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Commission

ton.

1651. August.

April 8.

It was known that Coddington had gone to England in discontent at the state of things about him; of Codding- but the special purpose of his voyage had not been disclosed. After an absence of two years and a half he returned, having obtained a "commission" from the Council of State to institute a separate government over the islands of Rhode Island and Conanicut. This government he was to administer during his life, with a Council of not more than six assistants, to be nominated annually by "such freeholders of Newport and Portsmouth as should be well affected to the government of the Commonwealth of England," the choice, however, to be subject to the Governor's approval.

1 See above, p. 221. — It can hardly be supposed that Coddington had the aid of Vane in superseding the patent of Providence Plantations, though they had been in the magistracy of Massachusetts together, and had been fellowsufferers in the Antinomian controversy.

The first meeting of the Council of State was held February 17, 1649, in the third week after the execution of the King. For two years the business of the Colonies was overlooked. At the end of this time (February 18, 1651) an order was made "that the whole Council, or any five of them, be a Committee to consider of the business of plantations." A vote of the Council, six weeks later (April 3), recites that, "by a late Act of Parliament of the 3d of October last, it is granted to the Council of State to have power and author ity over all such islands and all other places in America as have been planted at the cost and settled by the people and authority of this nation, and thereon in any of the said islands and places to institute Governors, and to grant commission or commissions to such person or persons as they shall think fit, and to do all just things and to use all

lawful means for the benefit and preservation of said plantations and islands in peace and safety until the Parliament shall take other or further order there, any letters patent or other authority formerly granted, or given, to the contrary notwithstanding." It then goes on to "make and constitute " William Coddington "to be Governor of the said islands" (Rhode Island and Conanicut), and to commission him as such. He is to administer his government "in the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of England by authority of Parliament, and to use and observe the same and no other form" in all commissions and proceedings. He is to be assisted by Counsellors "not exceeding the number of six," who are to be nominated from year to year by well-affected freeholders of Newport and Portsmouth, but must be confirmed by the Governor. The electors, as well as the Magistrates, must make the declaration: "I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Commonwealth of England as it is now established, without a King or House of Lords." (Journal of the Council of State, in the State-Paper Office.)

In case of the Governor's absence or death, the local Council were to appoint his successor, who was to hold his office till the Parliament or the Council of State should "give further order." Besides Providence and Warwick, which were thus remanded to their original isolation, a large number of Coddington's own fellow-citizens on the island-no fewer than sixty-five at Newport, and forty at Portsmouth -were opposed to this arrangement. One reason, at least, for so strong an opposition is to be found in religious dissent.

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1641.

When a portion of the adherents of Mrs. Hutchinson had separated themselves from their old friends, and made a settlement on Rhode Island, it was not to be supposed that their propensity to religious novelties and disputes was exhausted. "Other troubles," writes Winthrop, who of course did not view them with a favorable eye, "arose in the island by reason of one Nicholas Easton, a man very bold, though ignorant. He tained that man hath no power or will in himself but as he is acted by God; and that, seeing God filled all things, nothing could be or move but by him; and so he must needs be the author of sin, &c.; and that a Christian is united to the essence of God.. joined with Nicholas Easton Mr. Coddington, Mr. Coggeshall, and some others; but their minister, Mr. Clarke, and Mr. Lenthall and Mr. Harding, and some others, dissented and publicly opposed, whereby it grew to such heat of contention, that it made a schism among them." Heretofore Clarke had been the fast friend of Coddington, and had adhered to him, with Easton and Coggeshall, at the time of the disturbance which resulted in his deposition and his removal to Newport.2

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the emigration to Rhode Island, did not involve questions respecting the subjects or the mode of baptism. It is believed to have been about the seventh

Baptists at
Newport.

1644. year after the beginning of the plantation at Newport, that a church of Baptists - or Anabaptists, as they were called by their opponents - was gathered there.' Its principal member was John Clarke, who had already been, during most of the time, the religious teacher, as well as the physician, of the settlement.2 Coddington did not belong to it; and Clarke and he were thrown into further opposition.

The opinions of the Baptists did not gain acceptance in Rhode Island only. Writing in the same year, when perhaps he already knew what had been there done, Winthrop says: "Anabaptistry increased and spread in the country, which occasioned the Magistrates at the last Court to draw an order for banishing such as continued obstinate after due conviction. This was sent to the Elders, who approved of it with some mitigations, and, being voted and sent to the Deputies, it was after published." 8

In their statute the law-makers alleged the considerations which moved them to enact it. It was as follows:"Forasmuch as experience hath plentifully and often

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proved that, since the first arising of the AnaBaptists in baptists, about a hundred years since, they have been the incendiaries of commonwealths, and the Nov. 18. infectors of persons in main matters of religion, and the troublers of churches in all places where they have been, and that they who have held the baptizing of infants unlawful have usually held other errors or heresies together therewith, though they have (as other

R. I. Hist. Coll., 117; Backus, His- ginning, except in the time between tory, &c., I. 149. August, 1640, and March, 1642, when Lenthall was there. (Backus, I. 114.) 3 Winthrop, II. 174.

