USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > History of the state of Rhode Island and Providence plantations, Vol. I > Part 5
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. to defend, or to extenuate, their errors. We may account
I. for them from the circumstances of the case, and may show 1636. that they originated in an honest misapprehension of principles, thereby proving that the actors, though mis- taken, were consistent, and that their sins were rather of the head than of the heart. This view we adopt in our judgment of the Puritans.
In estimating their characters, we are too apt to judge them by the light of the present day. Two centuries of progress have wrought so great a change in opinions and views, by increasing so largely our fund of knowledge, that what was expedient or proper, or even right in those times, would be justly regarded as absurd or erroneous in this age. We might as well revile our ancestors for the use of the handloom, since modern science has introduced self-moving machinery, as to denounce them for not acting upon principles, which, in their day, were unrecognized in civil polity. They founded a colony for their own faith without any idea of tolerating others. For doing this, they have been charged with bigotry, fanaticism and folly. Every epithet has been applied to them that can be em- ployed to express detestation of the conduct of men acting under a sober conviction of truth. Regarding their con- duct from the standpoint of the nineteenth century, all this may be just. The like proceedings in this age would deserve the severest sentence of condemnation. But not so two hundred years ago. The bigotry of the Puritans was the bigotry of their times. In every act they illus- trated the spirit of the age. They committed some wrongs, for which, even with all this allowance, we are at a loss to account, which seem to us unpardonable, and to these we shall have occasion to refer ; but intolerance is not one of them. Toleration was a word conveying to their minds an image of terror. It was so held in England and throughout Europe. The principle was regarded with the same heartfelt abhorrence that conservative statesmen
45
CAUSES OF PURITAN INTOLERANCE.
now express for the feculent emanations of the Jacobin CHAP. clubs of France ; for, to their minds, it was attended with I. the like fatal results. The simple cobbler of Agawam in- 163 6. forms us that " he who is willing to tolerate any religion, or discrepant way of religion, besides his own, unless it be in matters merely indifferent, either doubts of his own, or is not sincere in it." To the same end, and about the same time, the illustrious Bossuet was employing his al- most superhuman eloquence to obtain the royal interfer- ence in enforcing the supremacy of the Papal church. The churches of Scotland and England were alike zealous in effecting uniformity. Edwards, an eminent divine of that period, says, " Toleration will make the kingdom a chaos, is the grand work of the devil, is a most transcendental Catholic and fundamental evil." This was the policy of Massachusetts Bay, and with this state of public opinion among themselves, and these high authorities to counte- nance them abroad, we cannot in fairness condemn them for desiring to free the colonies of all dissenters. The abuse of their principles arose mainly from the tenacity with which they maintained them, and the trying situa- tion in which they were placed. Had their own views been more liberal, we may well doubt whether the home government, actuated by the same spirit of intolerance, would have allowed the dissemination of free opinion in so large and prominent a colony. It was not till some years after, when a convulsion had shaken the institutions of England to their foundation, and the public mind was too intent on the fearful crisis at home to regard the affairs of distant provinces, that a free charter was ob- tained for the then obscure plantations in Rhode Island. Again, the Puritans looked on every departure from the established creed as being, what in fact it was, an in- fringement of the civil code ; for in their constitution government was merely secondary, and the church was the primary function. Hence they regarded every dissent
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. from their religious polity as revolutionary, as subversive of social order, and treated it as a crime. We, therefore, 1636. find them summoning Roger Williams before their highest tribunal, to answer for the crime of holding to certain opinions of a purely religious nature ; and with these views we are not inclined to wonder so much at their expulsion of Williams, as to condemn their subsequent conduct to- wards him and his colony, and their horrible treatment of the Quakers and Gortonists, which form the darkest chap- ters in Puritan history.
