—That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat. But the aggravation of his offences was that, notwithstanding these crimes were charged upon him, the church at Salem, in spite of the magisterial admonitions, and the exhortations of the pastors, had called him to the office of teacher. To mark their sense of this recusancy, the Salem people were refused, three days after, the possession of a piece of land for which they had applied, and to which they had a just claim.[22]