Cotton was at heart too
liberal for his role of Primate, and fate led him to persecute a
man whose very name has become a symbol of victorious tolerance,
Roger Williams.
Williams, known today as a friend of Cromwell, Milton, and Sir
Harry Vane, had been exiled from Massachusetts for maintaining
that the civil power had no jurisdiction over conscience. This
doctrine was fatal to the existence of a theocratic state
dominated by the church. John Cotton was perfectly logical in
"enlarging" Roger Williams into the wilderness, but he showed
less than his usual discretion in attacking the quick-tempered
Welshman in pamphlets. It was like asking Hotspur if he would
kindly consent to fight. Back and forth the books fly, for
Williams loves this game. His "Bloody Tenet of Persecution for
Cause of Conscience" calls forth Mr. Cotton's "Bloody Tenet
washed and made white in the Blood of the Lamb;" and this in turn
provokes the torrential flood of Williams's masterpiece, "The
Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody, by Mr. Cotton's endeavor to wash it
white in the Blood of the Lamb.
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