2 See Vol. I. 511. Clarke had been the minister of Newport from the be

heretics use to do) concealed the same, till they spied out a fit advantage and opportunity to vent them, by way of question or scruple; and whereas divers of this kind have, since our coming into New England, appeared amongst ourselves, some whereof have (as others before them) denied the ordinance of magistracy, and the lawfulness of making war, and others the lawfulness of magistrates, and their inspection into any breach of the first table, which opinions, if they should be connived at by us, are like to be increased amongst us, and so must necessarily bring guilt upon us, infection and trouble to the churches, and hazard to the whole commonwealth,

"It is ordered and agreed, that if any person or persons within this jurisdiction shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or go about secretly to seduce others from the approbation or use thereof, or shall purposely depart the congregation at the administration of the ordinance, or shall deny the ordinance of magistracy, or their lawful right or authority to make war, or to punish the outward breaches of the first table, and shall appear to the Court wilfully and obstinately to continue therein after due time and means of conviction, every such person or persons shall be sentenced to banishment." 1

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1 Mass. Rec., II. 85. The next year (October 18, 1645) petitions were presented to the Court for a repeal of of this law; but they had no effect. (Ibid., 141; comp. 149.)

Just before the passage of the law, "a poor man of Hingham, one Painter, who had lived at New Haven and at Rowley and Charlestown, and been scandalous and burdensome by his idle and troublesome behavior to them all, was on a sudden turned Anabaptist; and, having a child born, he would not suffer his wife to bring it to the ordinance of baptism, for she was a mem

ber of the church, though he was not.
Being presented for this, and enjoined
to suffer the child to be baptized, he
still refusing and disturbing the church,
he was again brought to the Court, not
only for his former contempt, but also
for saying that our baptism was Anti-
christian; and in the open Court he
affirmed the same. Whereupon.....
he was ordered to be whipped, not for
his opinion, but for his reproaching the
Lord's ordinance, and for his bold and
evil behavior, both at home and in the
Court.
Two or three honest
men, his neighbors, affirmed before all

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Unhappily, the name Anabaptist, at this period, denoted a person very different from a mere religious errorist. It still revived the memory of those flagitious proceedings in Germany, which are referred to in this statute. The presence of those who bore it was still considered inconsistent with social security. When they had risen to consequence in England, the existence of this sentiment was expressly recognized, while it was disapproved, in a declaration which the two Houses of Parliament published in their favor. "The name of Anabaptism hath indeed contracted much odium, by reason of the extravagant opinions and practices of some of that name in Germany, tending to the disturbance of the government and peace of all states; which opinions and practices we abhor and detest."

1647. May 4.

"2

It was of the law just quoted that Winslow had written, that it was designed always to remain a dead letter, unless some extraordinary occasion should arise for its enforcement. And at the time when it was passed, and for

the company that he was of very loose behavior at home, and given much to lying and idleness, &c." (Winthrop, II, 174, 175.)

1 "These men denied..... the authority of magistrates, the lawfulness of taking oaths, and almost all the Christian doctrines, and were guilty of several gross enormities, such as polygamy, rebellion, theft, and murder. They seized the city of Munster, proclaimed John of Leyden their king, committed abundance of violence, and caused tumults and rebellions in several places. The extravagant doctrines and seditious practices of these men are everywhere charged upon the opposers of infant baptism, to render them odious, and a dangerous and seditious sect, not fit to be tolerated in any nation, whose principles have so bad a tendency, and whose beginning was so scan

dalous." (Crosby, History of the English Baptists, I. xxiii., xxiv. ; see Vol. I. 487, note 2; Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles the Fifth, Book V.) The "superadding of Anabaptistry to Sans-culottism" (Carlyle, Cromwell, II. 70) alarmed the Magistrates of Massachusetts, as it soon after alarmed the Dictator of England.

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2 Crosby, History, &c., I. 196.

Hypocrisie Unmasked, 101; see Vol. I. 489, note 2.—"The truth is," said the General Court, in their " Declaration" in November, 1646 (Hutch. Coll., 216), "the great trouble we have been put unto, and hazard also, by familistical and anabaptistical spirits, whose conscience and religion hath been only to set forth themselves and raise contentions in the country, did provoke us to provide for our safety...... But for such as differ from us only in judgment,

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