Although the settlers of Plymouth Colony cherished more liberal sentiments than their neighbors of the Bay Colony, and sanctioned the expulsion of Mr. Williams from Seekonk only for the purpose of preserving peace with those whom Blackstone called "the Lord Bretheren," yet they guarded the prerogatives of the ruling church order as worthy not only of the respect, but also the support, of all. Rehoboth was the most liberal, as well as the most loyal, of the children of Plymouth; but the free opinions which the planters brought from Weymouth, where an attempt had already been made to establish a Baptist church, enabled them to sympathize strongly with their neighbors across the Seekonk River. "At this time," says Baylies, "so much indifference as to the support of the clergy was manifested in Plymouth Colony, as to excite the alarm of the other confederated colonies. The complaint of Massachusetts against Plymouth on this subject was laid before the Commissioners, and drew from them a severe reprehension. Rehoboth had been afflicted with a severe schism, and by its proximity to Providence and its plantations, where there was a universal toleration, the practice of free inquiry was encouraged, and principle, fancy, whim, and conscience, all conspired to lessen the veneration for ecclesiastical authority." As the "serious schism" referred to above led to the foundation of the first Baptist church within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, on New Meadow Neck in Old Swanzey, it is worthy of record here. The leader in this church revolt was Obadiah Holmes, a native of Preston, in Lancashire, England. He was connected with the church in Salem from 1639 till 1646, when he was excommunicated, and removing with his family to Rehoboth, he joined Mr. Newman's church. The doctrines and the discipline of this church proved too severe for Mr. Holmes, and he, with eight others, withdrew in 1649, and established a new church by themselves.
Mr. Newman's irascible temper was kindled into a persecuting zeal against the offending brethren, and, after excommunicating them, he aroused the civil authorities against them. So successful was he that four petitions were presented to the Plymouth Court; one from Rehoboth, signed by thirty-five persons; one from Taunton; one from all the clergymen in the colony but two, and one from the government of Massachusetts. How will the authorities at Plymouth treat this first division in the ruling church of the colony? Will they punish by severe fines, by imprisonment, by scourgings, or by banishment? By neither, for a milder spirit of toleration prevailed, and the separatists were simply directed to "refrain from practices disagreeable to their brethren, and to appear before the Court."
In 1651, some time after his trial at Plymouth, Mr. Holmes was arrested, with Mr. Clarke, of Newport, and Mr. Crandall, for preaching and worshiping God with some of their brethren at Lynn. They were condemned by the Court at Boston to suffer fines or whippings. Holmes refused to pay the fine, and would not allow his friends to pay it for him, saying that "to pay it would be acknowledging himself to have done wrong, whereas his conscience testified that he had done right." He was accordingly punished with thirty lashes from a three-corded whip, with such severity, says Governor Jenks, "that in many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest but as he lay upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereon he lay." Soon after this, Holmes and his followers moved to Newport, and on the death of the Reverend Mr. Clarke, in 1652, he succeeded him as pastor of the First Baptist Church in that time. Mr. Holmes died at Newport in 1682, aged seventy-six years.
The persecution offered to the Rehoboth Baptists scattered their church, but did not destroy their principles. Facing the obloquy attached to their cause, and braving the trials imposed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, they must wait patiently God's time of deliverance. That their lives were free from guile, none claim. That their cause was righteous, none will deny; and while the elements of a Baptist church were thus gathering strength on this side of the Atlantic, a leader was prepared for them, by God's providence, on the other. In the same year that Obadiah Holmes and his band established their church in Massachusetts, in opposition to the Puritan order, Charles I, the great English traitor, expiated his "high crimes and misdemeanors" on the scaffold, at the hands of a Puritan Parliament. Then followed the period of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, and then the Restoration, when "there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph." The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, under the sanction of Charles II, though a fatal blow at the purity and piety of the English Church, was a royal blessing to the cause of religion in America. Two thousand bravely conscientious men, who feared God more than the decrees of Pope, King, or Parliament, were driven from their livings and from the kingdom. What was England's great loss was America's great gain, for a grand tidal wave of emigration swept westward across the Atlantic to our shores. Godly men and women, clergy and laity, made up this exiled band, too true and earnest to yield a base compliance to the edict of conformity. For thirteen years here the Dissenters from Mr. Newman's church waited for a spiritual guide, but not in vain.
