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8/12/2019 1994 Issue 5 - His Story - Gods Providence, The Banishment of Roger Williams - Counsel of Chalcedon
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1994-issue-5-his-story-gods-providence-the-banishment-of-roger-williams 1/2
THE BANISHMENT OF
ROGER WILLI MS
To modern, 20th
century
Amelicans, Roger Williams is the one
shining light in the midst of that
whole sony darkness which was the
PUlitan era in this country. But ole
Roger put 'em
in
their place and
singlehandedly made this country a
great place to live and rear chllin'.
According to the accepted story, the
PUlitans were an extremely intolerant
folk, paranoid over anyone who didn't
believe precisely as they, and utterly
unwilling to consider differing views.
Because of this, they cast out Roger
Williams (that gracious, sweet-spirtted
man who
only
desired religious libelty).
He was banished
from
Massachusetts
Bay, merely because he was a Baptist
and forced to flee from his persecutors
by making an heroic escape into a
harsh, New England winter.
This is precisely the view of Roger
Williams given in most grade school
history books and sadly, even some
Christian histOlY books). All this is
quite different from the description
given of Williams by those who knew
him and were closer to the events than
we. Cotton Mather says, about the
year 1630, there anived here one Mr.
Roger Williams; who being a preacher
that had less light than fire in him,
hath by his own sad example, preached
unto us the danger
of
that evil which
the apostle mentions in Rom. 10:2;
'They have a zeal,
but not according to
knowledge.
Magnalia Christi
Amelicana,
vol. II., p. 495)
Henry
Martyn
Dexter,
in his
monograph, As
to
oger
Williams and
His Banishment, Etc.,
(1876), goes
further, When [Williams] lived in
Massachusetts, he was evidently a
hot-headed youth, of detelmined
perseverance, vast energy, considerable
infOlmation, intense convictions, a
decided taste fornovelty, a hearty love
of controversy, a habit of hasty speech
with absolute carelessness
of
consequences,
and
a religious horror
of all expediency
Chlistianity
and
Civilization,
No.1,
Spring, 1982, pp.
237,238) John Quincy Adams would
later call Williams conscientiously
contentious.
One must ask what accounts for
this stark difference of opinion?
If
Adams, Mather, and Dexter are light,
where have we in this century gone
wrong? Perhaps we should examine
the things everyone takes for granted.
When
we do, we once again find
unsubstantiated
assumptions and
unfounded bias as
the
basis for the
facts
of
history. Consider:
MYT
#1 - Roger
Williams
w s a
victimoj ypical Puritan intolerance.
I fanything, the truth is exactly the
opposite. Roger Williams was likely
one of the most intolerant men ever to
set foot
in
this country. He held
to
an
extreme separatism which
led
him
eventuallyto renounce every Christian
church in the world as apostate.
When
Williams arrived
in
Boston
in 1631, he refused to accept the
position of teacher with the
church
there because they wouldnot renounce
the Church of England. Not merely
must they denounce the errors of the
Church of England, but Williams
insisted, theymustrepent
of
ever being
in communion with the Church of
England.
That alone
was
true
separation, 1 durst not officiate to an
unseparated people, as upon
examination
and
conference found
them to be. (quoted by Edmund
Morgan,
TIle Pulitan Dilemma,
p. 117)
Being disappointed
in
Boston,
Williams moved to Salem where he at
once won the hearts
of
the people by
his sweemess of spirit. So much were
they impressed, they also offered
Williams the same position the Boston
church had.
Upon
hearing
of
this,
Winthrop wrote the
church
warning
them of Williams' dangerous views.
The offer was withdrawn and Williams
went to Plymouth
in
order to
be
with
the truly separated brethren.
At Plymouth Williams was satisfied
for a time, but he
soon
discovered that
when members of the church visited
England, they attended the established
church. This was,
in
Williams' mind,
a selious offense. To attend worship
was tantamount to acknowledging the
June, 1994 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon
15
8/12/2019 1994 Issue 5 - His Story - Gods Providence, The Banishment of Roger Williams - Counsel of Chalcedon
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/1994-issue-5-his-story-gods-providence-the-banishment-of-roger-williams 2/2
Church of England as a true church.
When hesaw that the PlymOllthchurch
was
willing to tolerate thls practiCe
without excommunicating those
who
did such things, he felt it to be
compromisedand thushewasconscience
bound
to separate himself
from
it
Leaving Plymouth, Williams
returned
to
Salem where he
was
welcomed warmly and soon made an
unof\l.cial assistant to the pastor.
