The Danger of Tolerating Levelers in a Civil State, Letter 2
From our Neck: Curo▪ September 15. 1643.
TO the great and honoured Idol Generall, now set up in the Massachusets, whose pretended equity in distribution of Justice unto the soules and bodies of men, is nothing else but a meer device of man, according to the ancient customes & sleights of Satan, transforming himself into an angel of Light, to subject and make slaves of that species or kinde that God hath honoured with his owne Image, read Dan▪ 3. Chap▪ wherein (if it be not like Lots love unto the Sodomites) you may see, the visage or countenance of the State, for wee know the sound of all the musick, from the highest note of wind-instruments, sounding, or set up by the breath or voices of men, (to have dominion and rule as though there were no God in heaven or in earth but they, to doe right unto the sonnes of men) unto the lowest tones of the stringed instruments, subjecting themselves to hand or skill of the devised ministrations of men, as though God had made man to bee a vassall to his owne species or kinde, for hee may as well bee a slave to his belly, and make it his God, as to any thing that man can bring forth, yea, even in his best perfection, who can lay claime to no title or terme of honour but what the dust, rottennesse, and putrefaction can affoord, for that of right belongeth solely to our Lord Christ. Woe therefore unto the world, because of the Idols thereof; for Idols must needs beset up, but woe unto them by whom they are erected.
Out of the abovesaid principles, which is the kindome of darknesse and of the devill; you have writ another Note unto us, to adde to your fomer pride and folly, telling us againe, you have taken Pumham, with others into your Jurisdiction and Government, and that upon good grounds (as you say:) you might have done well to have proved your selfe Christians, before you had mingled your selves with the heathen, that so your children might have knowne how to put a distinction betwixt yours and them in after times, but wee perceive that to bee too hard a worke for your selves to performe, even in time present. But if you will communicate Justice and Government with that Indian, wee advise you to keep him amongst your selves, where hee, and you may performe that worthy worke: Yet upon a better ground, wee can informe you, that hee may not expect former curtesies from us, for now by your Note, wee are resolved of his breach of Covenant with us, in this his seeking and subjection unto you, which formerly hee hath alwayes denyed; let him and you know therefore, that hee is to make other provision for his planting of corne he…eafter, than upon Mshawom…t, for wee will not harbour amongst us any such fawning, lying, and cadaverous person as hee is, after knowledge of him, as now in part you have given unto us, onelyonly hee shall have liberty sufficient to take away his corne, habitation, or any of his implements, so be it hee passe away in peace and quiet, which might in no case bee admitted, if it were so that wee lived by blood, as you doe, either through incision of the nose, division of the eare from the head, stigmatize upon the back, suffocation of the veines, through extremity of cold, by your banishments in the winter, or strangled in the flesh with a halter. But we know our course, professing the kingdome of God and his righteousnesse, renouncing that of darknesse and the devill, wherein you delight to trust, for without the practise of these things, you cannot kisse your hand, blesse the Idol, nor professe your vowes and offerings to bee paid and performed. O yee generation of vipers, who hath fore… warned you, or fore… stalled your mindes with this, but Satan himselfe, that the practice of these things is to fly from the wrath to come; Whereas the very exercise and performance of them, is nothing else but the vengeance and wrath of God upon you already, in that mankind, so harmonically made in the Image of God, is in the exercises of the kingdome, become the torturer and tormentor, yea the executioner of it selfe, whilst those of you that are of the same stock and stem, worke out, yea, and that curiously, through the law of your mindes, the death and destruction of one another; when as, in the meane time, the same nature or subsistance, in the way of our Lord Jesus, saves both it selfe and others. You tell us of complaint… made by the Indians, of unjust dealings and injuries done unto them, why doe they not make them knowne to us, they never complained to us of any thing done unto this day, but they had satisfaction to the full, according to their owne minde, for oft wee know, in what they expresse unto us, although our wrongs insufferable done by them lie still in the deck, for wee know very well, wee have plenty of causelesse adversaries, wanting no malice that Satan can inject, therefore wee suffer much, that in the perfection and heighth of their plots, they may receive the greater rebuke and shame for their basenesse, in the eies of all the world.
To which end wee have not onelyonly committed our condition unto writings, but them also into the hands and custody of such friends, from whom they shall not bee taken by any, or by all the governments of this Country, as formerly they have beene, that so our wrongs might not appeare; therefore never picke a quarrell against us in these things, for wee know all your stiles and devices, that being you now want such as old malicious Arnauld, one of your low stringed instruments, to exercise his fidle amongst us, and wee are void of your benediction also, sprung out of the same stock to make rents and divisions for you to enter to gaine honour unto your selves in having patients to heale, though they lie never so long under your hands, your chirurgerie must bee thought never the worse. Wanting these or such like of the English, to betray the liberties, God hath given us into your hands, now you worke by your coadjutors, these accursed Indians; but you are deceived in us, we are not a Cope fitted for your so eager appetite, no otherwise, then if you take it downe it shall prove unto you a Cope of trembling, either making you vomit out your owne eternall shame, or else to burst in sunder with your fellow confessor for aire, Iudas Iscariot.
For Mr. Winthrop and his Copartner Parker, may not thinke to lay our purchased plantation to their Iland so neere adjoyning, for they come too late in that point, though Be…dick hath reported that My…ntohimo, one of the Sachims, of whom wee bought it, should lose his head for selling his right thereof to us.
