book v

. p. 37.]

[221] [See Tracts on Lib. of Conscience, Introd. p. xxxii.]

[222] [The Assembly of Divines was at this time engaged in forming a directory of worship for the entire nation.]

[223] [The central part of a target, which anciently was painted white.]

[224] [There are two chapters numbered CXX. in the original copy.]

[225] Nero and the persecuting emperors were not so injurious to Christianity, as Constantine and others who assumed a power in spiritual things. Under Constantine Christianity fell into corruption, and Christians fell asleep.

[226] [Martial, De Spectaculis Libellus, Ep. ix.]

[227] [See Neal’s Hist. of Puritans, i. 353, edit. 1837.]

[228] Is not this too like the pope’s profession of servus servorum Dei, yet holding out his slipper to the lips of princes, kings, and emperors?

[229] [For elucidations of the references made by Mr. Williams in this preface to his sufferings, and for Mr. Cotton’s reply, see the Biographical Introduction.]

[230] [It is] a monstrous paradox, that God’s children should persecute God’s children, and that they that hope to live eternally together with Christ Jesus in the heavens, should not suffer each other to live in this common air together, &c. I am informed it was the speech of an honourable knight of the parliament: “What! Christ persecute Christ in New England?”[231]

[231] [“Though God’s children may not persecute God’s children, nor wicked men either, for well-doing: yet if they be found to walk in the way of the wicked—their brethren may justly deprive them in some cases not only of the common air of the country, by banishment, but even of the common air of the world by death, and yet hope to live eternally with them in the heavens.” Master John Cotton’s Answer to Master Roger Williams, p. 14.]

[232] [That is, of the church at Salem, of which Mr. Williams was then the pastor.]

[233] [This should be four hundred and fifty. See 1 Kings xviii. 19-22:—or including the “prophets of the groves,” 850.]

[234] [“The truth is, I did not publish that discourse to the world—A brief discourse in defence of set forms of prayer was penned by Mr. Ball—that a religious knight sent over with desire to hear our judgment of it. At his request I drew up a short answer, and sent one copy to the knight and another to Mr. Ball divers years ago. How it came to be published I do not know.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 23. See Hanbury’s Hist. Mem. ii. 157, for an abstract of it.]

[235] [See also Biographical Introduction to this volume.]

[236] [“The scope of my letter was, not to confirm the equity of his banishment, but to convince the iniquity of his separation.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 41.]

[237] [“He that shall withdraw or separate the corn from the people, or the people from the corn; the people have just cause to separate either him from themselves, or themselves from him. And this proportion will hold as well in spiritual corn as bodily.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 44.]

[238] [“If men hinder the enjoyment of spiritual good things, may they not be hindered from the enjoyment of that which is less, carnal good things?” Ib. p. 46.]

[239] [“I spent a great part of the summer in seeking by word and writing to satisfy his scruples, until he rejected both our callings, and our churches. And even then I ceased not to follow him still, ... whereof this very letter is a pregnant and evident demonstration.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 47.]

[240] [“I intended not a cordial of consolation to him, ... but only a conviction, to abate the rigour of his indignation against the dispensation of divine justice.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 48.]

[241] [“I bless the Lord from my soul for his abundant mercy in forcing me out thence, in so fit a season.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 49.]

[242] [Mr. Cotton was at one time much inclined to Antinomianism, which, in the hands of Mrs. Hutchinson, led to no small disturbance in New England. He however denied that he wished to separate on the ground of the _legal_ teaching of the churches with whom he held communion, but thought of removing to New Haven, “as being better known to the pastor and some others there, than to such as were at that time jealous” of him in Boston. A timely perception of Mrs. Hutchinson’s errors led him to renounce her fellowship, and he remained at Boston. Neal’s Hist. of N. E., i. 183; Mather’s Magnalia, iii. 21; Knowles’s Life of R. Williams, p. 140.]

[243] [“I have been given to understand, that the increase of concourse of people to him on the Lord’s days in private, to the neglect or deserting of public ordinances, and to the spreading of the leaven of his corrupt imaginations, provoked the magistrates, rather than to breed a winter’s spiritual plague in the country, to put him a winter’s journey out of the country.” Notwithstanding, Mr. Cotton asserts that Mr. Williams was treated most tenderly by the officer, James Boone, “who dare not allow that liberty to his tongue, which the examiner often useth in this discourse.” Cotton’s Answer, p. 57.]

[244] [“This Confession may be found in Crosby, but without the ‘story of his life and death,’ which we have never yet been able to find.” Hist. of Eng. Baptists, ii. App. No. 1.]

[245] [“As for Mr. Smith he standeth and falleth to his own master. Whilst he was preacher to the city of Lincoln, he wrought with God then: what temptations befel him after, by the evil workings of evil men, and some good men too, I choose rather to tremble at, than discourse of.” The fault of this “man fearing God,” appears to have been first his becoming a baptist, and then his acceptance of the opinions of certain Dutch baptists, with whom he held communion in Amsterdam. The early baptists held generally opinions which became known after the Synod of Dort as Arminian. In addition to these Mr. Smith held peculiar views on the nature of spiritual worship, which brought him into great disrepute with his fellow exiles, the Brownists and Independents. Cotton’s Answer p. 58, Smith’s Differences of the Ch. of the Separation,