The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 2

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 868

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BIOGRAPHICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

acquaintance with those principles, which were to be so useful to him in future life, as the legislator of an infant colony. Ile soon, however, relinquished this pursuit and entered upon the study of theology ; a study which to a heart and mind like his, possessed superior attractions. Ile was admitted to orders in the Established Church, and assumed, it is said, the charge of a parish, probably in the diocese of the excellent Bishop Williams, who, it is well known, winked at the Nonconformists, and spoke with keenness against some of the ceremonies inaugurated by King James and his advisers. It was during this period that the young clergyman became acquainted with many of the leading emigrants to America, including his famous opponent in after years, John Cotton. He appears, cven then, to have been very decided in his opposition to the liturgy, the ceremonies, and the hicrarchy of the church, a: expounded and enforced by Laud, to escape from whose tyranny he finally fled to the new country. He embarked at Bristol, in the ship Lyon, and after a tempestuous passage of nearly ten weeks, arrived at Boston, with his wife Mary, to whom he had been but recently married, on the 5th of February, 1631. " He was then," says the historian Ban- croft, " but little more than thirty years of age ; but his mind had already matured a doctrine which secures him an immortality of fame, as its application has given religious peace to the American world. He was a Puritan, and a fugitive from English persecution ; but his wrongs had not clouded his accurate understanding; in the capacious reccsses of his mind he had revolved the nature of intoler- ance, and he, and he alone, had arrived at the great princi- ple which is its sole effectual remedy. He announced his discovery under the simple proposition of the sanctity of conscience. The civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control opinion; should punish guilt, but never violate the freedom of the soul." The arrival of this " godly minister " is duly recorded by Winthrop, and in a few weeks he was cordially invited to settle in Boston as a teacher. This flattering invitation he declined, because, as he afterwards wrote to Cotton, he " durst not officiate to an unseparated people." So impure did he regard the Established Church, that he would not join with a congre- gation, which, although driven into the wilderness by its persecuting spirit, refused to regard its hierarchy and worldly ceremonies as portions of the abominations of Anti- christ. He, therefore, accepted an invitation to Salem, and shortly entered upon his duties as teacher, in place of the learned and catholic Higginson, who was in fee- ble health. The church with which he thus became con- nected was the oldest in the Massachusetts colony, having been organized on the 6th of August, 1629, “ on prin- ciples," says Upham, its historian, " of perfect and entire independence of every other ecclesiastical body." It was, for this reason, eminently congenial to Williams's indepen- dent and fearless nature. At once the civil authority inter- fered to prevent his settlement, on the principle afterwards

established, that " if any church, one or more, shall grow schismatical, rending itself from the communion of other churches, or shall walk incorrigibly and obstinately in any corrupt way of their own, contrary to the rule of the word ; in such case, the magistrate is to put forth his coercive power, as the matter shall require." The church at Salem, notwithstanding, maintained its independence, and on the 12th of April, 1631, received Mr. Williams as its minister. llis settlement, however, was of short continuance. Disre- garding the wishes and advice of the magistrates in calling him, the church had incurred their disapprobation, and raised a storm of persecution, so that, for the sake of peace, he withdrew before the close of summer, and sought a resi- dence at Plymouth, beyond the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay. Here, says Governor Bradford, he was cordially re- ceived and freely entertained, exercising his gifts and being admitted into the church. He labored in the ministry of the word faithfully, both among the whites and among the Indians, whom he visited in their wigwams, and with whose chiefs, Massasoit and Canonicus, he became intimately acquainted. In the autumn of 1633, he returned to Salem. Already the principles of freedom which he everywhere proclaimed had made him an object of jealousy even among the liberal-minded Pilgrims of the Mayflower. On requesting his dismissal from the church, we find the Elder, Mr. Brewster, persuading his people to relinquish com- munion with him, lest he should " run the same course of rigid separation and Anabaptistry which Mr. John Smith, the Se-Baptist at Amsterdam, had done." Mr. Williams resumed his ministerial duties in Salem as an assistant to Mr. Skelton, whose declining health unfitted him for his work. Upon the death of Mr. Skelton, in August, 1634, he was regularly ordained as his successor, notwithstanding the opposition of the magistrates. He was highly popular as a preacher, and the people became strongly attached to him and to his ministry. Among his hcarers were not a few of the members of the church at Plymouth, who, after in- effectual attempts to detain him there, had transferred their residence to Salem. The original framework of the house in which he preached is still preserved, as an object of in- terest to the historian and the antiquary. Whoever visits Plummer Hall will find in the rear of that institution, re- stored as far as possible to its primitive condition, the quaint structure which, two and one-half centuries ago, resounded with his eloquence. From this period of Mr. Williams's final settlement may be dated the beginning of the contro- versy with the clergy and court of Massachusetts, which at length terminated in his banishment from the colony. " He was faithfully and resolutely protected," says Upham, in his historical discourse, " by the people of Salem, through years of persecution from without ; and it was only by the persevering and combined efforts of all the other towns and churches that his separation and banishment were finally effected." . .. . " They adhered to him long and faithfully, and sheltered him from all assaults. And

