as should have given
warning to those in control. In November, 1631, Richard Brown, an
elder in the Watertown church, was reported to hold that "the Romish
church was a Christian church." Forthwith the court of assistants
notified the Watertown congregation that such views could not be
allowed, and Winthrop, who went in person with the deputy governor,
Dudley, used such summary arguments that Richard Brown, though "a man
of violent spirit," thought it prudent to hold his tongue thereafter.
In November, 1634, John Eliot, known afterwards so well for his noble
work among the Indians, in a sermon censured the court for proceeding
too arbitrarily towards the Pequots. He, too, thought better of his
words when a solemn embassy of ministers presented the matter in a
more orthodox light.

In March, 1635, Captain Israel Stoughton, one of the deputies from
Dorchester to the general court, incurred the resentment of the
authorities. This "troubler of Israel," as Governor Winthrop termed
him, wrote a pamphlet denying the right of the governor and assistants
to call themselves "Scriptural Magistrates." Being questioned by the
court, the captain made haste, according to the record, to desire that
"the said book might be burned as being weak and oppressive." Still
unsatisfied, the court ordered that for his said offence he should for
three years be disabled from bearing any office in the colony.[1]

The first great check which this religious despotism received
proceeded from Roger Williams, who arrived in February, 1631, in the
_Lyon_, which brought supplies to the famishing colonists of
Massachusetts. He was the son of a merchant in London and a graduate
of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he took the degree of master of
arts in 1627. In his mere religious creed Williams was harsher than
even the orthodox ministers of Massachusetts. Soon after his arrival
he was invited to become one of the ministers of the Boston church,
but refused because that church declined to make a public declaration
of their repentance for holding communion in the churches of England
while they lived in the home country.

He was then invited to Salem, where he made himself very popular by
his talents and eloquence. Nevertheless, within two months he advanced
other "scrupulosities," denying the validity of land-titles proceeding
from the Massachusetts government, and the right of the magistrates to
impose penalties as to Sabbath-breaking or breaches of th