CHAPTER V.

Proceedings which led to his banishment-freeman's oath-various charges against him-sentence-birth of his second child-leaves Salem for Narraganset Bay-review of the causes of his banish

ment.

We will now proceed to narrate the measures which issued in the banishment of Mr. Williams. We shall follow the guidance of Winthrop, as to the facts, because this truly great man wrote without the angry temper which most of the early writers on the subject exhibited.

1634, Nov. 27. The Court was informed, that Mr. Williams, of Salem, had broken his promise to us, in teaching publicly against the King's patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country, &c. and for usual terming the churches of England antichristian. We granted summons to him for his appearance at the next Court." Winthrop, vol. i. p. 151.

We are not informed of the terms of Mr. Williams' promise, here referred to, and cannot decide how far he had broken it. The epithet which he is said to have applied to the churches in England, might, in his judgment, have been well deserved by many of them. He, of course, referred to the established churches, then practising, as the Puritans believed, idolatrous ceremonies, and under the direction of wicked men. Mr. Cotton, in his " Bloody Tenet Washed," (p. 109) acknowledges it to be a source of grief to himself and others, "that there is yet so much of those notorious evils still continuing in the parishes, (in England) worldliness, ignorance, superstition, scoffing, swearing, cursing, whoredom, drunkenness, theft, lying; I may add, also, murder, and malignity against the godly, suffered to thrust themselves into the fellowship of the churches, and to sit down with the saints at the Lord's table." We may be allowed to think, that Roger Williams was not remarkably bigoted, if he did call such churches as these antichristian, and deem it a sin to hold fellowship with them. He obeyed the summons of the Court:

"1635, Mo. 2, 30.* The Governor and Assistants sent for Mr. Williams. The occasion was, for 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. Endicott was at first of the same opinion, but he gave place to the truth. Vol. i. p. 157.

We may repeat, here, what ought to be constantly borne in mind, that the statements of Mr. Williams' opinions come, not from himself, but from his opponents. We need not insist on the liability to mistake, in cases where a man's sentiments are thus disjoined from all those explanations and arguments with which he would himself have accompanied them. In the present case, we are not informed of the precise views of Mr. Williams respecting oaths.† He

*

That is, April 30. Winthrop adopted, a few months before, this mode of denoting time. It seems to have arisen from a desire to avoid the Roman nomenclature, as heathenish. Perhaps an aversion to the Romish church had a share in producing the change. The custom continued for more than fifty years, when it was gradually abandoned, except by the Friends, or Quakers, and Hutchinson thinks, that the popular prejudice against them hastened the decline of the custom. The months were called 1st, 2d, &c. beginning with March, and the days of the week were designated in the same way.

† Since these remarks were written, the author has found in Mr. Williams' "Hireling Ministry none of Christ's," an "Appendix as touching oaths, a query." This Appendix is as follows: "Although it be lawful (in case) for Christians to invocate the name of the Most High in swearing; yet since it is a part of his holy worship, and therefore proper unto such as are his true worshippers in spirit and in truth; and persons may as well be forced unto any part of the worship of God as unto this, since it ought not to be used but most solemnly, and in solemn and weighty cases, and (ordinarily) in such as are not otherwise determinable; since it is the voice of the two great lawgivers from God, Moses and Christ Jesus, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses (not swearing) every word shall stand: Whether the enforcing of oaths and spiritual covenants upon a nation, promiscuously, and the constant enforcing of all persons to practise the worship in the most trivial and common cases in all courts (together with the ceremonies of book and holding up the hand, &c.) be not a prostituting of the holy name of the Most High to every unclean lip, and that on slight occasions, and a taking of it by millions, and so many millions of times in vain, and whether it be not a provoking of the eyes of his jealousy who hath said, that he will not hold him (what him or them soever) guiltless, that taketh

had taken the freeman's oath in 1631. Many others have entertained doubts of the propriety of oaths, in any case, and our laws allow an individual, who feels these scruples, to substitute an affirmation. The unlawfulness of all oaths might be plausibly argued, from the words of our Saviour, Matthew, v. 34, and from those of the Apostle James, v. 12. On this ground, however, they would be equally unlawful to all men, and the distinction which Mr. Williams is said to have made between Christians and unregenerate men could not be sustained. If, however, an oath were considered, as he viewed it, as a religious act, implying devout reverence for the Supreme Being, a fear of His displeasure and desire of His favor, it would not be easy to show how an irreligious man can sincerely take an oath. Mr. Williams