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when at last he was sentenced by the General Court to banishment from the colony, on account of his principles, we cannot but admire the fidelity of that friendship which prompted many of the members of his congregation to ac- company him in his exile, and partake of his fortunes, when an outcast upon the earth." Of the true causes which led to this final result, Governor Winthrop, of all the early writers, has given the fairest and most reliable account. " In April, 1635," he writes, "the Court sum- moned Williams to appear at Boston. The occasion was, that he had taught publicly that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man ; for that we thereby have communion with a wicked man in the worship of God, and cause him to take the name of God in vain. He was heard before all the ministers and very clearly confuted." Mr. Williams, in alluding to his final trial, has given a dif- ferent version respecting the force of the arguments which he presented. In his Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, he says: " After my public trial and answers at the General Court, one of the most eminent magistrates, whose name and speech may be by others remembered, stood up and spoke. ' Mr. Williams' said he, ' holds forth these four particulars : First, that we have not our land by patent from the king, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a re- ceiving of it by patent ; secondly, that it is not lawful to call a wicked person to swear, or to pray, as being actions of God's worship; thirdly, that it is not lawful to hear any of the ministers of the parish assemblies in England ; fourthly, that the civil magistrate's power extends only to the bodies, and goods, and outward state of man, etc.' I acknowledge the particulars were rightly summed up, and I also hope that, as I then maintained the rocky strength of them to my own and other consciences' satisfaction, so, through the Lord's assistance, I shall be ready, for the same grounds, not only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New England, as for most holy truths of God in Christ Jesus:" The controversy now became more and more vio- lent. In July he was again summoned to Court. His " opin- ions were adjudged by all, magistrates and ministers, to be erroneous and very dangerous," and after long debate, " time was given to him, and the church at Salem, to consider of these things till the next General Court, and then either to give satisfaction to the Court, or else to expect the sentence." " The interval," says Professor Gammell, " we may readily imagine, was a period of no common excitement among the churches and towns of Massachusetts Bay. The con- test was one that could not fail to awaken the deepest interest among men entertaining views of government and religion like those prevalent among the early Puritans. On one side was arrayed the whole power of the civil government, supported by the united voice of the clergy and by the general sentiment of the people; on the other was a single individual, a minister of the Gospel, of dis- tinguished talents and blameless life, who yet had ventured

