page 22, of his errors of Toleration "under the grossly
abused notion of Liberty of Conscience" with extracts from
Queries of Highest Consideration, and The Bloudy Ten-
ent ; and pages 26 to 35 are given to a general denunciation
of errors advocated by Williams. Samuel Gorton, J. Good-
win, and the other Sectarians also received their share of
attention. The effect of all these errors declared the Testi-
mony was that,
"Instead of a Reformation ... we have a Deformation
in Religion:; in a word instead of extirpation of Heresie,
Schism, Prophaneness, etc., we have such an impudent and
R()(;|-.K WII.I.rAMS AND THI". KX(;LISH RI'AOI.l'TTOX 43
general enuiidation of all the evils, that multitudes are not
ashamed to press and plead for a public, formal, and uni-
\ersal Toleration,"
The "Sion College" manifestation, says C. B. in his
pamphlet Sion College, What it is, ( May 24, 1648. E-444.
See also John Goodwin's pamphlet, Sion College Msited,
E-425. ) is the ecclesiastical view of the London clergy, the
Assembly of Divines, and the Presbyterian Parliament,
and their "acts of late for suppressing errors, heresies,
blasphemies and Sectaries."
The ministers of the provincial parishes in England now
hastened to uphold the Testimony of Sion College. In the
Thomasin Collection of the British Museum are the pam-
phlets of fifteen parishes outside of London, representing
about eight-hundred ministers who added their Testi-
monies to that of Sion College against Roger Williams, his
Blondy Tene7it and other pamphlets, and the other Sec-
taries. The pamphlets make specific references to Williams
and his books. \n other words by the beginning of 1648,
the name of Roger Williams was known throughout all
the Mid-lands and northern England to at least 800 min-
isters of the Presbyterian party.
These Testimonies against the errors, heresies, and blas-
phemies, were published, and addressed the Sion College
in support of their Testimony: The Testimony of Dec. 14,
1647 was signed by S2 London ministers; A Representa-
tion to the General and his Council of War, Jan. 1 8, 1648,
E-538, by 47 ministers; by the Ministers of Banbury in
Oxen and Brackley, Northampton, Jan. 25, E-540, 19
ministers; b\- the Ministers of Lancaster, March 3, E-434,
84 ministers; by the Warwickshire ministers, March 16,
E-434, 43 ministers; \'indiciae \'eritatis. Ministers of
West Riding, Co. York, April 6, E-444, 41 ministers; by
the Ministers of Essex, May 2, E-438, 132 ministers; by
the Ministers of Salop, May 16, E-442, 57 ministers; by
the Ministers of Northampton, May 11, E-441, 69 min-
isters; by the Ministers of Norfolk and Norwich, June 9,
44 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
E-447, 40 ministers j by the Ministers of Co. Wilts, June
26, E-449, 83 ministers; by the Ministers of Devon,
June 27, E-450, 73 ministers; by the Ministers of Staf-
ford, July 14, E-453, 38 ministers; by the Ministers of
Co. Suffolk, July 19, E-453, 39 ministers; by the Minis-
isters of Somerset, Aug. 9, E-457, 69 ministers. I am cer-
tain that I missed several of the pamphlets, but this gives
a fair view of the attitude of the English clergy under
the Presbyterian establishment. According to other pam-
phleteers these clergy had been Anglican clergy before the
Presbyterian Parliament. If this is true, can anyone wonder
why Williams was condemning the Hireling Ministry as
none of Christ's.
A Glass for the Times (Anon. July 29, 1648. E-455)
appeared in the summer of 1648, giving two quotations
from the books of Williams and condemning his errors on
lawful oaths and his error of full liberty of conscience.
Another pamphlet The Hunting of the Fox or the Sec-
taries (Aug. 27, 1648, E-457) said that the cry of the
sectary is faith, religion, conscience, liberty, reformation or
revolution. Presbyterianism was now slowly being over-
come by the sectarians; and in a few more months, they
will be driven out of Parliament by the Army, and the
Rump Parliament of Independents will take over civil
authority.
Two pamphlets that have no direct bearing on Williams
are of interest here. The first is The Reasons of the Dis-
senting Brethren against Presbyterial government. ( May
6, 1648, E-439. by the seven brethren) The book in great
length discusses their difference with the Assembly of
Divines of which they are members, on the policy of Pres-
byterian state-church government. The seven brethren
were intimate friends of Roger Williams: Tho. Goodwin,
Jer. Burroughs, W. Carter were the least liberal; Phil
Nye, Sidrack Simpson, Williams Bridges and Mr. Green-
hill took part with Williams in religious meetings in and
around London in 1643-44. The other pamphlet has
KOGKR WILLIAMS AND THK ENGLISH KK\()LUT10N 45
political interest. Good English or the safest zvay of Settle-
ment, May 8, 1648 (E-441. Br. Mus.) shows that the
cause has split into the Presbyterian and Independent fac-
tions, and the Independents divided into the superior
Army officers who
"aim to be an aristocratical form of government and ( in
plain ternis ) to declare themselves and their select con-
federates Free States.
