Nor will it be considered, by other men, as a very strange vagary of an unstable mind, that a clergyman, educated in the Church of England, should adopt the opinion, that immersion is the only scriptural baptism, when that church had taught him, in her offices, that baptism must be so administered, except in cases of weakness or disease. Nor ought Mr. Williams to be severely censured for denying that infants are proper subjects of this ordinance, when it is recollected, that the first President of Harvard University, (Dunster,) held the same opinion; and the second President (Chauncy) so far followed in the same course, as to insist, that baptism should be administered, to infants and adults, by immersion only.[195] Mr. Williams will, at least, be viewed as excusable, by those who agree with a learned Pedobaptist of our own times, that “it is a plain case, there is no express precept respecting infant baptism in our sacred writings.”[196] If Mr. Williams could not find infant baptism in the Scriptures, his rejection of it was a natural result of his principles, and may candidly be ascribed to his single-hearted deference to the authority of the Bible; though his reputation for ingenuity may suffer, because he was unable “to make out the proof in another way.” We are not, therefore, reduced to the necessity of adopting Governor Winthrop’s account of Mr. Williams’ change of opinion. That account attributes the blame to an artful woman, a sister of the great heresiarch of those times, Mrs. Hutchinson.[197] We may, not unreasonably, suppose, that Mr. Williams, on further study of the Scriptures, and finding that several of the colonists had embraced Baptist principles, was himself convinced, that he had not been baptized. He accordingly resolved to obey the Saviour’s command, and unite in a church, with such persons as might be willing to join him. A difficulty now presented itself. They had been educated in the Episcopal church, and were accustomed to regard the clergy with respect, as the only legal administrators of the Christian ordinances. Mr. Williams himself seems to have strongly felt this difficulty; and his scruples on this point, probably, had some effect on his subsequent conduct. He had not himself been immersed, and it seemed a reasonable conclusion, that he could not, with propriety, baptize his brethren, till he had received baptism. There was no other minister in New-England, who would have baptized him, if he had made an application, and his banishment from Massachusetts had been suspended. The most obvious expedient, in their circumstances, was adopted. Mr. Ezekiel Holliman[198] was selected to baptize Mr. Williams, who then baptized the administrator and ten others.[199] This event occurred in March, 1638–9. Thus was founded the first Baptist church in America, and the second, as it is stated, in the British empire.[200] The church was soon after increased by the addition of twelve other persons.