The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton's Letter Examined and Answered, by Roger Williams CHAP. III. CHAP. III. Thirdly, Mr. Cotton endeavoureth to discover the sandiness of those grounds out of which, as he saith, I have banished myself, &c. Good intentions and affections in God’s people, accepted with God, when their endeavours perish and burn like stubble, &c. Many grounds seemed sandy to Mr. Cotton in Old England, which now he confesseth to be rocky. I answer, I question not his holy and loving intentions and affections, and that my grounds seem sandy to himself and others. Those intentions and affections may be accepted, as his person, with the Lord, as David of his desires to build the Lord a temple, though on sandy grounds. Yet Mr. Cotton’s endeavours to prove the firm rock of the truth of Jesus to be the weak and uncertain sand of man’s invention, those shall perish and burn like hay or stubble. The rocky strength of those grounds shall more appear in the Lord’s season, and himself may yet confess so much, as since he came into New England he hath confessed the sandiness of the grounds of many of his practices in which he walked in Old England, and the rockiness of their grounds that witnessed against them and himself in those practices, though for that time their grounds seemed sandy to him. Mr. Cotton formerly persuaded to practise Common Prayer; but since hath written against it. When myself heretofore, through the mercy of the Most High, discovered to himself and other eminent servants of God my grounds against their using of the Common Prayer, my grounds seemed sandy to them, which since in New England Mr. Cotton hath acknowledged rocky, and hath seen cause so to publish to the world, in his discourse to Mr. Ball against set forms of prayer.[234] But because the reader may ask, both Mr. Cotton and me, what were the grounds of such a sentence of banishment against me, which are here called sandy, I shall relate in brief what those grounds were, some whereof he is pleased to discuss in this letter, and others of them not to mention.[235] After my public trial and answers at the general court, one of the most eminent magistrates, whose name and speech may by others be remembered, stood up and spake: The four particular grounds of my sentence of banishment. “Mr. Williams,” said he, “holds forth these four particulars; “First, That we have not our land by patent from the king, but that the natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such a receiving it by patent. “Secondly, That it is not lawful to call a wicked person to swear, [or] to pray, as being actions of God’s worship. “Thirdly, That it is not lawful to hear any of the ministers of the parish assemblies in England. “Fourthly, that the civil magistrate’s power extends only to the bodies, and goods, and outward state of men,” &c. I acknowledge the particulars were rightly summed up, and I also hope, that, as I then maintained the rocky strength of them to my own and other consciences’ satisfaction, so, through the Lord’s assistance, I shall be ready for the same grounds not only to be bound and banished, but to die also in New England, as for most holy truths of God in Christ Jesus. Yea; but, saith he, upon those grounds you banished yourself from the society of the churches in these countries. Christ Jesus speaketh and suffereth in his witnesses. The dragon’s language in a lamb’s lip. God’s children persecuted are charged by their enemies to be the authors of their own persecution. I answer, if Mr. Cotton mean my own voluntary withdrawing from those churches resolved to continue in those evils, and persecuting the witnesses of the Lord presenting light unto them, I confess it was mine own voluntary act; yea, I hope the act of the Lord Jesus sounding forth in me, a poor despised ram’s horn, the blast which shall in his own holy season cast down the strength and confidence of those inventions of men in the worshipping of the true and living God:—And lastly, His act in enabling me to be faithful, in any measure, to suffer such great and mighty trials for his name’s sake. But if by banishing myself he intend the act of civil banishment from their common earth and air, I then observe with grief the language of the dragon in a lamb’s lip. Among other expressions of the dragon, are not these common to the witnesses of the Lord Jesus, rent and torn by his persecutions?—“Go now:—say, you are persecuted, you are persecuted for Christ, suffer for your conscience: no, it is your schism, heresy, obstinacy, the devil hath deceived thee, thou hast justly brought this upon thee, thou hast banished thyself,” &c. Instances are abundant in so many books of martyrs, and the experience of all men, and therefore I spare to recite in so short a treatise. A national church, the silent commonweal or world, silently confessed by Mr. Cotton to be all one. Secondly, if he mean this civil act of banishing, why should he call a civil sentence from the civil state, within a few weeks’ execution, in so sharp a time of New England’s cold—Why should he call this a banishment from the churches? except he silently confess, that the frame or constitution of their churches is but implicitly national, which yet they profess against: for otherwise why was I not yet permitted to live in the world, or commonweal, except for this reason, that the commonweal and church is yet but one, and he that is banished from the one must necessarily be banished from the other also.