Religious Dissensions in New England

The New England colonists made vigorous efforts to establish firmly their political rights. The original charter contained no provision for the self-government or religious freedom of the people, who were left, in these particulars, at the mercy of the Company and the king. In furtherance of their democratic sentiments, the bold step was taken, in 1630, of removing the governing council from England to Massachusetts, while the provincial government took every precaution to prevent the Church of England from extending its authority over the colony.

In matters of conscience the colonists manifested from the first an autocratic tendency, and the determination that God should be worshipped in their province in only one way, and that the way of the Puritans. That thought could be confined to so narrow a channel was, however, impossible, and there began at an early date that strenuous effort to weed out what was to them heresy which forms an important part of the history of New England. To the earliest of these troubles, that connected with the name of Roger Williams, the settlement of the province of Rhode Island was due. Similar religious dissensions had their share in the settlement of the provinces of Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire. We select a description of these events from Robertson's "History of America," a favorite historical work of the last century.

We may premise by saying that Roger Williams was a young Puritan minister, of fine talents and education, who had been driven out of England by the intolerance of Archbishop Laud. On landing in Boston he found himself unable to join the church in that place, from its opposition to his views respecting religious freedom. He was subsequently called to the church in Salem, but was prevented from officiating through the opposition of Governor Winthrop. Two years afterwards he again received a pastoral call to Salem. Here his doctrine gave great offence to the colony, though he was warmly supported by the people of Salem.]

HOWEVER liberal their system of civil policy might be, as their religious opinions were no longer under any restraint of authority, the spirit of fanaticism continued to spread, and became every day wilder and more extravagant. Williams, a minister of Salem, in high estimation, having conceived an antipathy to the cross of St. George in the standard of England, declaimed against it with so much vehemence as a relic of superstition and idolatry which ought not to be retained among a people so pure and sanctified, that Endicott, one of the members of the court of assistants, in a transport of zeal, publicly cut out the cross from the ensign displayed before the governor's gate. This frivolous matter interested and divided the colony. Some of the militia scrupled to follow colors in which there was a cross, lest they should do honor to an idol; others refused to serve under a mutilated banner, lest they should be suspected of having renounced their allegiance to the crown of England. After a long controversy, carried on by both parties with that heat and zeal which, in trivial disputes, supply the want of argument, the contest was terminated by a compromise. The cross was retained in the ensigns of forts and ships, but erased from the colors of the militia. Williams, on account of this, as well as of some other doctrines deemed unsound, was banished out of the colony.

Among these obnoxious doctrines were, that it was wrong to enforce an oath of allegiance to the sovereign, or of obedience to the magistrate; that the king had no right to usurp the power of disposing of the territory of the Indians, and, more particularly, that all religious sects had the right to claim equal protection from the laws, and that the civil magistrates had no right to restrain the consciences of men, or to interfere with their modes of worship or religious beliefs. It was decided to send the heretical pastor to England, and he was ordered to repair to Boston. As he did not obey this order, a party was sent to Salem to arrest him. On reaching there they found that Williams had left the settlement, and was making his way through the forest wilderness and the cold and hardship of a New England winter in search of a locality where he might have the privilege of worshipping God in accordance with the dictates of his conscience.