It is pleasing to find in the personal kindness of many eminent men towards Roger Williams at this time, a strong contrast to the severity of the magistrates and elders. The mild and amiable Winthrop, who was the ablest as well as the most liberal man of his age and place, appears to have regarded Williams with great affection and respect. He had ceased to direct the public councils some months before Williams' ordination at Salem, and the bigoted Dudley had succeeded to the chief magistracy as the leader of the most restrictive party in Massachusetts. The per- secution of Williams is to be attributed to a policy of which Dudley and his successor Haynes were the expo- nents. The latter, who was governor when Williams was banished, openly censured Winthrop for the mildness of his administration. The faithful friendship of Endicott, who afterwards became governor, has been recorded, and Williams' letters bear testimony to the kindness of Gov. Winslow and others of the prominent men of Plymouth.
There was nothing personal in the hostility of his ene- mies, the bitterest of whom were among the clergy, who sought to establish a political theocracy, and dreaded the promulgation of principles which they could not compre- hend. A yet greater obstacle to their scheme of uniform- ity had already appeared among themselves, and after distracting for two more years the councils of church and state, was destined in like manner to be violently expelled,
47
EARLY LIFE OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
and to result in the settlement of the island of Rhode- CHAP. · I. n
Island.
Roger Williams had scarcely established himself at 1636. Providence, before the Antinomian controversy burst forth in Massachusetts.
APPENDIX A.
EARLY LIFE OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
THE early career of Roger Williams has been the sub- ject of frequent and labored investigation, but, until very recently, with little result. Gradually, however, facts have been presented which throw some light on his history prior to his embarkation for America, Dcc. 1, 1630. The discovery of the Sadleir letters, a correspondence between Roger Williams and Mrs. Anne Sadleir, daughter of Sir Edward Coke, has shed light upon the important point of his education, and established the fact of his being a protege of Lord Coke. The original MSS. are in the li- brary of Trinity College, Cambridge. Hon. George Ban- croft, while Minister at the Court of St. James, procured copies, and presented them to the R. I. Hist. Society. They are also published in Dr. Elton's life of Roger Wil- liams, ch. xiii. By these papers, it appears that his illus- trious patron, on account of his ability displayed in taking notes of proccedings in the Star Chamber, placed him at Sutton's Hospital, now the Charter House, the records of which institution show that he was elected a scholar, June 25, 1621, and that he obtained one exhibition, July 9, 1624. (Elton's Roger Williams, ch. ii.)
The writer regrets that he cannot adopt the other par- ticulars relating to the birth-place and university educa- tion of Williams, contained in this interesting chapter. The learned author is undoubtedly correct in assigning
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. Wales as the country of Roger Williams. The name is eminently Welsh, and abounds even more remarkably in APP. A. Anglesea and the northern counties than at the south. Still it is not unlikely that Maestroiddyn was the birth- place of our Roger Williams. The testimony of the aged Nestor of Cayo is conclusive of the fact, that a Roger Williams, of sufficient celebrity to be known, at least among the natives of his mountain hamlet and the inher- itors of his blood, by the epithet "the great," was born there. But two points of difficulty occur in identifying him with the founder of R. I. and the graduate of Oxford. The records of Jesus College, cited by Dr. Elton, give the name as " Rodericus" in the Latin style of the University, which we submit should be " Rogerus" to meet this case. Or, admitting that the two names were used inter- changeably, which is barely probable, we are met with a fact which has added greatly to the perplexity and la- bor of this research, that there were two other persons of the same name, filling somewhat conspicuous positions at about the same time. One of these was a distinguished soldier in the wars of Holland, and either of them would seem as likely as the founder of R. I. to be the " Roder- icus" of Conwyl Cayo. But, Roderick and Roger are distinct names, and it seems an unnecessary violence to assimilate them, when a more natural, and in other re- spects also, a more obvious explanation of the difficulty may be found. Mr. Collen, the obliging Portcullis of the Herald's College, London, has made the genealogy of the founder of R. I. the subject of diligent research in the archives of that institution, at the instance of a wealthy family in Paris, who are lineal descendants of Roger Wil- liams. At his suggestion, the writer, assisted by Mr. Romilly, the venerable registrar of the University, exam- ined the records of Cambridge, the alma mater of Lord Coke, and where, from the connection between them, the probability is that Williams would complete his education
49
EARLY LIFE OF ROGER WILLIAMS.