had probably seen oaths taken in England with such scandalous levity, and used for purposes so iniquitous, as to awaken in his mind a strong aversion to their being administered indiscriminately to the pious and the profane. We may, nevertheless, admit, that he was unnecessarily scrupulous on this point, without impeaching either his piety or his judgment. The ministers seem to have been satisfied with their success in confuting him. It is usual for disputants to claim the victory. Perhaps if Mr. Williams had recorded the event, he might have told us of the unimpaired vigor of his arguments. We have reason to believe, however, that the offensiveness of Mr. Williams' opinions respecting oaths consisted not so much in his abstract objections to their use, as in his opposition to the new oath

his name in vain." It seems, from this paragraph, that he considered taking an oath to be an act of worship; that a Christian might take one on proper occasions, though not for trivial causes; that an irreligious man could not sincerely perform this act of worship; and that no man ought to be forced to perform this act, any more than any other act of worship. His own practice was agreeable to his theory. He says, in his George Fox digged out of his Burrowes, (Appendix, pp. 59, 60) "cases have befallen myself in the Chancery in England, &c. of the loss of great sums, which I chose to bear, through the Lord's help, rather than yield to the formality (then and still in use) in God's worship, [alluding, perhaps, to the use of a book, holding up the hand, &c.] though I offered to swear, in weighty cases, by the name of God, as in the presence of God, and to attest or call God to witness; and the judges told me they would rest in my testimony and way of swearing, but they could not dispense with me without an act of Parliament.'

of fidelity which the Court thought proper to require of the citizens. Mr. Cotton* states the case thus: "The magistrates and other members of the General Court, upon intelligence of some Episcopal and malignant practices against the country, made an order of Court, to take trial of the fidelity of the people, not by imposing upon them, but by offering to them, an oath of fidelity, that in case any should refuse to take it, they might not betrust them with place of public charge and command. This oath, when it came abroad, he (Mr. Williams) vehemently withstood, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, he said, Christ's prerogative to have his office established by an oath; partly because an oath was part of God's worship, and God's worship was not to be put upon carnal persons, as he conceived many of the people to be. So the Court was forced to desist from that proceeding."

The reasons assigned by Mr. Cotton for Mr. Williams' opposition to the oath are, we suspect, not all the reasons which really moved him to this course. He probably viewed the act of the Court in absolving the citizens from the oath which they had already taken, and substituting another, as an illegal assumption of power. It might be understood to claim for the Court an authority superior to the charter, for it omitted the clause of the former oath, which required of the subject obedience to laws which should be "lawfully" made by the Court, and, instead of it, obliged men to swear to submit to the "wholesome" regulations which might be established. As the charter prohibited the passage of laws contrary to the laws of England, the first oath bound the citizen to obey the Court only while they adhered to the charter; but the new oath required submission to all the "wholesome" acts of the government, who were, of course, the sole judges of the wholesomeness of their own measures. Mr. Cotton says, that the oath was only offered, not imposed, but it was, by a subsequent act of the Court, enforced on every man above the age of sixteen years, on penalty of punishment at the discretion of the Court.†

To this oath, under such circumstances, Mr. Williams, as a friend of liberty, was opposed. He would not re

* Tenet Washed, pp, 28, 29. + Backus, vol. i. p. 62.

nounce an oath which he had taken, and substitute another, which bound him to obey whatever laws the magistrates might deem wholesome. The reason assigned for the new oath, moreover, was to guard against "Episcopal and malignant practices." This gave it the appearance of a law to restrain liberty of conscience; and Mr. Williams' principles were totally opposed to any measure which tended to that result, however specious its professed object might be.

If these views are correct, Mr. Williams' opposition to oaths in this case resolves itself into an inflexible adherence to his great doctrine of unfettered religious liberty; a doctrine which, more than any thing else, drew upon him the jealousy and dislike of the magistrates and the clergy.

In July, he was again summoned to Boston.

"1635, Mo. 5, 8. At the General Court, Mr. Williams, of Salem, was summoned and did appear. It was laid to his charge, that being under question before the magistracy and churches for divers dangerous opinions, viz: 1. that the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace; 2. that he ought not to tender an oath to an unregenerate man; 3. that a man ought not to pray with such, though wife, child, &c.; 4. that a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat, &c.; and that the other churches were about to write to the church of Salem to admonish him of these errors; notwithstanding, the church had since called him to [the] office of teacher. Much debate was about these things. The said opinions were adjudged by all, magistrates and ministers, (who were desired to be present) to be erroneous and very dangerous, and that the calling of him to office, at that time, was judged a great contempt of authority. So, in fine, time was given to him and the church of 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; it being professedly declared by the ministers (at the request of the Court to give their advice) that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions (whereby a church might run into heresy, apostacy, or tyranny, and yet the civil magistrate could not intermeddle) were to be removed, and that the other churches ought to request the magistrates so to do.” Vol. i. p. 162.