to assert the freedom of conscience, and to deny the juris- diction of any human authority in controlling its dictates or decisions. The purity of the churches and the cause of sound doctrine were thought to be in peril, and all waited with eager expectation to know the issue of this first schism that had sprung up among the Pilgrim bands of New England." The issue was at hand. The people of Salem had preferred to the Court a claim for a tract of land lying on Marblehead Neck, which claim had been refused as a punishment for their adhesion to Mr. Williams. This he denounced as an act of flagrant injustice, and he further urged his church to renounce all communion with the other churches. The next General Court was held in October, 1635, when he was again summoned for the last time, " all the ministers in the Bay being desired to be present." " Mr. Hooker," says Winthrop, " 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." The act of banishment, as it stands upon the Colonial Records, is in these words : " Whereas, Mr. Roger Williams, one of the elders of the Church of Salem, hath broached and divulged 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 re- traction ; 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 license from the Court." This remark- able sentence, as the late Professor Diman has clearly shown, was passed on October 8, and not on November 3, as has generally been stated. On the final passing of this act " the whole town of Salem," says Neal, was in an up- roar, and many people were led to listen to the teachings of Williams, and to embrace his views and opinions. This information led the Court to resolve to send him to England, and a small sloop was sent to Salem, with a com- mission to Captain Underhill to apprehend him. When, however, the officers came to his house, they found that he had been gone three days. It was in the middle of January, 1636, the coldest month of a New England win- ter, that the illustrious exile left his home and loved ones to escape the warrant for his arrest. The late Hon. Job Durfee, in his Whatcheer, has, with a poet's license, graphically described some of the scenes relating to this historic event. The account of the journey of Mr. Williams through the wilderness, and of his subsequent settlement, first at Seekonk, and afterwards at Providence, he has given in his own words, in a letter to his friend, Major Mason, of Connecticut. From this it may be in- ferred that he made his journey from Salem by sea, coast-

BIOGRAPHIICAL CYCLOPEDIA.

ing from place to place during the " fourteen weeks " that he " was sorely tossed," " not knowing what bread or bed did mean," and holding intercourse with the native tribes, whosc language and friendship he had already acquired. This is not the view that has been generally entertained, but the various expressions which he himself uses certainly admit of such a construction. " Mr. Winthrop," he says, " privately wrote me to steer my course to the Narragansett Bay." " I steered my course from Salem." Again : "It pleased the Most High to direct my steps into this bay." A paragraph in Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered seems still more conclusive on this point : " Had his soul been in my soul's case, exposed to the miseries, poverties, necessities, wants, debts, hardships of sea and land, in a banished condition, he would, I presume, reach forth a more merciful cordial to the afflicted." If, on the other hand, he escaped at once into the wilderness, as has been more commonly supposed, he perhaps took the road over which he had so often travelled to answer the citations of the Court at Boston, striking west when he reached Sau- gus into the unknown and unbroken woods, guided by a pocket compass, which has been preserved, in accordance with the traditions that have come down to us, as a memento of his journey. After long exposure, the effects of which he felt even in old age, he reached the wigwam of his aged Indian friend, Massasoit, with whom he remained for some time, and from whom he obtained a grant of land, now included in the town of Seekonk, Mas- sachusetts, and began to build a house or cabin. He cleared the ground and planted Indian corn. Meanwhile some friends had joined him, though his wife and children remained at Salem. The crops, beneath the sun and showers of June, looked green and thriving when he re- ceived a letter from his friend, Governor Winslow, of Plymouth. To use his own words : " I first pitched and began to build and plant at Seekonk, now Rehoboth; but I received a letter from my ancient friend Mr. Winslow, then Governor of Plymouth, professing his own and others' love and respect to me, yet lovingly advising me, since I was fallen into the edge of their bounds, and they were loath to displease the Bay, to remove to the other side of the water, and there, he said, I had the country free before me, and might be as free as themselves, and we should be loving neighbors together." It was in the latter part of June, 1636, as well as can now be ascertained, that Williams, with his five companions, embarked in his canoe at Seekonk, to find at length a resting-place on the free soil of Rhode Island. Tradition has preserved the shout of welcome, " What Cheer, Netop," which greeted his landing at Slate Rock. After exchanging friendly saluta- tions with the Indians they again embarked, and pursuing their course around the headland of Tockwotten passed what are now called Fox Point and India Point, and entered the Mooshausick River. Rowing up this broad and beautiful sheet of water, then bordered by a dense

