of the old system, which tended to remind the people of the discarded religion, to irritate the minds of its enemies, while it nourished the attachment to it which some persons secretly retained, and to suggest the obvious conclusion, that as the ministers of the new religion resembled so nearly those of the old, the difference between the two systems was very small. The effect of wearing the popish garments was so manifestly injurious to the progress of truth, that the refusal to wear them was not a trivial scruple of conscience, as it may, at first sight, appear. But the attempt to enforce the use of them, by severe penalties, and by expulsion from office, was unjust; and it led to a final separation of the Protestants themselves into Conformists and Non-Conformists. After Edward's death, and the accession of Mary, Popery was restored, and scenes of barbarous cruelty and bloody persecution ensued, which have made the name of this Queen infamous. Many hundreds of the Protestants perished at the stake, or in prison, and multitudes fled to Germany, Switzerland, and other countries. The reign of this fierce bigot was happily short, and Elizabeth succeeded her. The Protestant religion was reestablished, and during her long reign it gained an ascendancy which it has never since lost. Yet Elizabeth possessed the despotic temper of her father. She had a fondness for some of the gaudy rites of Popery. She peremptorily insisted on the use of the clerical vestments, and on a strict conformity to all the other ceremonies of the church. The final separation of the Non-Conformists from the Church of England was thus hastened. Those who had fled from England during the reign of Mary, returned, on the accession of Elizabeth, bringing with them an attachment to the purer rites of the Reformed Churches in Holland, Switzerland and France. Most of these exiles, and of the other Non-Conformists, were, nevertheless, willing to subscribe to the doctrines of the Church of England, and to use the liturgy, if they might be permitted to omit the vestments, the sign of the cross in baptism, and some other ceremonies. They disliked the pretensions of the Bishops, and many of them preferred the * Elizabeth often said, that she hated the Puritans more than she did the Papists. Neal, vol. i. p. 319. Presbyterian or Independent form of Church government. There were, too, some minor points in the liturgy, to which they objected. But had they been treated with Christian kindness, and allowed, in the spirit of mutual forbearance and charity, to neglect those forms, which they considered as sinful or inexpedient, they would, for the most part, have remained in the Episcopal Church, and England would have been spared the manifold crimes and miseries, which issued in a civil war, and drenched her soil with the blood of her King, and of thousands of her bravest sons. But the principles of religious liberty were then unknown. The Queen, though for a while she treated the Non-Conformists with indulgence, till her power was fully established, soon announced to them her sovereign pleasure, that they should submit to all the ceremonies of the church. Severe laws were passed by an obsequious Parliament, and enforced, with ready zeal, by servile Bishops. Every minister who refused to conform to all the prescribed ceremonies was liable to be deprived of his office; and a large number of the ablest ministers in the nation were thus expelled and silenced.* In order to enforce the laws with the utmost rigor, a new tribunal was erected, called the * Neal (vol. i. p. 236) gives the following specimen of the arbitrary manner in which the ministers were treated. It is an account of the examination of the London clergy: "When the ministers appeared in court, Mr. Thomas Cole, a clergyman, being placed by the side of the Commissioners, in priestly apparel, the Bishop's chancellor from the bench addressed them in these words: My masters, and ye ministers of London, the Council's pleasure is, that ye strictly keep the unity of apparel, like the man who stands here canonically habited with a square cap, a scholar's gown priest-like, a tippet, and in the church a linen surplice. Ye that will subscribe, write volo; those that will not subscribe, write nolo. Be brief, make no words." Some of these distressed ministers subscribed for the sake of their families, but thirty-seven absolutely refused. They were immediately suspended from office, and told, that unless they should conform in three months, they should be wholly deprived of their livings. In 1585 and 1586, it was found, by a survey, that there were only 2000 ministers, who were able to preach, to serve 10,000 churches. Bishop Sandys, in one of his sermons before the Queen, told her Majesty, that some of her subjects did not hear one sermon in seven years, and that their blood would be required of some one. Elizabeth thought three or four preachers in a county sufficient. Neal, vol. i. p. 359. Court of High Commission, consisting of Commissioners, appointed by the Queen. This Court was invested with power to arrest ministers in any part of the kingdom, to deprive them of their livings, and to fine or imprison them at the pleasure of the Court. "Instead of producing witnesses in open court, to prove the charges, they assumed a power of administering an oath ex officio, whereby the prisoner was obliged to answer all questions the Court should put to him, though never so prejudicial to his own defence. If he refused to swear, he was imprisoned for contempt; and if he took the oath, he was convicted upon his own confession."* By this Protestant Inquisition, and by other means, one fourth of the preachers in England are said to have been under suspension. Numerous parishes were destitute of preachers, and so many were filled by illiterate and profligate men, that not one beneficed clergyman in six was capable of composing a sermon.