" The other party called Levellers consist only of some
colonels and commanders of inferior rank in the Army,
w^ith whom joined some few members of the Commons
House, and a confused Rabble of Sectaries in the Army,
city, suburbs, and some parts of the country. Their aim is
at a Democratical form of government investing the power
in the people; so that this wild Faction ex-prof esso are
enemies alike both to Monarch and Aristocracy and will be
governed neither by Kings nor States."
However nearly that analysis was correct, the events of
early 1649 bear out the prophecy. The Rump Parliament
formed by the Army under Cromwel], Whalley, Lilburn,
and Ireton, set up a high court anci tried the King and
condemned him to the block. He was executed January 30,
1649. The Presbyterians were driven out of power at the
point of the ba\'onet. In February, Lilburn, Overton, Wal-
win. Sawyer, and Prince, the leaders of the Levellers, were
thrown into prison by the Rump Parliament. The Inde-
pendents in control of the Rump Parliament were headed
by Ireton, Cromwell, Sir Henry \^ine and Oliver St. John.
The Parliament, wrote Feake, in 1654, ( .1 Beam of Light,
E-737) tried "to introduce the Government of a Free-
State" and to "engage the Army and the Nation in this
New Establishment, without King or House of Peers."
In 1653, the Lord Protector Cromwell "usurped the
supreme ci\'il Power to secure and to establish it to him-
self and to his family" and introduced a "hated Tyranny
of a New Edition."
When the Le\'ellers realized that their leaders were
46 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
thrown into prison by the Rump Parliament and that their
principles were rejected by Cromwell and his party, a new
flood of pamphlets came forward for liberty. The women
of London petitioned for the release of the Levellers,
April 24. ( To the Supreme Authority of this Nation,
E-551 ) Three pamphlets appeared with a great deal of
quoted material from the pamphlets of Williams: Liberty
of Conscience Asserted (Anon. March 20, 1649. E-548 )
by laws of God, nature and reason j Certain Queries con-
cerning Liberty of Conscience^ by a friend of Williams,
Col. Henry Danvers, (March 27, E-548. by a lover of
truth and just freedom), the twelve queries are fashioned
on the Queries of Williams; and A Discourse of Liberty
of Conscience^ (Thomas Whitheld, defender of persecu-
tion. May 7, 1649. E-554. ), wherein the arguments on
both sides are so equally laid together in the balance. The
thirteen arguments for liberty of conscience are often taken
verbatim from the Queries or Bloudy T enent. The other
pamphlets on Leveller principles go more afield for their
ideas, and must be omitted here.
Two treatises appeared during the summer of 1 649
written by learned Presbyterian divines. Both these theo-
logical treatises consider Williams as the first and foremost
exponent of liberty of conscience and general liberty, and
separation of church and state. Coming five years after the
publication of The Bloudy Tenent and after the Presby-
terian party has been turned out of Parliament, and from
the pen of two such able theologians, these two pamphlets
are a good metestick of the influence of Williams in the
revolution now taking place in England. A Treatise of
cases of Conscieyice^ by George Gillespie, (July 16, 1649,
E-564) dealt mostly with the doctrines of Roger Williams
in pages 133 to 164, although implied references are made
in the first 133 pages. He quoted Williams as the only
man who has fully and completely set forth the principles
of liberty and of Seekerism. He dealt with the Bloudy
Tenent by chapters, for example.
ro(;kr WILLIAMS AND THK i:n(;lish KKVOLUTIOX 47
He quoted from chapter 33: "It is true, the mischief of
a blind Pharisee, blind guiciance, is greater then if he acted
treasons, murders, etc.. And the loss of one soul by his
seduction is greater mischief, then if his blew up Parlia-
ment, and cut the throats of Kings and Emperors, so
precious is that iiualuable Jewel of a Soul."
Such passages from T/^e Bloudy Tenent quoted after
the beheading of the King on Jan. 30, six months previ-
ously, make Wilbams seem dangerous indeed. I shall
omit the numerous comments of Gillespie on the Williams
doctrines and give one more of his quotations:
He quoted from Chapter 52: "if Sectaries and Here-
ticks make a breach of peace, disturb the State, and do evil
against the Common-wealth in civil things, then the Mag-
istrate may punish and suppress them," otherwise they
must be tolerated and foreborn — " also Compassionate
Samaritan, p. 10; John the Baptist, p. 57; M. S. to A. S.,
p. S3^ 54; The Ancient Bounds, Chap. 1," are given as
upholding the same principle.