forest, their attention was attracted by a delicious spring, gushing from the foot of a hill near the margin of the stream. Herc they landed, and upon the slope that as- cends from the river commenced a settlement, to which, in gratitude to his Supreme Deliverer, Williams gave the name of Providence. Other settlers from Massachusetts joined them, and at an early period they entered into an agreement or compact " only in civil things," and became "incorporated together into a town fellowship." Thus was founded, says Gervinus, the celebrated German pro- fessor, "a small, new society in Rhode Island, upon the principles of entire liberty of conscience," . .. which principles " have not only maintained themselves here, but have spread over the whole Union,"

and " have given laws to one-quarter of the globe." True to the principle that he had so earnestly avowed, that the Indians were the rightful proprietors of the lands they oc- cupied, and that no English patent could convey a com- plete title thereto, he first secured the territory by semi- purchase, though to do this he was obliged to mortgage his house at Salem in order to secure presents for the Nar- ragansett sachems. " It was not," he affirms, "thousands nor tens of thousands of money that could have bought an English entrance into this Bay, but I was the procurer of the purchase by that language, acquaintance and favor with the natives, and other advantages, which it pleased God to give me." The land was conveyed to him by formal deed from Canonicus and Miantonomi, and "was his as much as any man's coat upon his back." This land he freely shared with his companions, reserving for himself no special rights, and securing no kind of pre-eminence. In the spring of 1639 Williams, whose tendency to Baptist views, as a rigid Separatist, had long been apparent, was publicly immersed. Winthrop, in giving the account, says : " A sister of Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of one Scott, being infected with Anabaptistry, and going last year to live at Providence, Mr. Williams was taken, or rather, emboldened by her to make open profession thereof, and accordingly was rebaptized by one Holyman, a poor man, late of Salem. Then Mr. Williams rebaptized him and some ten more." Thus was established a church, which, after two and one-half centuries of vicissitude, and trial, and growth, is now known as the First Baptist Church of Providence, and which has always been regarded by the denomination to which it is attached with sentiments of filial attachment and pride. It is true that he did not long retain his out- ward connection with the little band, which for seventy years and upwards were accustomed to worship in private houses and beneath the shade of spreading trees. " In a few months," says Scott, " he broke from the society, and declared at large the grounds and reason of it,-that their baptism could not be right because it was not administered by an apostle." He became what in the history of that eventful period is denominated a SEEKER; a term, says Professor Gammell, not inaptly applied to those who, in

