High Commission: "Mr. Samuel Sharpe is enjoined to appear at the next Particular Court, to answer for the letter that came from the church of Salem, as also to bring the names of those that will justify the same, or else to acknowledge his offence, under his own hand, for his own particular."*

In October, Mr. Williams was called before the Court for the last time:

"At this General Court, Mr. Williams, the teacher of Salem, was again convented, and all the ministers in the Bay being desired to be present, he was charged with the said two letters, that to the churches, complaining of the magistrates for injustice, extreme oppression, &c. and the other to his own church, to persuade them to renounce communion with all the churches in the Bay, as full of antichristian pollution, &c. He justified both these letters, and maintained all his opinions; and, being offered further conference or disputation, and a month's respite, he chose to dispute presently. So Mr. Hooker was chosen to dispute with him, but could not reduce him from any of his errors. So, the next morning, the Court sentenced him to depart out of our jurisdiction within six weeks, all the ministers, save one, approving the sentence; and his own church had him under question also for the same cause; and he, at his return home, refused communion with his own church, who openly disclaimed his errors, and wrote an humble submission to the magistrates, acknowledging their fault in joining with Mr. Williams in that letter to the churches against them," &c. Vol. i. · p. 171.

The sentence was in these terms: "Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the church of Salem, hath broached and divulged divers new and dangerous opinions, against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here, and that before any conviction, and yet maintaineth the same without any retractation; it is therefore ordered, that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction within six weeks now next ensuing, which, if he neglect to perform, it shall be lawful for the Governor and two of the magis

trates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without license from the Court."*

The conduct of the church at Salem is to be ascribed to the severe measures of the magistrates, rather than to hostility to Mr. Williams. Many of them accompanied or followed him in his exile. Neal, in his History of New-England, acknowledges, that when he was banished, "the whole town of Salem was in an uproar, for he was esteemed an honest, disinterested man, and of popular talents in the pulpit."

Mr. Williams received permission to remain at Salem till spring, but because he would not refrain, in his own house, from uttering his opinions, the Court resolved to send him to England, in order to remove, as far as possible, the infection of his principles. Happily for themselves, and for the country, their design was defeated.

"11 mo. January. The Governor and Assistants met at Boston to consider about Mr. Williams, for that they were credibly informed, that, notwithstanding the injunction laid upon him (upon the liberty granted him to stay till the spring,) not to go about to draw others to his opinions, he did use to entertain company in his house, and to preach to them, even of such points as he had been censured for; and it was agreed to send him into England by a ship then ready to depart. The reason was, because he had drawn above twenty persons to his opinion, and they were intended to erect a plantation about the Narraganset Bay, from whence the infection would easily spread into these churches, (the people being many of them much taken with the apprehension of his godliness.) Whereupon a warrant was sent to him to come presently to Boston to be shipped, &c. He returned answer (and divers of Salem came with it,) that he could not come without hazard of his life, &c. Whereupon a pinnace was sent with commission to Capt. Underhill, &c. to apprehend him, and carry him aboard the ship, (which then rode at Nantasket;) but, when they came at his house, they found he had been gone three days before; but whither they could not learn.

"He had so far prevailed at Salem, as many there, (especially of devout women) did embrace his opinions, and se

* Winthrop places the banishment under the date of October, but the Colonial Records, (I. 163) state, that it took place November 3,

1635.

**

parated from the churches, for this cause, that some of their members, going into England, did hear the ministers there, and when they came home the churches here held communion with them." Vol. i. p. 175.

Mr. Williams had received notice of the design of the Court, and had left Salem, in quest of a quiet refuge in the neighborhood of Narraganset Bay. It appears, that Governor Winthrop had privately advised him to leave the colony, as a measure, which the public peace required, and by which the personal interests of Mr. Williams might ultimately be best promoted. The good of the Indians, also, was a motive which operated on both their minds. Mr. Williams says, in a letter which has already been quoted: "It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this Bay, by the loving private advice of the ever honored soul, Mr. John Winthrop, the grandfather, who, though he were carried with the stream for my banishment, yet he tenderly loved me to his last breath." The same fact is asserted, in the letter to Major Mason,* and the advice of Governor Winthrop is ascribed to "many high, and heavenly, and public ends." The friendship of the Governor was manifested on various occasions, and he afterwards united with Mr. Williams in the purchase of the island of Prudence in Narraganset Bay.

