He is called before the council. Plymouth in relation to the Indian title to the country. The offender was notified to appear at the next General Court for censure. He appeared accordingly, and made due submission, asserting that the treatise was written for the private satisfaction of the governor and others at Plymouth, and that there would have been an end of it had not Mr. Winthrop sent to him for a copy. The anxiety to find cause of complaint against him must have been great, when a private manuscript written outside of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, and thus obtained, could be made the pretext of an accusation against the writer. Indeed the governor and council seem to have become a little ashamed of it, for they were gracious enough subsequently to pass the matter over, after consultation with Mr. Wilson and Mr. Cotton, and on consideration that the Indian essay was obscure in meaning, that Mr. Williams had disavowed any evil intent in writing it, and had taken the oath of allegiance. But offences were sure to come. It was impossible for Mr. Williams to keep quiet; equally impossible, for the Council to let him alone. As a sort of preliminary of what was to come the colony was presently in a buzz, for he had persuaded the women of Salem that modesty required they should go veiled in public. Here was heresy. Cotton hastened to Salem to refute it, and his "insinuating and melting way" brought down every veil in the parish between the Sunday services. It was an exhaustive discourse, if we may trust Hubbard's report of it, and proved to the women of Salem that the Scriptural reasons were not applicable in their case; for many were wives and not virgins; none were like Tamar; and none needed like Ruth, to hold up her veil before Boaz for a measure of barley. Not a woman's face was hidden on Sunday afternoon after this morning's discourse. It was a great triumph over Roger Williams, and so pleased was Mr. Cotton with his success, that he carried the subject into the "Boston Lecture." But here Endicott met him in fierce debate, and so hot did it grow that the governor interfered to put an end to it.2 The question of veils at Salem Williams had no more devoted follower than Endicott, whose zeal was of the kind that out-runs discretion. At home and abroad he was, for a time, ready to uphold his pastor at any cost, and would, no doubt, had not the governor stopped him, have maintained against Cotton, rather than admit that there was any defect in the doctrine 1 Savage's Winthrop, vol. i., p. 122. 2 Such sermons, however, were not uncommon. Eliot and Chauncy, President of Harvard College, preached long and learned discourses on Wigs. Life of Williams, Sparks's Biography, vol. xiv. All the magistrates in 1649, signed a solemn protest against men wearing long hair, and commended the subject to the attention of the ministers. Hutchinson's History. 1634.] ROGER WILLIAMS. 543 in regard to veils, that every woman in Boston was like Tamar and should hide her face. The Council of Massachusetts were far more tender of him than of the minister, though he did not always escape punishment. Endicott Cross. His zeal, and the influence of his pastor's teaching were made manifest in an act of more moment than whether the women should go uncovered. The preaching of Williams was of cuts out the the searching kind and the application of his principles of undefiled religion, knew no limit. There was in him no fear of principalities or powers; for the Church of England he had only abhorrence; for those who reverenced her, rebuke if not denunciation. He looked everywhere for the signs of anti-Christ, and at any relic of superstition he pointed an unswerving finger. In the red cross of St. George he saw only a remnant of Popery, not an ensign of victory. This fervid flame of pure spiritual doctrine caught up Endicott and he blazed into fury. When next the flag of England fluttered over him in the streets of Salem he seized its folds and cut out the cross in which his pastor saw an emblem of submission to Rome. Some of the soldiers refused to follow the mutilated colors; the grave offence demanded the attention of the General Court; he was rebuked for indiscretion, and dismissed for a time from his seat as an assistant at the Council. It was only because all were persuaded that the act was done out of tenderness of conscience and not out of an evil mind that he was visited with no heavier penalty'; and, besides, there were a good many people who sympathized with the act itself. Salem asks a grant of refused. But Williams had not long been settled, against the expostulations if not the direct order of the Council, when the people of Salem asked that a tract of land at Marblehead be granted and is them. The court refused. So palpable and flagrant an act of injustice stirred the church to further resistance; the other churches where the magistrates were members, were written to and urged to admonish them for this gross intolerance toward Salem. There was no other way of appealing to public opinion, and public opinion was the only influence that could be brought to bear upon the magistrates. The appeal was useless; the clergy made no response, and of their position, no doubt the magistrates were An appeal to quite assured beforehand. The protest led to fresh penal churches ties; the Salem deputies were deprived of their seats in the punished. court; Endicott, as chief and of the most importance, was imprisoned until a satisfactory apology was made for such a spirit of insubordination. It was a complete establishment of the civil authority. Williams asked his people to separate from these subservient churches. 1 Hubbard. the other But his own church was already subdued, and the request was refused. Salem and Endicott submitted at last to a power inexorable and too strong for them, and the pastor was left helpless and at the mercy of the court. The accusa Williams. And the court was without mercy, as Williams was without any spirit of compromise. He was summoned to Boston to answer for his dangerous heresies, and he appeared, well knowing that there was hardly a magistrate or a minister in the little commonwealth that had not prejudged him. The accusations against him convey an tions against inadequate notion of how serious an offence his doctrines were among the Puritans. He was charged with maintaining that the magistrate should not punish a breach of the first four commandments, except where the result was a breach of the peace; that he should not tender an oath to an unregenerate man, and that no one should pray with such a person, though he be one's nearest relative; and that thanks should not be given either after meat or after the sacrament.1 But out of these propositions he deduced the plain doctrine, that the magistrate had no right to meddle with any man's conscience or religious opinions, and that the state exceeded its just power when it assumed to have jurisdiction over any other relations of the citizen than those of person and property. He meant this, and magistrates and ministers understood that he meant it, and in a community where no man was a citizen except he was a church-member, and no man was a church-member except with the minister's permission, such doctrine was dangerous and intolerable. His trial and sentence. But he was not to be moved. Cotton and Hooker went to Salem to labor with him, and he withstood them. The court had him up for trial—had him up, that is, for a public polemical debate. They failed to convict him of error, as he failed to convict them of injustice. He was sent back to Salem with permission to take time to repent, and a warning to prepare for sentence at the next meeting of the General Court, unless ready then to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. The fruits were not forthcoming. He was stiff-necked and would not bend, and sentence of banishment was pronounced upon him. He "hath broached and divulged" said the act, "divers new and dangerous opinions against the authority of magistrates; as also writ letters of defamation, both of the magistrates and churches here; " and therefore he was ordered to depart out of that jurisdiction within six weeks and not return without license from the court. To this sentence there was only one dissenting voice.2 1 Savage's Winthrop. Hubbard. Mather's Magnalia. |