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any age of the Church, are dissatisfied with its prevailing creeds and institutions, and seek for more congenial views of truth, or a faith better adapted to their spiritual wants. Although, like his illustrious friends Milton and Cromwell and Vane, he preferred to live disconnected with any par- ticular church, he nevertheless did not, as appears from his writings, undervalue the benefits of Christian fellow- ship. He continued on terms of the closest intimacy with his successor in the ministry, Rev. Chad. Brown, of whom he speaks in one of his letters as "that noble spirit now with God." He believed " in that gallant, and heavenly, and fundamental principle of the true matter of a Christian congregation, flock, or society, viz., actual believers, true disciples and converts, living stones, such as can give some account how the grace of God hath appeared unto them." He continued also to preach the Gospel. In a letter to Governor Bradstreet, written very near the close of his life, he desires to have the discourses which he had preached to " the scattered English at Narragansett " printed, either at Boston or Cambridge. In regard to what is known as the distinguishing sentiment of Baptists at the present day, viz., baptism by immersion, he did not, it appears, materially change his views. In a letter to Win- throp, dated September 10, 1649, more than ten years after the founding of the Baptist Church, speaking of immersion in the river at Seekonk by Clarke and Lucar, he says: " I believe their practice comes nearer the first practice of our great founder Christ Jesus than other practices do." In 1643 the neighboring colonies formed a League or Con- federation for " mutual protection against the depredations committed by the natives," which Rhode Island was not invited to join, and to which she was afterwards refused admittance. The authorities of Massachusetts, not satis- fied with having driven Williams and others from their territory, laid claim to jurisdiction over the settlements in Narragansett Bay, as in the case of Samucl Gorton, the history of which forms a melancholy chapter in the annals of New England. For these and other reasons the in- habitants of Rhode Island and Providence requested Williams to proceed to England, and obtain, if possible, a charter, defining their rights, and giving them independent authority, free from the intrusive interference of their neighbors. He proceeded to New York, from whence he set sail in June, 1643. Notwithstanding his distinguished services in allaying Indian ferocity, and preventing by his personal influence the attacks of the native tribes upon the settlements of the Bay State, he was not even permitted to enter her territory and to ship from the more convenient port of Boston. He arrived at London in the midst of the horrors of a civil war. Hampden, the great leader in political affairs, had been stricken down in battle, and the fate of the English monarchy hung suspended in the balance. The affairs of the Colonies were intrusted to a Board of Commissioners, of whom Sir Henry Vane, the intimate friend of Williams, was a member. Through his

influence a charter, bearing date March 14, 1644, was ob- tained, with which he returned to America. At Seekonk he received a perfect ovation, the inhabitants of Providence meeting him with a fleet of fourteen canoes, and conveying him in triumph to his home. The limits of a sketch like this compel us to pass rapidly in review some of the lead- ing events in the further career of our great founder, referring the reader to the more extended memoirs of Knowles, Gammell, and Elton, and to Arnold's exhaustive history of the State. In 1645 he was instrumental, through his great personal influence among the Indians, in making peace between the Narragansetts and the Mohegans, thus preserving the settlements of New England a second time from a general war. He was chosen Deputy President of the Colony in 1649, but declined the honor, as also the office of Governor, three years later. In November, 1651, in company with his " loving friend" Rev. John Clarke, M.D., of Newport, he embarked at Boston, upon a sec- ond voyage to England, to procure the revocation of Gov- ernor Coddington's commission, and the confirmation of the first charter. It was during this visit that three of his works were published, a list of which we have reserved for our close. He enjoyed the hospitality of Vane, spend- ing many weeks at Belleau, his beautiful country resi- dence in Lincolnshire ; and he was brought into intimate relations with Cromwell, Milton, Hutchinson, and other kindred spirits. In a letter to Governor Winthrop, written after his return, he says: " It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with some persons, to practice the Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French, and Dutch. The Sec- retary of the Council, Mr. Milton, for my Dutch I read him, read me many more languages." This extract pre- sents a pleasing view of the literary acquirements and tastes of Roger Williams. Returning to Providence in the summer of 1654, he succeeded in reorganizing the government upon a permanent basis, and in September following he was chosen President or Governor. This position he occupied until May, 1658, when he retired from the office. It was during this period that he ad- dressed to the town his famous letter, which Knowles has quoted from the records, setting forth the principles on which the state was founded, and rebuking in the strong- est terms the lawless license that then prevailed. " There goes," he says, " many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth." This letter has long been regarded as a classic. Concerning the closing years of Williams's life we know but little. He outlived most of his contemporaries, dying at the advanced age of eighty- four, in the full vigor of his intellectual faculties. With ample means for the acquisition of wealth in his earlier career, he was compelled, it appears, in his latter days, to endure the ills of poverty. The precise date of his death is nowhere mentioned. It must have occurred early in 1683, for Mr. John Thornton, of Providence, writing to

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The Biographical cyclopedia of representative men of Rhode Island, Part 2

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co. Number of Pages: 868

Author: National biographical publishing co., pub
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Providence, National biographical publishing co.
Number of Pages: 868