The removal, however, if it might on general grounds have been expedient, was not now optional. Without considering the justice or injustice of his banishment, there was certainly great hardship in being forced from his home in the middle of winter. His second daughter was born in the latter part of October, 1635,† and was consequently an infant less than three months old, while his eldest child was but a little more than two years of age. The mother and her two infants he left behind. His house and land at Salem he mortgaged, to raise money for the supply of his wants.‡

* See Appendix C.

+ Backus, vol. i. p. 516. He called this daughter Freeborn. This was in the taste of the times. The first three children christened in Boston church were named Joy, Recompense and Pity. It is worthy of remark, that the name Freeborn was given, while the father was the object of what he doubtless thought oppression. It shows his indomitable spirit.

MSS. Letter.

With a heavy heart must this exiled husband and father, and this affectionate pastor, have parted from his family and flock, and plunged into the wilderness, to endure the wintry storms, and to try the hospitality of the savages.

We have thus briefly examined the reasons assigned by the mild and candid Winthrop for the expulsion of Mr. Williams from Massachusetts. We have seen, that these reasons related almost entirely to opinions, which the magistrates thought to be dangerous, and which the clergy opposed as tending to schism. It is satisfactory to observe, however, that these opinions did not refer to any of the great principles of the Gospel. The religious doctrines which Mr. Williams preached before his banishment were the same as those of Cotton and Hooker. He was not accused, while at Plymouth or at Salem, of any deviation from the established principles of the churches, on points of faith, much less was there any impeachment of his moral character. It is confessed, by the most bitter of his opponents, that both at Plymouth and at Salem, he was respected and beloved, as a pious man, and able minister.

What was there, then, it may be inquired, in the opinions of Mr. Williams, which was so offensive to the rulers in church and state? His denial of the right to possess the lands of the Indians without their own consent, needed not to disturb the colonists, for they purchased their lands from the natives. His ideas of the unlawfulness of oaths, and of the impropriety of praying with unregenerate persons, and other harmless notions of this kind, were surely too unimportant to excite the fears and provoke the ire of the government. We are led to the conclusion, that the cause of Mr. Williams' banishment is to be found in the great principle which has immortalized his name, that THE CIVIL POWER HAS NO JURISDICTION OVER THE CONSCIENCE. This noble doctrine, which the Scriptures clearly teach, and which reason itself proclaims, was, at that time, viewed, by most men, to be as heterodox, in morals, as the Copernican theory was considered by the Inquisition to be false in philosophy; and he who maintained it was liable to the fate of Galileo. The Papists abhorred it, for it would have subverted the Papal throne. The English Church rejected it, for it would have wrested from the hierarchy its usurped authority, and led the Church away from the throne of an earthly

monarch to the footstool of the King of kings, as her only head and sovereign. The Puritans themselves disowned it, for they were so firmly convinced of the truth of their doctrines, that they deemed him, who was so obstinate as not to embrace them, to be worthy of punishment for acting in opposition to his own conscience.* They refused to conform to the ceremonies of the English Church, but it was because they believed those ceremonies to be idolatrous, and not because they denied to men the power to enforce the belief of doctrines and the practice of rites They opposed the Prelates, but they believed that a similar sway might be safely intrusted to their own hands. They resisted and for a while triumphed over the Lords Bishops, but they forgot that the despotism of the Lords Brethren, as Blackstone termed them, might be quite as intolerable. They did not understand the nature of that liberty which the Gospel bestows. They were misled by the analogies which they drew from the Mosaic institutions, and felt it to be their duty to extirpate heresy, with as unsparing rigor, as the Jews were required to exercise against those who despised or violated their ritual.

The character of the Puritans has been greatly misunderstood on this point, and there has been much commonplace declamation respecting their bigotry and inconsistency in persecuting others, after having suffered persecution themselves. But a candid mind, which understands their principles, will not, while it must lament and condemn their conduct, use the language of harsh censure. They were so far from believing, that liberty of conscience in religious concerns ought to be extended to all men, that they regarded toleration as a crime. They argued, that they ought to promote truth, and oppose error, by all the methods in their power. If they were able to suppress false doctrines, it was, they believed, a solemn duty to God to employ force, if necessary, for their suppression. They thought, that he who permitted error to be believed and preached, was chargeable with a participation in the guilt. Intolerance became, in their view, a paramount duty to God and to the heretic himself; and the greater their love of God and of

* This is the ground on which Mr. Cotton himself justified the punishment of heretics. See the "Bloody Tenet."