The Rogerenes: some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of Connecticut — John Shaqi
The Rogerenes: some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of ConnecticutBolles, John R. (John Rogers)
History
The Rogerenes: some hitherto unpublished annals belonging to the colonial history of Connecticut
Bolles, John R. (John Rogers)
Rogerenes -- History
I order this to be set up in open view, in some public place, in the
town of Providence, that the inhabitants may see and be sensible of
what may be expected from a Presbyterian government, in case they
should once get the rule over us. Their ministers are creeping in
amongst us with adulatious pretense, and declare their great
abhorrence to their forefather’s sanguinary proceedings with the
Quakers, Baptists and others. I am unwilling to apply Prov. xxvi, 25,
to any of them; but we have a specimen of what has lately been acted
in a Presbyterian government, which I think may suppose it sits a
queen and shall see no sorrow. I may fairly say of some of the
Presbyterian rulers and Papists, as Jacob once said of his two sons,
Gen. xlix, 5 and 6 verses, “They are brethren, instruments of cruelty
are in their habitations! O, my soul, come not thou into their secret!
Unto their assembly, mine honor, be thou not united!” Amos v, 7, “They
who turn judgment into wormwood and leave off righteousness in the
earth.” Chapter vi, 12, “For they have turned judgment into gall, and
the fruit of righteousness into hemlock!” And I think in whomsoever
the spirit of persecution restest there cannot be much of the spirit
of God. And I must observe that, notwithstanding the Presbyterian
pretended zeal to a strict observance of a first day Sabbath was such
that those poor people might not be suffered to travel from Groton to
Lebanon on that day, on a religious occasion, as hath been minded, but
must be apprehended as gross malefactors and unmercifully punished;
yet, when a Presbyterian minister, which hath a great fame for
abilities, hath been to preach in the town of Providence, why truly
then the Presbyterians have come flocking in, upon the first day of
the week, to hear him, from Rehoboth, and the furthest parts of
Attleborough, and from Killingly, which is much further than John
Rogers and his friends were travelling; and this may pass for a Godly
zeal; but the other must be punished for a sinful action. Oh! the
partiality of such nominal Christians!
JOSEPH JENKS, _Dep. Gov._
CHAPTER II.
In the contemplation of noble deeds, we become more noble, and by the
just anathematizing of error our love of truth is made stronger. As the
bee derives honey from nauseous substances, so we would extract good
even from wrongdoing. It is with no spirit of animosity towards any one
that we pursue this subject.
No word of palliation for the acts of the Rogerenes, no admission of
wrong done to them by their opponents, is heard from the ecclesiastical
side. Perhaps even the severity of the statements made against them may
be an evidence in their favor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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