We now come to the case of the first, and perhaps the most conspicuous, individual who was to fall under the discipline of both Church and State in New England. Roger Williams had arrived in Boston as early as 1631. Added to a most winning nature and a personality that ever exerted a charm over friends and enemies alike, he brought with him a reputation for being a godly minister, and within a few months after his arrival, was invited by the church at Salem to become their teacher. He had also, apparently, within only a few weeks of his landing, been chosen to the same office by the Boston congregation, but had refused to join with them because they would not acknowledge themselves to be separated from the Church of England.[391] He had also, thus early, declared his doctrine that the power of the magistrates should be limited to civil matters, and that they had no authority to punish the breach of the Sabbath or other religious offenses.[392] For these reasons, the General Court wrote a letter to Endicott, expostulating with the Salem church for accepting Williams, which that church apparently ignored.[393] He did not, however, remain long, but removed to Plymouth, where he stayed preaching until again called to Salem in 1634.[394] Footnote 391: Letter to John Cotton, Jr., 1671 (_Narr. Club Pub._, vol. VI, p. 356). Footnote 392: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 63. Footnote 393: The evidence is somewhat conflicting. _Cf._ citations of authorities in H. M. Dexter, _As to Roger Williams_ (Boston, 1876), p. 5. Footnote 394: Bradford, _Plymouth_, p. 310. Meanwhile, he had not only so extended his doctrine of the separation of church and state as to deny that a magistrate had power to require an oath, but had added a new and, it is needless to say, fundamentally dangerous doctrine for the legal foundation of the colony, in his declaration that, the Indians being the true owners of the soil, the King had had no right to grant a charter, and the colony should repent of having received it. The authorities might, perhaps, fear the expression of such opinions, and his subsequent banishment, the motives for which have always been the subject of heated dispute from his own day to this, may have been caused by his denial of the legal basis of the colony, as much as by his theory of religious toleration. It was without doubt the latter, however, which brought down upon him the special hostility of the clergy. Winthrop, who like Bradford and Winslow, had an affectionate regard for the young clergyman, specifically stated that the ministers rendered their judgment “that he who should obstinately maintain such opinions, whereby a church might run into heresy, apostacy, or tyranny, and yet the civil magistrate could not intermeddle,” should be removed.[395] Footnote 395: J. Winthrop, _History_, vol. I, p. 194.