Much warmth of feeling was exhibited in the discussion of these charges; and in the course of the debate it seems the ministers were required to give their opinions severally. All agreed that he who asserted that the civil magistrate ought not to interfere in case of heresy, apostacy, etc., ought to be removed, and that other churches ought to request the magistrates to remove him. Nothing will give a better idea of the state of feeling on this occasion than the fact that when the town of Salem at this time petitioned, claiming some land at Marblehead as belonging to the town, the petition was refused a hearing, on the ground that the church of Salem had chosen Mr. Williams her teacher, and by such choice had offered contempt to the magistrates. The attendance of all the Ministers of the Bay at the next General Court was requested. This was held in the month of November, 1635. Before this venerable congregation of all the dignitaries of the church, Williams appeared, and defended his opinions. His defence, it seems, was not satisfactory. They offered him further time for conference or disputation. This he declined, and chose to dispute presently. Mr. Hooker was appointed to dispute with him. But Mr. Hooker’s logic, seconded as it was by the whole civil and ecclesiastical power of Massachusetts, could not force him to recognise the right of the civil magistrate to punish heresy, or to admit that the king’s patent could of itself give a just title to the lands of the Indians. The consequence was, that on the following morning he was sentenced to depart, within six weeks, out of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. Such were the causes of Williams’ banishment, and such the circumstances under which the decree was passed. He was a man who fearlessly asserted his principles, and practiced upon them to their fullest extent. Persecution could not drive him to a renunciation of his opinions. His observance of any principle which he adopted was conscientiously strict; but this very strictness of observance had its advantages, in enabling him with more certainty to detect any latent error which his opinions involved. He was as free to declare his errors as he was to assert whatever appeared to him to be right. His very honesty in this respect has given occasion to his enemies to brand his character with inconsistency and apostacy; but he remained true to every principle espoused by him, which posterity has since sanctioned, and inconstant in those things only which are unimportant in themselves, and which are unsettled even in the present day. A tacit confession of his own fallibility was implied in the great principle of which he was the earliest asserter, that government ought not to interfere in matters of conscience; and therein consisted a wide difference between his errors, whatever they were, and those of his persecutors. This fact, in estimating the character of Williams, cannot be too well considered.