Samuel Rutherford of Scotland, Presbyterian theolo-
gian, in A Free Disputation against Liberty of Conscience y
devoted no less than 40' y of his volume of over four hun-
dred pages to a refutation of the doctrines and principles
of Roger Williams, and especially The Bloudy Tenent.
The first reference to Williams is made on pages 46 ff, on
the doctrine of the Seekers, and the last reference is on
page 410, the last paragraph of the treatise, dealing with
Williams' interpretation of Romans chapter 13, on the
principle of separation of church and state. This is a schol-
arly treatise couched in reserved but confident language.
The entire Bloudy Tenent in its theological aspect is in
turn subjected to his dogmatic searchlights. On page 403,
Rutherford contends that the pamphlet "On necessity of
Toleration," 1647, borrowed from the Bloudy Tenent.
A few^ examples of the method of handling Williams'
ideas used by Rutherford may be in order. In showing that
W^illiams misinterpreted the parable of the Tares, and
48 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
after Williams the other sectarians made the same error,
Rutherford quotes as authority against Williams "Parisi-
ensis, Part I, Tract, de. Legibus, p. 27" j Calvin, Beza,
Acontius, Gamacheus, Suarez, Tolmenesj on liberty of
conscience, he quotes chapter 40, and then refers the reader
to Goodwin, Saltmarsh, Del, Samuel Gorton, Jeremy Tay-
lor, as upholding the same views j against Williams defense
of civil rights of seducing teachers, Rutherford quotes
from the writings of Parius, Meyer, Calvin, Piscator, Beza,
Luther, Perkins, Bullinger, Augustine, Bible, and Ame-
oius. Rutherford attacks The Bloiuiy Tenent in the correct
dogmatic manner with the weapons of exegetics and his-
torical criticism, making free use of Church Fathers and
noted theologians among the Reformers as his authority.
The detailed treatment of The Bloiidy Tenant^ pub-
lished in 1 644, by these two Presbyterian theologians in
1 649 is a tacit recognition that this was considered by the
Presbyterians the most troublesome single pamphlet of
Leveller and Independent parties now in control of the
English Commonwealth.
The poet John Milton, friend of Williams, on Febru-
ary 13, 1649, came out in defense of the execution of King
Charles in The 1' enure of Khigs and Alagistrates. ( E-542.
Br. Mus. ) Milton restated the Leveller political princi-
ples, but he fell far short of their ideal of liberty of con-
science. He grants the "lawfulness of raising war against a
tyrant in defense of Religion" and grants only Toleration
of certain Christian sects. Williams and the Levellers stood
for full and absolute liberty of conscience. Milton took a
half-way position.
After 1649 Williams dropped out of the limelight of
English political and religious discussions. His principles
had become common public property without regard to
man or party. The Independents followed the half-way
position of Milton and the Five Dissenting Brethren of
1644, granting only toleration of certain Christian sects.
The great body of sectaries, Quakers, Ranters, Antino-
ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 49
mians, Seekers, and others were still without the pale of
religious respectability. The English Commonwealth was
indeed "Tyranny in a New Edition," and a sad disappoint-
ment to Williams when he returned in Deceiriber, 1651.
In 1651, a friend of Williams, Isaac Pennington, Esq.,
took up the cudgel for The Fundamental Rights Safety,
and Liberty of the People (May 15, E-629. pp. 38). Like
The Bloiidy Tenent, this pamphlet has an address to
Parliament, and another to the people. He paraphrases
and quotes verbatim freely from Williams without credit-
ing his sources. Williams mentions Mr. Pennington in one
of his pamphlets in 1652.
