part II

.: it is, however, a separate piece, and separately paged, and is Cotton’s Answer to the second treatise in this volume.

[20] Cotton’s Answer, p. 4. Knowles, p. 61. Mather, vii. 7. Backus, i. 57.

[21] Knowles, p. 66.

[22] So Winthrop. Knowles, pp. 68-70. Backus, i. 67, 68. See also p. 422 of this volume. Cotton’s Answer, p. 4.

[23] See p. 372. Cotton’s Answer, pp. 5, 9. Cotton treats his sickness as a “check from the hand of God,” p. 56.

[24] See pp. 387, 388. Bancroft, i. 373.

[25] Knowles, pp. 71, 72. The sentence was as follows:—“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 magistrates to send him to some place out of this jurisdiction, not to return any more without licence from the Court.” Backus, i. 69, 70.

[26] Cotton’s Answer, p. 26.

[27] Cotton’s Answer, pp. 27-30.

[28] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 276.

[29] Bancroft, i. 327.

[30] See pp. 249, 257, 262. Mr. Cotton pleads that anabaptists and others were not compelled _against_ conscience; nor were they punished for conscience’ sake; but for _sinning_ against conscience. Tenent Washed, pp. 165, 189; Backus, i. 98.

[31] See pp. 186, 331; Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 122. By the law of September 6, 1638, the time was extended to six months. Backus, i. 45, 98; Bancroft, i. 349.

[32] “The Lady Moody, a wise and amiable religious woman, being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt withal by many of the elders and others, and admonished by the church at Salem.” To avoid more trouble, she went amongst the Dutch; but was excommunicated. In 1651, the Rev. J. Clarke and Mr. O. Holmes, of Rhode Island, for visiting a sick baptist brother in Massachusetts, were arrested, fined, imprisoned, and whipped. At an earlier period, they had been compelled to leave Plymouth for their opinions. Mr. Cotton approved of this. Backus, i. 146, 207, 225.

[33] Williams’s Letter to Endicot. Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 305. See p. 245.

[34] “Whilst he lived at Salem, he neither admitted, nor permitted any church members but such as rejected all communion with the parish assemblies, so much as in hearing the word amongst them.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 64. See p. 397 of this volume.

[35] “The substance of the true estate of churches abideth in their congregational assemblies.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 109. Cotton refers here to the parish congregations.

[36] See pp. 243, 244, 392. Mather’s Magnalia, i. 21.

[37] Cotton charges Williams with attempting to draw away the Salem church from holding communion with all the churches of the Bay, “because we tolerated our members to hear the word in the parishes of England.” Tenent Washed, p. 166.

[38] See p. 246. Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 230.

[39] It must have reached Williams _after_ his settlement at Providence. Cotton, in 1647, says he wrote it about “half a score years ago,” which would give the date of 1637.

[40] See p. 377. Cotton’s Answer, p. 8, 9, 13, 36-39. “I did never intend to say that I did not consent to the justice of the sentence when it was passed.”

[41] Cotton says, “Some of his friends went to the place appointed by himself beforehand, to make provision of housing and other necessaries against his coming.” Answer p. 8. This, however, is very doubtful.

[42] See p. 388. Knowles, p. 73. Backus, i. 70. Governor Winthrop had privately advised him to leave the colony. The friendship of this eminent man was of frequent service to our exile. Cotton declares that the officer who served the warrant saw “no sign of sickness upon him.” Answer, p. 57. This he might not choose to see.

[43] See p. 370. Knowles, p. 395.

[44] Now called Rehoboth.

[45] Quoted from his “Key,” &c., by Knowles, p. 101.

[46] The land at this spot still bears the designation of “What Cheer.”

[47] The vivid and dramatic poem of Judge Durfee, entitled “What Cheer?” is founded on the supposed events of his journey through this howling wilderness, and amid its savage inhabitants.

[48] Letter to Major Mason. Knowles p. 394, Benedict, p. 449.

[49] This view has been ably advocated by General Fessenden, from whose manuscript some of the above particulars are taken by Benedict, in the new edition of his Hist. of the Baptists, p. 449.

[50] Knowles, p. 103, 112. Backus, i. 90, 94.

[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.

[61] Backus, i. 147.

[62] Backus, i. 148. Knowles, p. 198.

[63] Elton, in notes to Callender, p. 230. Knowles, p. 208.

[64] See p. 36.

[65] See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, pp. 214-225.