How our Baptist brethren here conducted themselves during these years, and the difficulties they may have occasioned or encountered, we know but little. Plymouth, liberal already, has grown more lenient towards church offenders in matters of conscience. Mr. John Brown, a citizen of Rehoboth, and one of the magistrates, has presented before the Court his scruples at the expediency of coercing the people to support the ministry, and has offered to pay from his own property the taxes of all those of his townsmen who may refuse their support of the ministry. This was in 1665. Massachusetts Bay has tried to correct the errors of her sister colony on the subject of toleration, and has in turn been rebuked by her example.
JOHN MYLES.
Leaving the membership awhile, let us cross the sea to Wales to find their future pastor and teacher—John Myles.
Wales had been the asylum for the persecuted and oppressed for many centuries. There freedom of religious thought was tolerated, and from thence sprung three men of unusual vigor and power: Roger Williams, Oliver Cromwell, and John Myles. About the year 1645, the Baptists in that country who had previously been scattered and connected with other churches, began to unite in the formation of separate churches, under their own pastors. Prominent among these was the Reverend Mr. Myles, who preached in various places with great success, until the year 1649, when we find him pastor of a church which he organized in Swansea, in South Wales. It is a singular coincidence that Mr. Myles's pastorate at Swansea, and the separation of the members from the Rehoboth church, a part of whom aided in establishing the church in Swanzey, Massachusetts, occurred in the same year.
During the Protectorate of Cromwell, all Dissenters enjoyed the largest liberty of conscience, and, as a result, the church at Swansea grew from forty-eight to three hundred souls. Around this centre of influence sprang up several branch churches, and pastors were raised up to care for them. Mr. Myles soon became the leader of his denomination in Wales, and in 1651 he was sent as the representative of all the Baptist churches in Wales to the Baptist ministers' meeting, at Glazier's Hall, London, with a letter, giving an account of the peace, union, and increase of the work. As a preacher and worker he had no equal in that country, and his zeal enabled him to establish many new churches in his native land. The act of the English Saint Bartholomew's Day, in 1662, deprived Mr. Myles of the support which the government under Cromwell had granted him, and he, with many others, chose the freedom of exile to the tyranny of an unprincipled monarch. It would be interesting for us to give an account of his leave-taking of his church at Swansea, and of his associates in Christian labor, and to trace out his passage to Massachusetts, and to relate the circumstances which led him to search out and to find the little band of Baptists at Rehoboth. Surely some law of spiritual gravitation or affinity, under the good hand of God, thus raised up and brought this under-shepherd to the flock thus scattered in the wilderness. Nicholas Tanner, Obadiah Brown, John Thomas, and others, accompanied Mr. Myles in his exile from Swansea, Wales. The first that is known of them in America was the formation of a Baptist church at the house of John Butterworth in Rehoboth, whose residence is said to have been near the Cove in the western part of the present town of East Providence. Mr. Myles and his followers had probably learned at Boston, or at Plymouth, of the treatment offered to Holmes and his party, ten years before, and his sympathies led him to seek out and unite the elements which persecution had scattered. Seven members made up this infant church, namely: John Myles, pastor, James Brown, Nicholas Tanner, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad Kingsley, and Benjamin Alby. The principles to which their assent was given were the same as those held by the Welsh Baptists, as expounded by Mr. Myles. The original record-book of the church contains a list of the members of Mr. Myles's church in Swansea, from 1640 till 1660, with letters, decrees, ordinances, etc., of the several churches of the denomination in England and Wales. This book, now in the possession of the First Baptist Church in Swanzey, Massachusetts, is probably a copy of the original Welsh records, made by or for Mr. Myles's church in Massachusetts, the sentiments of which controlled their actions here.
Of the seven constituent members, only one was a member of Myles's church in Wales—Nicholas Tanner. James Brown was a son of John Brown, both of whom held high offices in the Plymouth colony. Mr. Newman and his church were again aroused at the revival of this dangerous sect, and they again united with the other orthodox churches of the colony in soliciting the Court to interpose its influence against them, and the members of this little church were each fined five pounds, for setting up a public meeting without the knowledge and approbation of the Court, to the disturbance of the peace of the place,—ordered to desist from their meeting for the space of a month, and advised to remove their meeting to some other place where they might not prejudice any other church. The worthy magistrates of Plymouth have not told us how these few Baptist brethren "disturbed the peace" of quiet old Rehoboth. Good old Rehoboth, that roomy place, was not big enough to contain this church of seven members, and we have to-day to thank the spirit of Newman and the order of Plymouth Court for the handful of seed-corn, which they cast upon the waters, which here took root and has brought forth the fruits of a sixty-fold growth.