in preference to Oxford. In the admission book of Pem- CHAP. I. APP. A.
broke College is an entry " Williams, 29 Jan., 1623." For the better understanding of these facts it may be stated that the students in the English Universi- ties are classed in three grades, according to their social position. At Cambridge the first are called Fellow Com- moners. This grade is composed of the nobility and the wealthy. The second are called Pensioners, from their boarding at the College, and this is the most numerous grade. The third, called Sizars, consists of the indigent students. When a student enters the University, his name is enrolled on the admission book of the particular College he joins, and is often very loosely entered, as in this case-no Christian name or particulars being given. The matriculation, which occurs after an interval of sev- eral months, and often, as in this case, of a year or two, is the registering the name on the books of the Univer- sity. This is done by the registrar, with the student's name in full, the date, and a list of degrees taken, each in its appropriate column. By this book it appears that Roger Williams was matriculated a pensioner of Pem- broke College, July 7, 1625, and took the degree of Bach- elor of Arts in Jan., 1626-7. He took no other degree. A more decisive evidence, in its bearing upon the present discussion, is contained in what is called the " subscrip- tion book." This was introduced in 1613 by James I., who required every student to subscribe to the thirty-nine articles. In the first volume of this book, under date of 1626, the time he took his degree, is the autograph signa- ture of ROGERUS WILLIAMS. A copy of this signature, carefully compared with the known autograph of the founder of Rhode Island, leaves little doubt of their iden- tity of origin.
Again, the testimony of Williams in one of his let- ters dated July, 1679 (Backus, Hist. of the Baptists, i. 421), that he was then " near to fourscore years of age,"
VOL. 1 .- 4
50
HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. I. is strongly corroborative of the received opinion that he was born in 1599, and not seven years later, as was Rod- APP. A. ericus Williams, the Oxonian. In that case he would have been only in his 73d year when writing the letter, and would hardly have described himself as " near 80." For these reasons the writer is reluctantly compelled to dissent from the conclusions of his early instructor and friend, the learned Doctor Elton, on the point of the University education of Roger Williams, and hence like- wise as to his being identical with the Roderic Williams of Conwyl Cayo.
The difficulty of this research in England, occasioned by there being three persons of the same name there, is further continued in this country by the presence of two Roger Williams's at the same time in New England, which has led the accurate Prince, and all subsequent writers, into error with regard to the admission of the Roger Williams as a freeman of Massachusetts, until the mistake was corrected by the diligence of Mr. Savage, the editor of Winthrop's Journal, and late President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, than whom no more thorough or more liberal historian ever lived. In the Massachusetts Colonial Records, i. 79, is a list of " the names of such as desire to be made freemen," among whom is Roger Williams. This is under date of October 19th, 1630, nearly four months before the founder of Rhode Island arrived. Most of these, including Roger Williams, with many others, took the freemen's oath at the next General Court, 18th May, 1631, at which time our Roger Williams had been three months in the coun- try, but never applied for admission. The freeman was a resident of Dorchester at that time, and afterwards re- moved to Connecticut.
51
THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY.
CHAPTER II.
THE ANTINOMIAN CONTROVERSY.
1636-1638.
WHILE the colonists were legislating for the preserva- CHAP tion of sound morals, by enacting sumptuary and other laws to regulate their domestic economy, there arrived a large accession of emigrants with news confirming the re- ports of the contemplated encroachments upon their liber- ties by the English hierarchy, which led to the adoption of prompt measures, on the part of the General Court, to place the country in a posture of defence. Among these new comers was one who was destined to cause greater disturbance to the Puritan settlements than any that they were to receive from the prevalence of " immodest fashions " at home, or from the designs of ambitious prelates abroad. A woman of great intellectual endowments and of mascu- line energy, to whom even her enemies ascribed unusual mental powers, styling her " the master-piece of woman's wit,"1 and describing her as "a gentlewoman of an haughty carriage, busy spirit, competent wit, and a volu- ble tongue," ? who by a remarkable union of charity, de- votion and ability, soon became the leader, not only of her own sex, but of a powerful party in the state and church, so that her opponents have termed her, by a species of ana-
1 Johnson. Wonder-working Providence, B. i, ch. 42.
2 Magnalia, B. vii. cli. 3 § 7, 8.
II. 1634 Sept.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. grammatic wit," The Nonsuch," was Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, II. the founder and champion of the Antinomian "heresy."
