HEBREW CONGREGATION, NEWPORT, R. I., 1658.

655

On the same high authority we find that the Jewish congregation, Teshuat Israel, was openly organized in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1658, under the broad provision of 1647, that ‘ALL MEN,' in that Colony may walk as their consciences persuade them, every one in the name of his God.' Such liberty they had not elsewhere on this globe at that time, Holland not excepted, for even there they were forbidden to speak or to write disparagingly of the Christian religion; to make converts to their own faith; to exercise any handicraft or carry on retail trade; and marriages between Christians and Jews were strictly prohibited.' 15 They labored under none of these restrictions in Rhode Island, but in all these respects stood upon a perfect equality with Baptists, Quakers and other religionists, and that congregation has remained undisturbed to this day, a period of two hundred and twenty-eight years, and is but fourteen years younger than the first Baptist Church of that city. Arnold says that they did much to build up the commercial interests of Newport. Some of them rose in public favor for their services to the State, and on August 20th, 1750, 'Moses Lopez, of Newport, was excused at his own request froin all other civil duties, on account of his gratuitous services to the government in translating Spanish documents.' 16 This indicates that he had done all the civil duties of a freeman up to that time. By the year 1763, the little Jewish congregation at Newport had increased to sixty families, their necessities demanding the erection of a synagogue, which they began to build in 1762, and which their rabbi, Isaac Touro, dedicated to Jehovah in 1763, with 'great pomp and ceremony.'" This large increase in their number was due chiefly to the great earthquake of 1755, the center of which was in Spain and Portugal; it swallowed up fifty thousand inhabitants of Lisbon alone. Many of the Jews, who fled for safety from more cruel foes than the yawning earth, came to Rhode Island, where their own brethren had worshiped God in peace and safety for one hundred and eight years. These facts entirely dis prove the alleged fact that in 1663-64 Rhode Island passed a law restricting religious liberty to those 'professing Christianity.'

Some writers have fallen into singular confusion in treating of this subject, making Roger Williams and Rhode Island identical on the one hand, by holding them responsible for each other's acts, and on the other by confounding the civil and religious liberties of that Colony as if they were one. A noted case cited under this groundless assumption is that of Aaron Lopez and Isaac Elizur. These two Hebrews petitioned the Superior Court of Rhode Island, at its March term, in 1762, for naturalization under an Act of Parliament, and were rejected on the ground, that to naturalize them would violate the spirit of the charter; that none could be made citizens but Christians; and that the Colony was too full of people already. The last of these reasons throws suspicion on the other two given for the decision, as it was simply ridiculous; yet it serves to show that the Court was moved by other considerations than those of guarding high chartered rights. But, whatever its motive might have been, the question before it was a purely civil question,

636

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN RHODE ISLAND.

involving only the naturalization of a foreigner, and not his right to religious liberty under the laws of Rhode Island. There are millions of people in the United States to-day who enjoy all the religious rights of its native-born citizens, but not being citizens they seek naturalization at the courts; which, as in the case of Chinamen, is often denied. So these two men were, without doubt, members of the Jewish congregation which at that moment was building a synagogue under the protection of Rhode Island law, and now they wished to add citizenship to religious right. Mr. Charles Deane has written with a discriminating pen on this point. He complains of a misapprehension on this question of refusing to admit to the franchise those who were not Christians, and says:

The charter of Rhode Island declared that no one should be "molested" or called in question for any difference of opinion in matters of religion. The law in question does not relate to religious liberty, but to the franchise. Rhode Island has always granted liberty to persons of every religious opinion, but has placed a hedge about the franchise; and this clause does it. Was it not natural for the founders of Rhode Island to keep the government in the hands of its friends, while working out their experiment, rather than to put it into the hands of the enemies of religious liberty? How many ship-loads of Roman Catholics would it have taken to swamp the little Colony in the days of its weakness?' 18

The clause' to which he refers is the so-called 'Catholic exclusion,' which has already been considered, but this distinction between the civil and religious questions involved here is precisely as clear in the case of the Jews as of the Catholics. Arnold well says:

