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tion was accordingly raised to send out agents, and Rog- CHAPTER er Williams and John Clarke were deputed for that purpose.

1651.

Massachusetts meanwhile sought to procure from the Commissioners for the United Colonies aid, or, at least, sanction for subduing Warwick by force. The Com- Sept. missioners for Connecticut and New Haven admitted that the former proceedings against Gorton had been by their consent; but the Plymouth commissioners disclaimed any responsibility for those proceedings; and they specially protested against the Massachusetts claim of jurisdiction over Warwick by virtue of any cession from them. To such a pitch, indeed, did these differences rise, that a meeting of the commissioners, held at Plymouth the next year, was abruptly broken up on some 1652 alleged informalities, without proceeding to business. Sept. High words must have passed, perhaps something more, since the General Court of Massachusetts ordered a letter to be written to the Governor of Plymouth, demanding satisfaction for an alleged affront to one of their commissioners.

July.

Before embarking for England, Clarke, with two 1651. other delegates from the Baptist Church at Newport, paid a visit to a Baptist brother at Lynn, "who, by reason of his advanced age, could not undertake so great a journey as to visit the church." They even ventured, on a Sunday morning, to give a public exhortation at his house; for which they were arrested in the act, and carried by force, in the afternoon, to hear the regular preacher, one Thomas Cobbett, author of "a large, nervous, and golden discourse" against the Baptists. The next day they were sent to Boston, where Clarke was sentenced to pay £20, $96, or be whipped. His neglect to take off his hat when forced into the

CHAPTER meeting-house was one charge against him. In a serXII. mon just before the trial, Cotton declared, that to deny

and was there

and so Endicott He also charged

1651. infant baptism was to overthrow all, fore soul-murder and a capital offense; told the prisoners in passing sentence. Clarke with preaching to the weak and ignorant what he could not maintain against the learned, and bade him try and dispute "with our ministers." Accordingly, from his prison Clarke sent a challenge to the Massachusetts elders, offering to maintain "that Jesus Christ had the sole right of prescribing laws respecting worship; that baptism—that is, dipping in water--was an ordinance to be administered only to those who gave evidence of repentance and faith; that only such visible believers constituted the Church; that each of them had the right to speak in the congregation, either to inquire for his own instruction, or to prophesy for the edification of others; that at all times and in all places they ought to reprove folly and justify wisdom; and that no servant of Jesus Christ has any authority to restrain any fellow-servant in his worship where no injury is offered to others." This challenge, however, was evaded. Some friends of Clarke paid his fine, and he was released, with an injunction to leave the colony.

Crandal, one of Clarke's companions, who had been fined £5, was released at the same time. The other was Obadiah Holmes, for many years a member of the Salem Church, a recent convert to Anabaptism, lately excommunicated by the church of Seekonk, in Plymouth, and the more obnoxious on that account. He was fined £30. "As I went from the bar," he says, in a letter to some friends in London, "I expressed myself in these words: 1 bless God I am counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.' Whereupon John Wilson

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(their pastor, as they call him) struck ine before the CHAPTER judgment seat, and cursed me, saying, 'The curse of God, or Jesus, go with thee." Some friends offered to 1651. pay his fine, but Holmes declined it, and was brought to the whipping-post. "I had such a spiritual manifestation," he writes, "that I could well bear it, yea, and in a manner felt it not, although it was grievous, as the spectators said; the man striking with all his strength (yea, spitting in his hand three times, as many affirmed) with a three-corded whip, giving me therewith thirty strokes. When he had loosed me from the post, having joyfulness in my heart and cheerfulness in my countenance, as the spectators observed, I told the magistrates, You have struck me as with roses;' and said, moreover, Although the Lord hath made it easy to me, I pray God it may not be laid to your charge."" John Hazel and John Spur came up and shook hands with the prisoner after his punishment, smiling and saying, "Blessed be God!" They were arrested on the spot for contempt of authority, fined forty shillings, and imprisoned. Returning to Newport, Obadiah Holmes lived to a good old age, and in 1790 his descendants were reckoned at not less than five thousand persons.

Other strict exercises of authority were not wanting. The town of Malden, having presumed to settle a minister without consulting the neighboring churches, was subjected to a fine. The offense thus punished without any law for it—a practice, in those times, too common in Massachusetts-a law was afterward enacted, making it essential to the settling of a minister to have the consent both of a council of neighboring churches and of "some of the magistrates" also.

Some difficulty had occurred in finding a minister for the second church recently constituted in Boston. Ward,

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CHAPTER Peters, Welde, and others had returned to England, and the prospects of promotion there drew off several of 1651. the young ministers educated in the colony. Samuel Mather, a recent graduate of Harvard College, preached a while in the new church, and gave some hopes of settling there; but he preferred to go to England, where he obtained the senior fellowship in Trinity College, Dublin, and the rectorship of St. Nicholas in that city. In this emergency, the new church availed itself of the services of Michael Powell, late an inn-keeper at Dedham; and his exhortations proved so acceptable, that the church proposed to settle him as minister. He was "gifted," to be sure, but then he was "unlearned." The General Court interfered to prevent his settlement, to which Powell very meekly submitted. He continued, however, to officiate as ruling elder. The Puritan fathers of New England-those, that is, of the conservative school-esteemed learning as well as "spiritual gifts" essential to a minister.

Williams and Clarke, not allowed to embark from Nov. Boston, took passage at Manhattan. They were kindly received in England by Sir Henry Vane, then a leading member of the Council of State; and they presently procured the recall of Coddington's commission, and, in spite of the opposition "of all the priests, both Presby1652. terian and Independent," the confirmation of the Rhode Island charter. Clarke published in London "Ill News from New England," giving an account of his sufferings, to which Cobbett, minister of Lynn, made a reply.

Oct.

It was upon this occasion that Sir Richard Saltonstall, one of the original founders of the colony, wrote to Wilson and Cotton, ministers of Boston, the following letter:

"Reverend and dear sirs, whom I unfeignedly love

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and respect, it doth not a little grieve my spirit to CHAPTER hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecution in New England, as that you fine, whip, 1651 and imprison men for their consciences. First you compel such to come into your assemblies as you know will not join you in your worship, and when they show their dislike thereof, or witness against it, then you stir up your magistrates to punish them for such, as you conceive, their public affronts. Truly, friends, this your practice of compelling any, in matters of worship, to do that whereof they are not fully persuaded, is to make them sin; for so the apostle (Rom., xiv., 23) tells us; and many are made hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man for fear of punishment. We pray for you, and wish you prosperity every way, hoping the Lord would have given you so much light and love there, that you might have been eyes to God's people here, and not to practice those courses in a wilderness which you went so far to prevent. These rigid ways

have laid you very low in the hearts of the saints.

I

do assure you I have heard them pray in the public assemblies that the Lord would give you meek and humble spirits, not to strive so much for uniformity as not to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. I hope you do not assume to yourselves infallibility of judgment, when the most learned of the apostles confesseth he knew but in part, and saw but darkly, as through a glass; for God is light, and no further than he doth illumine us can we see, be our parts and learning ever so great. O that all those that are brethren, though yet they can not think and speak the same thing, might be of one accord in the Lord!"

To this noble remonstrance-and it was not the first of the same sort which Saltonstall had made-Wilson and