1634. Acting upon the principle that " the elder women were to teach the younger,"1 she established a weekly mecting at her own house, where she promulgated her views in the form of comments upon the sermons of Mr. Cotton. These meetings soon became largely attended, and to them was traced directly the origin of many opinions which were de- nounced by the authorities as heretical and seditious.
We have seen that the Puritans had already changed their position in becoming the founders of a State, and were disposed to mete out to all dissenters the same meas- ure of persecution which had led to their own emigration. The system that they had established was one of rigid for- malism, exacting a great regard to externals, and enforcing strict conformity in matters of abstract belief. This was a position in accordance with the spirit of the existing age, but contrary to that which was about to commence, of which the premonitions had already appeared in Massa- chusetts as well as in England. The new comers, who formed a large proportion of the inhabitants of Boston, had little sympathy with the established order of the state, and were prompt to embrace the novel tenets that were started at variance with the prevailing creed. These opin- ions related primarily to the doctrine of free grace, or jus- tification by faith alone, which was stoutly asserted by Mrs. Hutchinson, and maintained by her brother-in-law, Wheelwright, minister at Braintree, who had recently arrived. Although this cardinal article of the Reformation was equally upheld by the Puritans, they did not overlook the external evidence of sanctification, or forget the apostles' injunction that " faith without works is dead." Mrs. Hutchinson artfully contrived, by giving undue pro- minence to the scriptural idea of free grace, to make it
1 Titus, ch. 2, vs. 3-5.
53
PREVALENCE OF THE NEW VIEWS.
appear that her opponents denied the sovereign efficacy of CHAP. II. faith, and grounded their hopes of salvation upon their good works, and she denounced them as being " under a 1636. covenant of works," while she claimed for herself to be living " under a covenant of grace." The starting point of disagreement between the two parties related to the evidence of justification. The followers of Mrs. Hutchin- son contended for an inward light as the only sure wit- ness of divine grace, and without which no degree of mo- ral rectitude could give assurance of a saving faith, while the legalists held that obedience to the moral law, being an evidence of sanctification, was thus far a proof of our ac- ceptance with Christ. So long as the difference was con- fined to this, it made no disturbance. The new views were embraced by a majority of the Boston church, includ- ing Mr. Cotton himself, and were warmly espoused by the governor, afterwards Sir Henry Vane. The prime doc- trines of the Reformation, justification by faith, and the right of private judgment, were too nearly allied to these views to admit of their being disputed. The message sent to England by Cotton, who favored the new opinions, and by Wilson, who opposed them, con- tains the substance of the controversy up to this point : " That all the strife here was about magnifying the grace of God ; the one person seeking to advance the grace of God within us as to sanctification, and another person seeking to advance the grace of God toward us as to justification," to which Mr. Wilson added, " That he knew none who did not seck to advance the grace of God in both."! Soon however the breach widened. The Hut- chinson party, who claimed, theologically speaking, to be living " under a covenant of grace," not only denied the intrinsic efficacy of good works for the salvation of man, but carried this scriptural doctrine so far as to pervert its obvious meaning, by rejecting all external proofs of a
1 Magnalia, B. vii., c. 3, § 1.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. II. change of heart, as being indications that the convert was living under a " covenant of works."
1636.
