John Cotton was the son of a puritan lawyer. Educated at Cambridge, he had acquired a large amount of learning; and by his study of the schoolmen sharpened the natural acuteness and subtilty of his mind. In theology he was a thorough Calvinist, and adopted in all their extent the theocratic principles of the great Genevan reformer. On his arrival in New England, he was immediately called upon to advise and arrange the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the colony. By his personal influence the churches were settled in a regular and permanent form, and their laws of discipline were finally determined by the platform adopted at Cambridge in 1648. The civil laws were adjusted to the polity of the church, and while nominally distinct, they supported and assisted each other.[18]

Matter for complaint was soon discovered against Mr. Williams. At Plymouth he had already urged objections relative to the royal patent, under which the colonists held their lands. A manuscript treatise concerning it now became the subject of consideration by the General Court. In this work, Mr. Williams appears to have questioned the King’s right to grant the possession of lands which did not belong to him, but to the natives who hunted over them. Equity required that they should be fairly purchased of the Indian possessors. Mr. Williams was “convented” before the Court. Subsequently, he gave satisfaction to his judges of his “intentions and loyalty,” and the matter was passed by. It will be seen, however, that this accusation was revived, and declared to be one of the causes of his banishment.[19]

For a few months, during the sickness of Mr. Skelton, Mr. Williams continued his ministry without interruption, and with great acceptance. On the 2nd of August, 1634, Mr. Skelton died, and the Salem church shortly thereafter chose him to be their settled teacher. To this the magistrates and ministers objected. His principles were obnoxious to them. They sent a request to the church, that they would not ordain him. But in the exercise of their undoubted right the church persisted, and Mr. Williams was regularly inducted to the office of teacher.[20]

Occasion was soon found to punish the church and its refractory minister. On November the 17th, he was summoned to appear before the Court, for again teaching publicly “against the king’s patent, and our great sin in claiming right thereby to this country: and for terming the churches of England anti-christian.” A new accusation was made on the 30th of the following April, 1635. He had taught publicly, it was said, “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.”[21] In the month of July he was again summoned to Boston, and some other dangerous opinions were now laid to his charge. He was accused of maintaining:—That the magistrate ought not to punish the breach of the first table, otherwise than in such cases as did disturb the civil peace:—That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, though wife or child—That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after meat. But the aggravation of his offences was that, notwithstanding these crimes were charged upon him, the church at Salem, in spite of the magisterial admonitions, and the exhortations of the pastors, had called him to the office of teacher. To mark their sense of this recusancy, the Salem people were refused, three days after, the possession of a piece of land for which they had applied, and to which they had a just claim.[22]

This flagrant wrong induced Mr. Williams and his church to write admonitory letters to the churches of which these magistrates were members, requesting them to admonish the magistrates of the criminality of their conduct, it being a “breach of the rule of justice.” The letters were thus addressed because the members of the churches were the only freemen, and the only parties interested in the civil government of the colony. They were without effect. His own people began to waver under the pressure of ministerial power and influence. Mr. Williams’s health too gave way, “by his excessive labours, preaching thrice a week, by labours night and day in the field; and by travels night and day to go and come from the Court.” Even his wife added to his affliction by her reproaches, “till at length he drew her to partake with him in the error of his way.”[23] He now declared his intention to withdraw communion from all the churches in the Bay, and from Salem also if they would not separate with him. His friend Endicot was imprisoned for justifying the letter of admonition, and Mr. Sharpe was summoned to appear to answer for the same. In October he was called before the Court for the last time. All the ministers were present. They had already decided “that any one was worthy of banishment who should obstinately assert, that the civil magistrate might not intermeddle even to stop a church from apostacy and heresy.”[24] His letters were read, which he justified; he maintained all his opinions. After a disputation with Mr. Hooker, who could not “reduce him from any of his errors,” he was sentenced to banishment in six weeks, all the ministers, save one, approving of the deed.[25]

Before proceeding to detail the subsequent events of his history, it will be necessary to make a few remarks on the topics of accusation brought against Mr. Williams, and especially since they are often referred to in the pages of the works now in the reader’s hands.

The causes of his banishment are given by Mr. Williams in p. 375 of this volume, with which agrees Governor Winthrop’s testimony cited above. Mr. Cotton, however, does not concur in this statement: the two last causes he denies, giving as his reason, “that many are known to hold both those opinions, and are yet tolerated not only to live in the commonwealth, but also in the fellowship of the churches.” The other two points, he likewise asserts, were held by some, who yet were permitted to enjoy both civil and church liberties.[26] What then were the grounds of this harsh proceeding according to Mr. Cotton? They were as follows:—“Two things there were, which to my best observation, and remembrance, caused the sentence of his banishment: and two other fell in, that hastened it. 1. His violent and tumultuous carriage against the patent.... 2. The magistrates, and other members of the general Court upon intelligence of some episcopal and malignant practices against the country, they 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. This oath when it came abroad, he vehemently withstood it, and dissuaded sundry from it, partly because it was, as he said, Christ’s prerogative to have his office established by oath: partly because an oath was a 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.” The two concurring causes were:—1. That notwithstanding his “heady and turbulent spirit,” which induced the magistrates to advise the church at Salem not to call him to the office of teacher, yet the major part of the church made choice of him. And when for this the Court refused Salem the parcel of land, Mr. Williams stirred up the church to unite with him in letters of admonition to the churches “whereof those magistrates were members, to admonish them of their open transgression of the rule of justice.” 2. That when by letters from the ministers the Salem church was inclined to abandon their teacher, Mr. Williams renounced communion with Salem and all the churches in the Bay, refused to resort to public worship, and preached to “sundry who began to resort to his family,” on the Lord’s day.[27]

On examination, it is evident that the two statements do not materially differ. Mr. Williams held the patents to be sinful “wherein Christian kings, so called, are invested with right by virtue of their Christianity, to take and give away the lands and countries of other men.”[28] It were easy to represent opposition to the patent of New England as overthrowing the foundation on which colonial laws were framed, and as a denial of the power claimed by the ministers and the General Court “to erect such a government of the church as is most agreeable to the word.” Such was Mr. Cotton’s view, and which he succeeded in impressing on the minds of the magistrates. Mr. Williams may perhaps have acquired somewhat of his jealousy concerning these patents from the instructions of Sir Edward Coke, who so nobly withstood the indiscriminate granting of monopolies in the parliament of his native land.[29] There can be no question that Williams was substantially right. His own practice, when subsequently laying the basis for the state of Rhode Island, evinces the equity, uprightness, and generosity of his motives. Perhaps too his views upon the origin of all governmental power may have had some influence in producing his opposition. He held that the sovereignty lay in the hands of the people. No patent or royal rights could therefore be alleged as against the popular will. That must make rulers, confirm the laws, and control the acts of the executive. Before it patents, privileges, and monopolies, the exclusive rights of a few, must sink away.