The right to be admitted a freeman, or even to be naturalized, was purely a civil one, dependent upon the view that the town councils might take of the merits of each individual case. The right to reject was absolute,' as well in the case of a Baptist as a Jew. Freemen,' he continues, were admited into the Colony by the Assembly, to whom the application should have been made, if freemanship was what these Jews wanted. . . . Naturalization was granted properly by the Courts. but usually by the Assembly, who exercised judicial prerogatives in this matter as in many others. others. . . . The decision in the case of Lopez appears to be irregular in every respect. It subverts an Act of Parliament, violates the spirit of the charter, enunciates principles never acted upon in the Colony, and finally dismisses the case on a false issue. . . . The reasons assigned for the rejection, in the decree above given, were false. . . . If that had been the fundamental law from the beginning, no one could have been admitted a freeman who was not a Christian; but Jews were admitted to freemanship again and again by the Assembly. . . . The charter of Rhode Island guaranteed, and the action of the Colony uniformly secured, to all people perfect religious freedom. It did not confer civil privileges as a part of that right upon any one, such only were entitled to those whom the freemen saw fit to admit. 19

At the time that the Superior Court gave this decision, Rhode Island was passing through a scene of high political excitement, and Arnold attributes its decision. to the strife then existing between Chief-Justice Ward and Governor Hopkins... For many years prior to that time there was scarcely a session of the Assembly, when one or more cases of the kind (naturalization) did not occur, in which the names

JEWISH TESTIMONY TO ROGER WILLIAMS.

657

and nationalities of the parties show them to be either Roman Catholics or Jews.' Amongst these, he mentions the case of Stephen Decatur (1753), a Genoese, the father of the celebrated Commodore, and that of Lucerna, a Portuguese Jew, in 1761.

No class of people more earnestly and gratefully recognize Roger Williams as the apostle of their liberties than do the American Jews. One of their ablest writers says in a recent work:

'The earliest champion of religious freedom, or "soul liberty," as he designated that most precious jewel of all liberties, was Roger Williams. . . . To him rightfully belongs the immortal fame of having been the first person in modern times to assert and maintain in its fullest plenitude the absolute right of every man to "a full liberty in religious concernments," and to found a State wherein this doctrine was the key-stone of its organic laws. ... Roger Williams, the first pure type of an American freeman, proclaimed the laws of civil and religious liberty, that "the people were the origin of all free power in government," that God has given to men no power over conscience, nor can men grant this power to each other; that the regulation of the conscience is not one of the purposes for which men combine in civil society. For uttering such heresies, this great founder of our liberties was banished out of the jurisdiction of the Puritans in America. . . . In grateful remembrance of God's merciful providence to him in his distress, he gave to it (the new town) the name of Providence. "I desired," said he, "it might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience." . . . The infant community at Providence at once set about to frame laws for government, in strict accord with the spirit of the settlement. "Masters of families incorporated together into a township, and such others as they shall admit into the same, only in civil things." This simple instrument is the earliest constitution of government whereof we have any record, which not only tolerated all religions, but recognized as a right, absolute liberty of conscience. 20

43

CHAPTER IV.

THE PROVIDENCE AND NEWPORT CHURCHES.

OGER WILLIAMS, having adopted the old Baptist principle of absolute

R soul-liberty and given it practical effect in the civil provisions which he had

devised, could not stop there. This deep moral truth carried with it certain logical outworkings concerning human duty as well as its rights, and as his doctrine. could not stand alone in his thought, he was compelled to take another step forward. Relieved from all outside authority in matters of conscience, to which he had formerly submitted, he was now directly responsible to God for the correctness of his faith and practice, and by all that he had suffered he was bound to walk in an enlightened conscience. This compelled him to inquire what obedience God demanded of him personally, and threw him directly back upon his word as to his personal duty in the matter of baptism. While an infant he had been christened, but having now put himself under the supreme Headship of Christ, without the intervention of human authority, he found himself at a step on pure Baptist ground, and determined to be baptized on his own faith.

