THE BLOUDY TENENT OF PERSECUTION.
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THE HANSERD KNOLLYS SOCIETY,
FOR THE PUBLICATION OF THE WORKS OF EARLY ENGLISH AND OTHER BAPTIST WRITERS.
Treasurer.
CHARLES JONES, ESQ.
Honorary Secretaries.
EDWARD B. UNDERHILL, ESQ. REV. WILLIAM JONES.
Secretary.
MR. GEORGE OFFOR, JUN.
Council.
REV. J. ACWORTH, LL.D. — JOSEPH ANGUS, M.A. — C. M. BIRRELL. — CALEB EVANS BIRT, M.A. — WILLIAM HENRY BLACK. — WILLIAM BROCK. — THOMAS BURDITT. — JABEZ BURNS, D.D. — F. A. COX, D.D., LL.D. — T. S. CRISP. — B. DAVIES, PH. D. — B. EVANS. — B. GODWIN, D.D. — F. W. GOTCH, M.A. — W. GROSER. — J. H. HINTON, M.A. — J. HOBY, D.D. CHARLES THEODORE JONES, ESQ. G. F. KEMP, ESQ. GEORGE LOWE, ESQ. F.R.S. REV. W. H. MURCH, D.D. — J. P. MURSELL. — THOMAS FOX NEWMAN. GEORGE OFFOR, ESQ. REV. G. H. ORCHARD. — J. J. OWEN. — T. POTTENGER. — THOMAS PRICE, D.D. J. READ, ESQ. REV. ROBERT ROFF — JOSHUA RUSSELL. — J. SPRIGG, M.A. — EDWARD STEANE, D.D. — CHARLES STOVEL. — THOMAS THOMAS. — FREDERICK TRESTRAIL.
It has been a matter of regret with many, that the writings of the early members and ministers of the Baptist churches of this country should be comparatively so little known. The present appears to be a favourable time to reprint such of them as may be deemed worthy of perpetuation, from their historical or theological importance.
These writings are confined to no peculiarity of sentiment, but embrace every topic of divine truth, which the word of God presents for the salvation of the believer, as well as for the regulation of the church of Christ.
To the Baptists, belongs the honour of first asserting in this land, and of establishing on the immutable basis of just argument and scripture rule, the right of every man to worship God as conscience dictates, in submission only to divine command.
Rejecting the authority of men in matters of faith, they wrote with great simplicity and directness of purpose. Scripture alone was their authority, and excepting some of their polemical works, their productions are remarkably free from that parade of learning which was the fault of their age.
They were not, however, destitute of learning. Most of the early Baptists had had an university education: and if this privilege was not enjoyed by their successors, it was because the national seats of learning denied it to them. The names of Bampfield, Canne, Cornwell, Danvers, Delaune, Du Veil, Denne, Grantham, Jessey, Knollys, Smyth, and Tombes, are sufficient to prove that the Baptist churches were not destitute of able and learned expounders of their sentiments, eminent for their attainments in both classical and divine knowledge.
The historical value of the works which it is proposed to reproduce, is very great. Their authors exercised no mean influence on the course of national affairs during the period of Cromwell’s protectorate, and they became in subsequent reigns, as they had been in times preceding the Commonwealth, the especial objects of ecclesiastical and political persecution. Some of the works which it is desired to publish will also embrace the period of the Reformation, and illustrate the sufferings endured, by the baptists of that eventful period, for conscience sake.
As theological writers they are characterized by fervour of spirit; deep study of the word of God; great facility of application of divine truths to passing events; a holy attachment to “the truth as it is in Jesus;” clear and pungent exhibitions of the word of life; an uncompromising adherence to the scriptures as the rule of doctrine, practice, and ecclesiastical organization and discipline; and finally, a fearless following of their convictions, derived from the divine oracles.
Works of this kind are also wanting for our congregational and family libraries. It is to be feared that too many of us are ignorant of our own history, and of the great and good men who lost all in the maintenance of our principles.
The series of proposed volumes will include the works of both General and Particular Baptists; Records and Manuscripts relating to the rise and progress of Baptist churches; Translations of such works as may illustrate the sufferings of the Baptists and the extension of their principles, together with such Documents as are to be found only in large historical collections, or may not yet have appeared in an accessible form. On the Baptismal controversy only those treatises will be given, which are of acknowledged worth or historic value. The whole will be accompanied with biographical notices of the authors, and with such notes and illustrations as may be essential to their completeness.