The Key Into the Language of America, 1643, by Roger
Williams attracted wide attention in England and on the
Continent among a variety of persons. It was a chief
authority for those who cared to know about Indian life,
manners, morals and religion, philologists, historians, and
scholars interested in the origin of races, for their informa-
tion about the Indians of New England. Tho. Thorough-
good, in his Jezvs in America, or probability that the Amer-
ican are Jews, quoted and paraphrased copiously from the
Key of Williams. (May 6, 1651, E-600, Br. Mus. pp. 5,
8 1 ) This section is of interest:
"Master R. Williams, one of the first, if not the first of
our Nation in New England that learned the Language,
and so prepare toward the conversion of the Natives, which
purpose of his being known, he was desired to observe if
he found anything Judaical among them, etc. He kindly
answered to those letters from Salem in New England,
2()th of the lOth month, more than ten years since in hac
verba: Three things make me yet suspect that the poor
natives came from the southward, and are Jewes or Jew^ish
quodammode, and not from the Northern barbarians as
some imagine. 1. Themselves constantly afiirm that their
Ancestors came from the southwest, and thither they all
go dying. 2. They constantly and strictly separate their
women in a little wigwam by themselves in their feminine
so RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
seasons. 3. And beside their God Kuttand to the southwest,
they hold that Nanawitnawit (a God overhead) made the
Heavens and the Earth, and some tast of affinity with the
Hebrew have I found."
The letter referred to was written 20/10/1635 O. S. or
N. S. December, 1635. "And in New England, Mr. Wil-
liams seemed in other things to be extravagant, yet that he
writes to this point: For the Government of the Common-
wealth from the King, as supreme, to the inferiors and
subordinate magistrates, my heart is on them, as once Deb-
orah spake: and as the governors and associates do them-
selves take oath of Allegiance, so they have power by their
charter to give the same to all that shall at any time pass
to them, or inhabit with them."
Americans no Jews, by Hamon L'Estrange, (Oct. 5,
1651. E-643.) was a reply to Mr. Thoroughgood and
tried to disprove his conclusions, quoting beside the Key by
Williams, Purchas: de America, Champlaiuj Deser Ind.
Occid. and even J. Cotton and Edwin Winslow. The pam-
phlet is full of uninformed nonsense set out with much
pedantry.
When Williams returned to England December 1651
and saw that the Independents were no more tolerant than
had been the Anglicans or the Presbyterians, he launched
into a series of publications for Liberty of conscience and
civil rights. In April, 1652, he published The Bloudy
Tenent Yet more Bloudy in reply to Cotton's The Bloudy
Tenent Washed, 164-7 ; Experiments of Spiritual Life, a
letter written to his wife in the American wilderness; and
The Hireling Ministry None of Christ^ s, his share in the
controversy about civil enforcement of church tithes. In
May he wrote a preface to Major Butler's Fourth Paper
in which he united with several other men, leaders among
the Independents, in a request for full liberty of conscience
and the re-admission of the Jews into England. In July,
The Examiner Defended, in a fair and sober way appeared.
(E-675, Thomasin Collection, Br. Mus; and Bodl. Eibr.
ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 51
Bartholomew Coll. \^ol. 95 (7) It is an anonymous pam-
phlet which I have identified as the w^ork of Roger
Williams'" written as a favor to a "Senator" and prominent
member of the Cromwell government. In May John
Clarke, who had come w^ith Williams, as agent from Rhode
Island to re-establish the Charter of 1644, published ///
Neiv jrom Neiv England^ a narrative of New England's
Persecution, in which Williams was presented in his true
character as the friend and helper of the oppressed and
needy and a tolerant and sympathetic person, whose inten-
tions and life were noble and unselfish, but who was a
leader of men.
Three pamphlets written by men hostile to the ideas and
principles for which Williams stood conclude the direct
references that I have found to him in the Thomasin col-
lection in the British Museuni. Thomas Cubbet, teacher in
Lynne, Bay colony, replied in 1653 to Mr. Clarke's ///
Ne'uos in a book The Civil Magistrate's Power in Matters
of Religion. (Feb. 15, E-687) It is a weak reply, with
only a brief reference to Williams,
"Yet at least, they must be Disciples tirst, before Bap-
tized, that is, as Mr. Williams and Mr. Blackw^ood and
others of their mind expound it. Scholars of Christ. And
if his Scholars, then of his School, the Church j then of the
Church before Baptism."
Henry Niccols, in The Shield Single against the Szvord
Doubledy 1653, has already been quoted. Through him we
know Williams had disciples in England. Robert Baillie,
in 1655, came out with a defensive pamphlet, T/ie Dissua-
sive vindicated froni the exceptions of Mr. Cotton and Mr.
Tombs (Jan. 4, 1655, E-234. ) Baillie was no man to
mince words whether he attacked a man's character or his
ideas, and in so far his pamphlet is valuable as an index to
the character of Roger Williams. Baillie w^as deadly set
against the principles held by Williams, which he con-
'â– 'In paper rcnJ before Modern Language Asso., Dec, 1930.
52 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
demned in no uncertain terms. Yet Baillie has much good
to say about the character of the man Mr. Williams. Fur-
thermore Baillie gives, I feel, a true character reading of
Reverend John Cotton, the politician. Baillie refers to his
conversations with Williams in 1 643 and 1 644, which he
verified when Williams returned to England in 1652.