Williams with five others had settled Providence in June, 1636, and their numbers soon grew, so that in about three years there appear to have been about thirty families in the colony. In the main, the Christian portion of them had been Congregationalists, but in their trying position they seem to have been left unsettled religiously, especially regarding Church organization. Winthrop says that they met both on week-days and the Sabbath for the worship of God; but the first sign of a Church is found some time previous to March, 1639, when Williams and eleven others were baptized, and a Baptist Church was formed under his lead. Hubbard tells us that he was baptized by one Holliman, then Mr. Williams re-baptized him and some ten more.' Ezekiel Holliman had been a member of Williams's Church at Salem, which Church, March 12th, 1638, charged him with neglect of public worship, and for drawing many over to his persuasion. For this he is referred to the elders, that they may endeavor to convince and bring him from his principle and practice.'1 Through its pastor, Hugh Peters, the Salem Church wrote to the Dorchester Church July 1st, 1639, informing them that the great censure' had been passed upon 'Roger Williams and his wife, Thomas Olney and his wife, Stukley Westcot and his wife, Mary Holliman, with widow Reeves,' and that 'these wholly refused to hear the Church, denying it and all the Churches of the Bay to be the true Churches, and (except two) all are re-baptized.' 2

WILLIAMS BAPTIZED.

6

659

In the baptism of these twelve we find a case of peculiar necessity, such as that in which the validity of lay-baptism' has never been denied. Tertullian, Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome, all held that in cases of necessity laymen' should baptize and the Synod of Elvira so decreed. Mosheim writes: At first, all who were engaged in propagating Christianity, administered this rite; nor can it be called in question, that whoever persuaded any person to embrace Christianity, could baptize his own disciple.' Some, amongst whom we find Winthrop, have thought that Williams became a Baptist under the influence of a sister of Mrs. Hutchinson; others, that John Clarke, then of Aquidneck, was very likely the instrument of influencing him to this choice. But Clarke makes no reference in his writings to the baptism of his intimate friend, as he probably would have done had he led him to this step. So far as appears, there was not a Baptist minister in the colony at the time. Williams was an ordained minister in the English Episcopal Church and had been re-ordained at Salem, May, 1635, after the Congregational order, so that no one could question his right to immerse on the ground of non-ordination. He has left no account of his baptism, and some have questioned whether he was immersed, a point that we may now examine.

Under date of March 16th, 1639, Felt says: 'Williams, as stated by Winthrop, was lately immersed;' and that he was immersed has never been questioned by any historian down from Winthrop to Bancroft, until recently. In 1879 this question was raised, but only then on the assumption that immersion was not practiced by the English Baptists until 1641, and so, that in America, Williams must have been ‘affused' in March, 1639! Richard Scott, who was a Baptist with Williams at Providence, but who afterward became a Quaker, writing against Williams thirty-eight years afterward, says: 'I walked with him in the Baptists' way about three or four months, . . . in which time he broke from his society, and declared at large the ground and reason for it; that their baptism could not be right because it was not administered by an apostle. After that he set upon a way of seeking, with two or three of them that had dissented with him, by way of preaching and praying; and there he continued a year or two till two of the three left him. . . . After his society and he in a Church way were parted, he then went to England.' Here he gives no hint that 'the Baptists' way' differed in any respect in 1639 from what it was when he wrote. Hooker's letter to Shepard, November 2d, 1640, shows clearly that immersion was practiced at Providence at that time. When speaking of Humphrey inviting Chauncey from Plymouth to Providence, on account of his immersionist notions, Hooker says: That coast is more meet for his opinion and practice. And Coddington, Governor of Rhode Island, a determined enemy of Williams, put this point unmistakably, thus: 'I have known him about fifty years; a mere weather-cock, constant only in inconstancy. One time for water baptism, men and women

5

must be plunged into the water, and then threw it all down again.' 6

But Williams's own opinion of Scripture baptism, given in a letter to Winthrop,