Williams
tQok
advantage ofhls position
to stir another controversy.
He began publicly to attack
t q ~ Ki1 .g of g l n d on two
issues:
1) He
assened that
the
KinghadnO authority to grant
chaners'to lands which
Were
.
not hls to give (i.e., the land
in this country
~ l o h g e d
to .
the Indians, not to the King);
2) He
attacked the
King
for
referring . to Europe
as
Christendom, charging him
with blaSphemy.
These
statementswere not
~ n l y
foolish
and embarrassing, but
they jeopard,zed the charter of
Mass'achlisetts Bay. Winthrop
admonished htmbut it didno good.
when
Williams
f(
fused
to
be
siient,
the General Coun strongly appealed
to
him
to Cease
iliilkingthese sorts
of
Statements. Williarrts did
agree
to
appear and "gave satisfaction of his
intention and loyalty:' .
However, iIi November, 1634,
Wiiliams published'a treatise calling
the
charter or'the Bay
Colony
invalid
anddemandfng that the colony to
retuITf it to the King with a request that
he 'm:odify it by
Omitting all
dauses
reladngto
the dOnation
ofland.
''Unless
thls were the sin ofaccepting
the
land
from
this public liar could not be
expiated exce
pt
by dissolving the
colony and remming
all
the settlers to
EnglanCl
"where they couldmake public
acknowledgment of the evil they had
done by coming to
New
England on
such false pretenses."
(Morgan,
op.
cit., p.
123) The General
Coun
again
summoned him to appear.
At this
pOint, John Cotton intervened and
requested
to be
given opportunity
to
speak with Williams privately:
"Mr. Cotton, with the consent of
the otherministers, presentedarequest
unto
the magistrates,
that they
would
please
to forbear
prosecuting of
him,
till they themselves, with their
churches, had
in
a church-way
endeavored his conviction and
repentance; for they alleged, that they
hoped his
violences
proceeded rather
from a misguided conscience,
than
from 'a seditious principle." (Mather,
op. cit., p. 497)
Theministerswereable to
persuade
Williams to abandon hls attack
on
the
chaner. He
even
agreed
to forebear
sending
the
letter he
was
preparingfor
the
King
in which he accused the King
of being a
"public
liar." Peace was
restored but only briefly.
In the spring of 1635,
Williams'
separatism began to spawn all manner
of strange
ideas: Magistrates
could not
administer an oath to unregenerate
men (when enlisting them in
the
militia); a
regenerate
man ought not
to
prayin companywithan unregenerate
man (noteven his wife or children, not
even at meals ); the civil government
had no authority in "religious'matters;
etc.
These
and other matters lead to
another summons to appear before
the General Court in July. At this
l j TIlE (:OUNSEL of Chalcedon
Jnne,
1994
meeting
the
ministers of the churches
were asked
for· their
advice. They
unanimously agreed that any minister
holding to
Williams' views
should
be
removed from a church .
WilliamS responded
by
renouncing
all
the churches of Massachusetts as
"no
churches
of
our LordJesus
Christ"
and wrOte a letter to his own
congregation calling them to join him
in this conviction.
The
congregation,
who
had supported Williams up to
this pOint,
could not bring
themselves
to
declare
everyone
but
themselves
apostate. Williams thus
renounced them and
tendered his resignation.
(Williams
later declared that
there were
no
tnie churches
in the world and,
for
a
time,
would only take
communion
with
his wife.) .
All things <;onsidered, the
Puritans treated him with
remarkable kindness,
gentleness, and patience. If
anything,
theywere victims ofhls intolerance.
It
was
only
after
their repeated efforts
at
restoration were rebuffed, that the
sentence of banishment came (in
October, 1635) .
ThiS
sentence
however,
was
never carried out.
Because
Williams refused to
abide
by
the terms of the judgment (that he not
stir
dissension
in Salem) the decision
was
made
tb
return him
to England.
When he learned
this,
Williams fled
MassachusettsinJanuary. His
flight
in
the middle ofwinter would emphasize
the
''injustiCe''
of the
godly
and
forever
enshrine him as the supreme Victim of
Christian
bigotry
.
One
does not
have
to agree \vith
all
the actions of the
General Coun
to
see that
this
incident
was occasioned more by Williams'
own
recalcitrance and flair for the dramatic
than the heartlessness of his
persecutors.
TO BE
CONCLUDED
NEXT ISSUE