Consequently Baillie's reference to Williams as "seeking"
refers to both 1 643 and 1652:
"Mr. Cotton's scarce straight dealing with Mistress
Hutchinson."
"In New England above 20,000 kept out of the
churches .... Many more than half of Christians in New
England are out of all churches."
Cotton the inspirer of Antinomianism "still maintains
against all the divines of New-England, a complete union
of the soul with Christ, without and before all acts of
Faith." Cotton held that free Grace came through Faith.
"What I brought from M. Williams was only to clear
and make probable the matter of that Question of M.
Edward concering Goodwin, other ways the words them-
selves were clear enough, either of Mr. Cotton or of his
eminent friends in New England. I know well the extreme
mistakes of Williams in the fundamentals of church ordi-
nances: for all that, I would be loath in any point of fact
to call his testimony in question, without a great cause, as
here I know none. . . .
"Mr. Cotton's carriage in the condemnation of Wheel-
wright not fair," according to Winthrop's report of the
Antinomian controversy.
"My crediting of Mr. Williams' testimony was not rash.
"However for my credulity of Mr. Williams' reports,
there was first my conception of the man's great sincerity
though in a very erroneous way, and of his disposition
(which without fault as I conceive, might well have been
called his humor ) even his great averseness from reporting
known lies in a matter of fact, of any living man. Secondly,
I was the more made to trust his report in this particular
ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION 53
because his circumstantiating of it to me with so many
lively particulars of the persons who had imployed him
towards the savages, to buy for them a proportion of land
for that new colony's habitation under Mr. Cotton's min-
istry, of the bargain he intended for them near Providence
his own dwelling, of the means how that bargain miscar-
ried, these and divers other circumstances made me think
the man not likely to be totally mistaken in that his report.
Certainly Mr. Williams after his banishment, especially
about the time of Mrs Hutchinson's censure, was not so
great a stranger to the transactions of Boston, as Master
Cotton would have him. That a commission was given him
for buying of land by some, and some eminent persons who
gave it out that Mr. Cotton was to accompany them to that
purchase as their minister, I have still so much credulity as
to believe that Mr. Williams in this did not countenance
any lye, how little hand soever Mr. Cotton might have
had in that business.
"I took it for a shrewd reflection on Mr. Cotton that
Mr. Winthrop and M. Wells had testified in print how all
his flock, a very few excepted, had been infected with Mis-
tress Hutchinson's errors."
"Mr. Cotton resolved to have parted from Boston with
a party of Mrs. Hutchinson's late followers .... Mr. Cot-
ton grants his purpose to have indeed departed about that
time from Boston and from the Bay."
"My third testimony was from Mr. Williams, as one of
the English Independents (though he has gone far beyond
them in his new seeking) in a point which seems not to go
one hair's breadth from the foundation of Independency.
Williams does not deny more than Mr. Cotton: that thou-
sands of persons in national churches are to be counted
saints: only he says that every national church is of a
vitious constitution, and that the body of people in national
churches are irregenerate. In this Mr. Cotton will be found
also forward as Williams.
About the lack of Indian missionary work in New Kno:-
54 RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY
land in 1643, reported by Williams, Baillie says: "the only
thing which Mr. Cotton brings here to the purpose in
hand, is the labors of Mr, Eliot of Roxburiej but that does
not meet my exceptions j for Mr. Eliot's first attempt was
one whole year after my admonition was printed ... of
Mr. Eliot's success with the poor pagans, I heartily rejoice
in."
Baillie here refers to Williams' pamphlets Christ ent'ing
make not Christians, 1645, and The Hireling Ministry
None of Christ^s, 1652. "Certainly Mr. Williams in his
last piece catches it (Revelation, 15:8) greedily, and makes
it one of his main grounds to hinder all considerable
endeavors for bringing into the church of Christ and Tem-
ple, either Jews or Gentiles, or ignorant Christians, till that
Smoke Mr. Cotton points at be vanished, and after the
Antichrist's fall and the Jews resurrection, Mr. Williams
Apostolique times be returned. I have oft pitied that poor
man's spirit, and have thought him fitted with many good
endowments for eminent service to Christ, had not evil
principles put him out of the right way: but as long ago his
errors were many and terrible, some consequential to his
first Brownism, others to his next Anabaptism, and others
to his present woful seeking; so his diversions from
improving of his talent among the Americans, I conceive
it in a great part to have issued from his grounds of Inde-
pendency, and some other misconceits on the Revelation."
Not a bad testimony to receive from a political and
religious enemy. Two more pamphlets deserve mention