The publications will consist of works produced before the close of the seventeenth century. The following list comprises the names of some of the authors whose works are intended to form part of the series;—Bampfield, Blackwood, Bunyan, Canne, Collier, Collins, Cornwall, Danvers, Delaune, Denne, Du Veil, Drapes, Grantham, Griffith, Helwys, How, Jeffrey, Jessey, Keach, Kiffin, King, Knollys, Lawrence, Palmer, Powell, Pendarves, Smyth, Stennett, Tombes, Roger Williams, &c.
Terms of Subscription.
1. Every subscriber of ten shillings and sixpence annually will be entitled to one copy of every work issued during the year of his subscription. Two volumes at least will be published for the 10s. 6d.
2. Subscriptions will be considered due, in advance on the first of January of every year.
3. Ministers and Sunday Schools obtaining each ten subscribers annually, will be entitled to one copy of every work published in the year for which such subscriptions are paid.
4. Books will be delivered, free of expense, in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, from which places they will be sent at the cost of the subscriber by any channel he may appoint.
Subscriptions will be received by the Treasurer, at Vassall Road, Kennington; by the Honorary Secretaries, Mr. UNDERHILL, of Newmarket House, Nailsworth; Rev. W. Jones, at Stepney College; or by any member of the Council; also by Mr. G. OFFOR, jun., Secretary, Baptist Mission House, Moorgate Street, London, to whom all communications for the Society should be addressed, or at the Depository, B. L. GREEN’S, 68, Paternoster Row.
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THE BLOUDY TENENT OF PERSECUTION FOR CAUSE OF CONSCIENCE DISCUSSED: AND MR. COTTON’S LETTER EXAMINED AND ANSWERED.
BY ROGER WILLIAMS.
EDITED FOR The Hanserd Knollys Society, BY EDWARD BEAN UNDERHILL.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY, BY J. HADDON, CASTLE STREET, FINSBURY. 1848.
A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION.
It was on the 1st day of December, in the year 1630, that Mr. Roger Williams, with his wife, embarked at Bristol for America, in the ship Lyon, Captain William Pierce.
Two years and a half before, a number of eminent and enthusiastic men had gone forth, animated by religious principles and purposes, to seek a home and a refuge from persecution on the wild and untenanted shores of Massachusetts Bay. Charles I. had announced his design of ruling the English people by arbitrary power, only a few days before a patent for the Company of Massachusetts Bay passed the seals.[1] No provision was made in this document for the exercise of religious liberty. The emigrants were puritans, and although they had suffered long for conscience’ sake, on this subject their views were as contracted as those of their brethren who in Elizabeth’s reign sought the overthrow of England’s hierarchy.[2] The patent secured to them, however, to a great extent, a legislative independence of the mother country; but they soon employed that power to persecute differing consciences.
The emigrants landed at Salem at the end of June, 1629. A few mud hovels alone marked the place of their future abode. On their passage they arranged the order of their government, and bound themselves by solemn covenant to each other and the Lord. As religion was the cause of their abandonment of their native land, so was its establishment their first care. At their request a few of the settlers at Plymouth, where in 1620 a colony had been established by the members of Mr. John Robinson’s church, came over to assist and advise on the arrangement of their church polity. After several conferences, the order determined on was the congregational, and measures were immediately taken for the choice of elders and deacons. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed, and thirty persons covenanted together to walk in the ways of God. Mr. Skelton was chosen pastor, Mr. Higginson teacher, both puritan clergymen of celebrity, and Mr. Houghton ruling elder. They agreed with the church at Plymouth, “That the children of the faithful are church members with their parents, and that their baptism is a seal of their being so.”[3]
The church was thus self-constituted. It owned no allegiance to bishop, priest, or king. It recognized but one authority—the King of saints: but one rule—the word of God. The new system did not, however, meet with the approbation of all this little company. Some still fondly clung to the episcopacy of their native land, and to the more imposing rites of their mother church. The main body of the emigrants did not altogether refuse to have communion with the church which had so unnaturally driven them away; but, as they said, they separated from her corruptions, and rejected the human inventions in worship which they discovered in her fold. Not so all. Liberty of worship they desired indeed, but not a new form of polity. Two brothers, John and Samuel Browne, the one a lawyer, the other a merchant, were the leaders of this little band. They wished the continuance of the Common Prayer, of the ceremonies usually observed in the administration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and a wider door for the entrance of members into a church state. Dissatisfied with the new order of things, they set up a separate assembly. This was a mutiny against the state, as well as against the church; and proving incorrigible, the brothers were sent home in “the Lyon’s Whelp.”[4]