† Thus were learned and pious ministers oppressed, merely for their conscientious scruples about a few ceremonies, their families were ruined, the people were deprived of faithful teachers, the progress of truth was hindered, the papists were gratified, and a state of irritation was produced in the public mind, which led, in a succeeding reign, to the disastrous issue of a bloody civil war. Nor was the edge of this intolerance turned against the clergy alone. The people were rigorously required to attend regularly at the parish churches. Measures like these gradually alienated the affections of many from the Established Church, and convinced them, that there was no prospect of obtaining toleration, or of effecting a further reform in the church. They accordingly separated from it, and established meetings, where the ceremonies were not practised. These Non-Conformists were called Puritans, a term of reproach derived from the Cathari, or Puritans, of the third century after Christ. The term, however, was not inappropriate, as it intimated their desire of a purer form of worship and discipline in the church. It was afterwards applied to them on account of the purity of their morals, and the Calvinistic cast of their doctrines. * Neal, vol. i. preface. Neal, vol. i. preface. This separation occurred in the year 1566. The storm of royal and ecclesiastical wrath now beat the more fiercely on the heads of the Puritans. The history of England, for the succeeding century, is a deplorable narrative of oppression, bloodshed and indescribable misery, inflicted on men and women, of deep piety and pure lives, but guilty of claiming the rights of conscience, and choosing to worship God with different forms from those which the National Church prescribed. No man, of right feelings, can read Neal's History of the Puritans, without sorrow and indignation. Every man ought to read it, if he would understand the reasons why the founders of this country left their native land, to seek an asylum in the wilderness, and if he would rightly estimate the great principles of religious liberty which Roger Williams maintained and defended. The accession of James I. excited the hopes of the Puritans. He had been educated in the principles of the Reformation, and had stigmatized the service of the Church of England as an evil said mass in English."* He had promised, that he would maintain the principles of the Church of Scotland while he lived. But he changed his principles or his policy, after he ascended the throne of England. He then announced the true royal creed, No Bishops, no King. He treated the Puritans with contempt and rigor, declaring that they were a sect "unable to be suffered in any well-governed commonwealth.”+ Many of the Puritans, finding their situation intolerable at home, left the kingdom for the continent, or turned their eyes to America for a refuge from persecution. In the midst of these scenes, Roger Williams was born and educated. His character impelled him to the side of the Puritans. His political principles were then, it is probable, as they were throughout his subsequent life, very liberal; and were entirely repugnant to the doctrines which were then upheld by the court and the dignitaries of the church. James was an obstinate and arbitrary monarch, who inflexibly maintained, in theory and often in practice, those despotic principles, which led his son to the scaffold, and expelled James II. from the throne. A mind, like that of Williams, strong, searching and fearless, would * Neal, vol. ii. P. 28. + Prince, p. 107. naturally he opposed to the pretensions and policy of the King.* His patron, Sir Edward Coke, incurred the resentment of James, for his free principles, and his bold vindication of the rights of the people. Charles I. was, if possible, more arbitrary than his father, and more disposed to trample on the constitution, and on the rights of the people. The tyranny exercised by the Bishops, the severe persecution of the Puritans, and the arrogant demand of absolute submission to the National Church, were still more offensive to a man like Mr. Williams. His principles, as he afterwards expounded them, by his life and in his writings, claimed for all men a perfect liberty of conscience, in reference to religion. Such principles, allied to a bold spirit, must have brought him into notice at such a crisis, and must have attracted upon his head the storm of persecution. Cotton, Hooker, and many other ministers, were silenced. In such times, Mr. Williams could not escape. If he was indeed admitted to a living, it must have been through the indulgence of some mild Prelate, or by the influence of some powerful patron. If Cotton and Hooker were not spared, Williams could not be suffered to preach, for his refusal to conform seems to have been more decided than theirs. † The same motives, without doubt, which induced others to forsake their native land for America, operated on the mind of Mr. Williams. On the 1st of December, 1630, he embarked at Bristol, in the ship Lyon, Captain William Peirce. His wife accompanied him, a lady, of whose previous history we are more ignorant than of his own. * Mr. Williams had some personal intercourse with the monarch, but of what kind does not appear. In his letter to Major Mason, he refers to "King James, whom I have spoke with." "Although the discusser acknowledgeth himself unworthy to speak for God to Master Cotton, or any, yet possibly Master Cotton may call to mind, that the discusser (riding with himself and one other, of precious memory, Master Hooker, to and from Sempringham) presented his arguments from Scripture, why he durst not join with them in their use of Common Prayer.' Bloody Tenet made more Bloody, p. 12. " Mr. William Harris, in a letter, speaks of a Mr. Warnard, as a brother of Mrs. Williams, apparently meaning the wife of Roger Williams. This is the only hint which the author has found, re |