The idea of inward revelation was no novelty in the history of theology. It is one which in all time has been effectively employed by the zealot or the impostor for the accomplishment of purposes requiring the incitement of religious fervor. It appeals to the imagination of men, and in this case, it thoroughly aroused the latent enthusiasm of the Puritans. The " opinionists," as they were at first called, soon received another name, and from the disregard of the divine law, both as an evidence and a means of grace, with which they were charged by their opponents, were termed Antinomians. The controversy increased un- til it reached an alarming height, interfering with the effi- cient prosecution of the Pequot war, dividing families, and threatening a dissolution of society. The more enthusias- tic people, a large proportion of the new comers, among whom was the governor, and those who cherished a secret feeling of dislike at the preponderating influence of the clergy in secular affairs, espoused the Antinomian cause, while those who were attached to the old order of things in church and state, with all the ministers except Wheel- wright and Cotton, formed the party of the legalists. With these popular elements on one side, based upon a free system of theological enquiry, and conducted by ardent and ta- lented leaders, it was a natural result that new and often startling opinions were promulgated, and the whole com- munity involved in a giddy maze of abstruse speculation. Questions pertaining to "our personal union with the Spirit of God," "the insignificancy of sanctification to be any evidence of our good estate," " the setting up of imme- diate revelation about future events, to be believed as equally infallible with the Scriptures," with similar recon- dite or fanciful themes, were everywhere discussed with more than scholastic zeal, and with " the exquisite rancor of theological hatred."
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COMMENCEMENT OF THE DIFFICULTY.
The first evidence that public attention was directed to CHAP. II. the new opinions appeared in a visit made by the other min- isters of the Bay, while the General Court was in session at 1636. Boston, to ascertain the truth of the rumors, intending, if need were, to write to the Boston church, warning them of Oct. the dangers of heresy. Cotton and Wheelwright both at- tended at this conference and satisfied them all, that on the point of sanctification as an evidence of justification, there was no difference of opinion, while on the question of the indwelling of the person of the Holy Ghost there appeared no material disagreement, many of the clergy holding to that doctrine in a limited degree, but not to a personal union of the believer with the Holy Spirit, which was the tenet of Mrs. Hutchinson. Some of her followers, who were members of the Boston church now sought to have Mr. Wheelwright appointed over it as one of the teachers. This was opposed by Ex-Governor Winthrop on the 30. ground that the church was already furnished with able ministers, and that Wheelwright was known to advocate certain doctrines at variance with the received opinions, as " that a believer was more than a creature," and " that the person of the Holy Ghost and a believer were united."! A discussion ensued, in which Deputy Governor Winthrop, Cotton, Wheelwright, and Governor Vane, took part, re- sulting in the success of the former, so that the church gave way that Mr. Wheelright might be called to a new church about to be established at Braintree. The defeated mem- bers felt aggrieved at this attack upon their candidate, 31. whereupon the next day Winthrop apologized for his offence, stating that Wheelwright had since denied holding the opinions charged against him ; and then, not satisfied with this recantation, most unwisely proceeded to argue from the doctrines which Wheelwright admitted, that he must necessarily hold to these objectionable dogmas also. It was a question of metaphysical distinction too nice to be debated in a mixed assembly, and it would have been 1 Winthrop I, 202.
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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND.
CHAP. well had Winthrop been satisfied with the explana- II. tions of his Christian brother. A similar instance of the 1636. dangerous display of logical acumen had occurred a year before at the trial of Roger Williams where the dialec- tics of Hooker convinced the court that Williams did
maintain opinions which he expressly denied. The habit of deducing from the premises of enthusiastic theologians conclusions not admitted by themselves, and then charg- ing upon them not only errors of doctrine, but of con- duct as the legitimate result of these conclusions, was one to which the Puritans were addicted, that caused them infinite trouble, and was the occasion of great injus- tice to the dissenting parties. In the discussion concern- ing the settlement of Wheelwright, the first public exposi- tion of the new opinions was made. Heretofore they had been confined to Mrs. Hutchinson's private assembly, or made the subject of anxious deliberation by the ministers alone. The rupture resulting from Winthrop's impru- dence on this occasion, revealed how deeply the heterodox notions had taken root. Cotton and Vane, with many others, had adopted them, while Wilson and Winthrop resisted the heretical novelties. A disputation concern- ing the nature of the Holy Ghost was held in writing, that the peace of the church need not be disturbed there- by. The prudent conclusion was agreed to, that as nei- ther the Scriptures nor the primitive Fathers made men- tion of the " person" of the Holy Ghost, that term should not be used.
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