[66] Bloudy Tenent Washed, p. 1.

[67] Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody, pp. 4, 290. The only edition known to us of the prisoner’s arguments with Mr. Cotton’s reply, is of the date 1646, with the following title: “The Controversie concerning Liberty of Conscience in Matters of Religion, truly stated, and distinctly and plainly handled by Mr. John Cotton of Boston in New England. By way of answer to some arguments to the contrary sent unto him, wherein you have, against all cavils of turbulent spirits, clearly manifested wherein liberty of conscience in matters of religion ought to be permitted, and in what cases it ought not, by the said Mr. Cotton. London. Printed for Thomas Banks. 1646.” It is a quarto pamphlet of fourteen pages, and signed _John Cotton_, and agrees with Williams’s copy of it in the “Bloudy Tenent.”

[68] See p. 189.

[69] Bloody Tenent Washed, pp. 150, 192.

[70] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, pp. 222, 291.

[71] Mather’s Magnalia, iii. 128, v. 22.

[72] Backus, i. 66.

[73] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 38.

[74] Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614-1661. Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846.

[75] The Second Part of the Vanity and Childishness of Infants’ Baptism. By A. R. p. 27. London, 1642.

[76] In “M. S. to A. S. with a Plea for Liberty of Conscience in a Church Way, &c.” London, 1644. 4to. pp. 110. Also in “Θεομαχία; or, the grand imprudence of fighting against God,” &c., 4to. 1644.

[77] London, 4to. 1644, p. 13. Cotton’s Answer, p. 2. Orme’s Life of Owen, p. 100.

[78] Tracts on Lib. of Conscience, p. 270.

[79] These differences are stated by Mr. Gammell in his Life of Williams, p. 215, to exist in the _two_ copies he has seen in America. The only copies we have seen in this country, are those in the Bodleian Library, and the British Museum; _both_ of which have the table of errata.

[80] Baillie’s Dissuasive. Epist. Introd. ed. 1645. Hanbury’s Memorials, ii. 403; iii. 110, 127.

[81] Bloody Tenent more Bloody, p. 38.

[82] The two parts of this work are quoted in the notes to this volume, as “Cotton’s Reply,” and “Cotton’s Answer.”

[83] [See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, p. 217. Hanserd Knollys Society, 1846.]

[84] Essay of Religion. [Eos qui conscientias premi, iisque vim inferri suadent, sub illo dogmate, cupiditates suas subtexere, illamque rem sua interesse, putare. De Unitate Ecclesiæ.]

[85] It is rarely seen that ever persons were persecuted for their conscience, but by such persecution they were confirmed and hardened in their conscience.

[86] [See Tracts on Liberty of Conscience, pp. 214-224.]

[87] Sozom. lib. 1. Eccles. Hist. chap. 19, 20. [Fleury, Eccles. Hist. Liv. xi. c. 23. “The impious Arius was banished into one of the remote provinces of Illyricum.... The emperor had now imbibed the spirit of controversy, and the angry, sarcastic style of his edicts was designed to inspire his subjects with the hatred which he had conceived against the enemies of Christ.” Gibbon, Decline and Fall, p. 317. 8vo. edit.]

[88] In Epist. 166. [Tunc Constantinus prior contrá partem Donati severissimam legem. Hunc imitati filii ejus talia præceperunt. Quibus succedens Julianus deserto Christi et inimicus, supplicantibus vestris Rogatiano et Pontio libertatem perditioni partis Donati permisit—Huic successit Jovianus—Deinde Valentinianus, legite quam contra vos jusserit. Inde Gratianus et Theodosius—Veri Christiani non pro heretico errore pœnas justissimas sicut vos, sed pro catholica veritate passiones gloriosissimas pertulerunt. S. Aug. Opera, Tom. ii. fol. 156. Ed. Venetiis, 1552.]

[89] [Igitur et scintilla statim ut apparuerit, extinguenda est, et fermentum a massæ vicinia se movendum, secandæ putridæ carnes, et scabiosum animalia caulis ovium repellendum, ne tota domus, massa, corpus, et pecora ardeat, corrumpatur, putrescat, intereant. Arius in Alexandria una scintilla fuit, sed quia non statim oppressa est, totum orbem ejus flamma populata est. S. Hieronymi Opera. Tom. iii, p. 927. Parisiis, 1609. ed.]

[90] [Sunt duo libri mei, quorum titulos est contra partem Donati. In quorum primo