had declared his opinion, that the magistrate might not take cognizance of any offences against “the first table." Such an opinion was utterly at variance with the spirit of the New England legislation. The magistrate was regarded from the first settling of the country as "the keeper of both tables," and although nothing hierarchial existed in the colony, religion was incorporated with the foundation of the civil polity. A law was enacted, on the very day on which Williams sought the freedom of the colony, to the effect that no man should be admitted to the freedom of the state, who was not the member of some existing church. On this, Williams left Salem for Plymouth, where he devoted himself to ministerial duties for two years, not however without offending many of the earlier colonists by the avowal of his principles. From this time, a succession of troubles awaited him. The church at Salem again invited him to become their teacher, and, in spite of the opposition of magistrates and ministers, inducted him into his office. But measures of a persecuting character were adopted. He was summoned to appear before the Colonial Court at Boston, to answer various charges, some civil and some ecclesiastical, brought against him by his enemies; and at length, in November 1635, he was sentenced to banishment.*

Before this time, Williams had cherished the idea of forming a new settlement, where complete liberty might be enjoyed. He now began to communicate

* Knowles' Life of Roger Williams, pp. 71, 72. Backus' History of Baptists in New England, i. 69, 70. See Underhill's Biographical Introduction to "the Bloudy Tenent of Persecution," for a fair account of the whole persecution.

his views to his adherents, who reckoned a considerable number. The court hearing of the project, determined to remove him by ship to England, and ordered a pinnace to be sent to fetch him from Boston. Williams, however, escaped from his persecutors, with such moneys as he could raise by mortgage upon his property; directed his course through the forests, rivers, wastes, and wilds,-all alone, and exposed to all the severities of a hard winter; and after fourteen weeks' wanderings and voyaging, arrived at Sekonk, on the east bank of the Pawtucket. Here it was his purpose to build, cultivate the soil, and lay the foundation of a new settlement. He requited the hospitality of the Indians by benevolent and zealous efforts for their welfare, became their instructer and civilizer, and was the first to convey to them the lessons of Christianity. But he had not resided there many months, before a message reached him from the governor of Plymouth, that he was within the bounds of the colony. He immediately determined to leave. Entering his canoe with five companions, they descended the river; and at length reaching a place at the mouth of the Mohassuck where a fresh spring welcomed their approach, they landed, and commenced the noble task of rearing a new colony. This spot was afterwards named Providence, and became the capital of Rhode Island -the first colony in the world in which perfect liberty of conscience was the acknowledged basis of the civil polity. It became celebrated as the very home of freedom, and its population rapidly increased by the accessions of "the poor and persecuted of all religions who fled to it for shelter.

The settlement of Rhode Island was effected in

1638. Up to this time, Williams was an Independent and a pædo-baptist. His views respecting liberty of conscience had been already formed. No change of opinion respecting infant baptism could affect those views. His notions of liberty and indefeasible right were not determined by the meaning of a rite, or the appropriateness of a ceremonial. He had a soul above all such littleness. In 1639, he adopted baptist views, and became the founder and pastor of the first baptist church in America.† A few months later he doubted the propriety of the whole proceeding, resigned his pastorate, and became unsettled in his views respecting the ministry and ordinances of the church of Christ. Still, he retained his former Independent principles, in all their threefold integrity; and when he came to England in 1643, was in all probability the means of winning over to the side of truth and justice some influential parties, who till that period were Congregational Independents only.

"sis

* Modern baptist writers should remember this, when they claim Williams as one of their sect. Mr. Underhill states the fact, but would avoid the inference. Hence his statement, in p. 26 of the Biographical Introduction, about "infant baptism and persecution." Surely, in Williams' case there was no terly embrace" between those two things! We can understand how it is possible for pædobaptists to persecute anti-pædobaptists, and for anti-pædobaptists to persecute pædobaptists; but how either infant baptism or adult baptism, sprinkling or immersion, should be essentially connected with persecution, we cannot dis

cover.

This church was formed in the same way as that of Mr. Smith, at Amsterdam. See back, vol. ii. p. 291. A Mr. Holliman, an unbaptized person, first baptized Mr. Williams, then Mr. Williams baptized Mr. Holliman, and so on.

His mission to England was of a special nature. He was sent by the colonists to obtain a charter for Rhode Island. At an earlier period, he would have found some difficulty in obtaining it. It had been a project of Laud's, to bring all the colonial settlements in New England under prelatical rule, and Charles would have favoured his scheme, if the opportunity had offered of carrying it into effect. When Williams arrived in London, he found Charles at war with his subjects, Laud a prisoner, and the old established hierarchy superseded by the assembly at Westminster. He could not have come at a more opportune crisis. The government at home was in an unsettled state, and had by no means determined, as yet, what shape the charter of British liberties should assume. It was not likely therefore to be very fastidious in its examination of the charter which Williams solicited on behalf of " Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay." On March 14th, 1644, the charter was granted, giving the colonists full power to adopt whatever form of government they preferred. The form of government ultimately adopted, was democratic, and the following words concluded the document in which the general assembly of the colony drew up their admirable code: "And otherwise than thus, what is herein forbidden, all men may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God. And let the saints of the Most High walk in this colony without molestation, in the name of Jehovah their God, for ever and ever." These memorable proceedings are attributable to Roger Williams. The work, of which the pilgrim fathers had laid the foundation, was perfected by one whom they had driven into exile; and the most flou

rishing republic the world has ever seen owes much of its present grandeur, and will be indebted for its future stability, to those great and abiding principles, which the founder of Rhode Island was the first to embody in a written code of laws.*

Williams contributed in many ways to the cause of religious liberty during the few months of his sojourn in London. He arrived shortly after the Westminster Assembly had met in 1643, and remained until the summer of the following year. His mission brought him into contact with some of the chief members of parliament, and with the leaders of the Independent party. Colonial affairs were managed at that time by a board of commissioners, at the head of which was Lord Warwick. Every facility was afforded him in prosecuting his object; especially by Sir Harry Vane, with whom he formed an intimate friendship. The change which took place in the opinions of that eminent member of the House of Commons and of the Assembly may in some measure be accounted for from this circumstance. Up to this period Vane had been a Congregational Independent only, and had co-operated with the Assembly in many of its intolerant proceedings; but from the time of his intercourse with Williams, he became an openly avowed advocate of unlimited toleration.

Besides this, Williams wrote an exposition of his views in opposition to Cotton and the New England Congregationalists, and published it in 1644, under the title of "The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience discussed, in a Conference between Truth and Peace." This work, dedicated to "the High

*The "Bloudy Tenent," etc.: Biographical Introduction. Reprinted by the Hanserd Knollys Society. 1848.