As also a minister affirmed that Mr. Winthrop should say to him, that wee should either bee subjected unto you, or else removed hence, though it should cost Bloud. Know therefore, that our lives are set apart already for the case wee have in hand, so wee will lose nothing but what is put apart aforehand, bethinke your selves therefore what you should gaine by fetching of them, in case it were in your power, for our losse should bee nothing at all.
For wee are resolved, that according as you put forth your selves towards us, so shall you finde us transformed to answer you. If you put forth your hand to us as country-men, ours are in readinesse for you: If you exercise the pen, accordingly doe wee become a ready writer; If your sword bee drawne, ours is girt upon our thigh; If you present a gun, make haste to give the first fire: for we are come to put fire upon the earth, and it is our desire to have it speedily kindled.
For your pursuite of us, still, to come your Courts, to receive your parcells of Justice, undoubtedly either God hath blinded your eyes that you see not our answer formerly given in that point, or else you are most audacious to urge it upon us againe; also you may take notice that wee take it in more disdaine then you could doe, in case we should importune you (yea) the chiefe amongst you, to come up to us, and bee employed according to our pleasure, in such workes as wee thought good to set you about; and for your grant of freedome unto us to come downe to you, and returne in safety, wee cannot sufficiently vilife this your verball and perfunctory offer, knowing very well, according to the verdict of your owne conscience, that what wrongs soever are passed amongst us since our comming into this Country, you have beene the violent agents, and we the patients. To feare therefore to come amongst you as such as have done wrong, the cause vanisheth in us, so must the effect also. And to feare to come unto you as tyrants, which your grant must necessarily implies, wee cannot, knowing that hee which is with us, is stronger then hee which is with you.
Also the earth is the Lords and the fullnesse thereof, and when, and where hee shall call wee will goe, but not at the will and lust of sorry men to play their parts with us at their pleasure, as formerly they have done, and as it is apparant you desire to doe, for if your lusts prevailed not over you in that kinde, you might wall thinke that wee have better employments then to trot to the Massachusets upon the report of a lying Indian, or English either, as your factors and ordinary hackni…s doe.
But know this Oyee— that so long as wee behave our selves as men, walking in the name of our God, where ever wee have occasion to come, if any mortall man whose breath is in his nostrils, dares to call us into question, wee dare to give an answer to him, or them, nor shall wee faile through God, to give testimony even in his conscience of the hope that is in us, whether his question may concerne the rice or succession either of Priest or Peere, In the meanetime we sit in safety under the cloudy pillar, while the Nations roare and make a noise about us, and though you may looke upon us with the unopened eye of E…iahs servant, thinking us as nothing to those that are against us, yet wherever the cloud rests, wee know the Lords returne to the many thousands of Israel.
In that you say our freedome granted to come to you, takes away all excuse from us, wee freely retort it upon your selves to … make excuses, whose Lawes and proceedings with the soules and bodies of men, is nothing else but a continued art (like the horse in the mill) of accusing and excusing, which you doe by circumstances and conjectures, as all the fathers have done before you, the Diviners and Necromancers of the world, who are gone to their owne place and have their reward; But for the true nature, rise, and distribution of things as they are indeed and shall remaine and abide as a law firme and stable forever, wee say and can make it good, you know nothing at all, therefore such as can delight themselves in preaching, professing, and executing of such things, as must end as the brute beasts doe, nay take them away for present and they have lost their honour, religion, as also their God, let such wee say, know themselves to bee that beast and false prophet, no man of God at all. In the meane time wee looke not on the things that are seene, but on the things that are not seene, knowing the one are temporary, the other eternall. Nor doe wee thinke the better of any man for being invested into places or things that will in time waxe old as doth a garment, neither judge we the worse of any man for the want of them: for if we should we must condemne the Lord Christ, as so many doe at this day.
Wee demand when wee may expect some of you to come to us, to answer and give satisfaction for some of these foule and inhumane wrongs you have done, not to the Indians, but to us your country men: not to bring in a Catalogue, as we might, take this one particular abuse you are now acting; in that you abet, and backe these base Indians to abusesus. Indeed Pumham is an aspiring person, as becomes a Prince of his profession, for having crept into one of our neighbours houses, in the absence of the people, and fell oniously rifled the same, hee was taken comming out againe at the Chimney-top: Soccononoco also hath entred in like manner into one of our houses …ith divers of his companions, and breaking open a chest, did steale out divers parcels of goods, some part whereof, as some of his companions have affirmed, are in his custody at this time. Yet we stand still to see to what good issue you will bring your proceedings with these persons, by whom you are so honorably attended in the Court generall, as you call it, and would honour us also, to come three or fourescore miles to stand by you and them; wee could tell you also that it is nothing with these fellowes to send our cattle out of the woods with arrowes in their sides, as at this present it appeares in one even now so come home, and it is well they come home at all, for sometimes their wigwams can receive them, and wee have nothing of them at all; yea they can domineere over our wives and children in our houses, when wee are abroad about our necessary occasions, sometimes throwing stones, to the endangering of their lives, and sometimes violently taking our goods, making us to runne for it if wee will have it, and if wee speake to them to amend their manners, they can presently vaunt it out, that the Massachusets is all one with them, let the Villanie they doe bee what it will, they thinke themselves secure, for they looke to bee upheld by you in whatever they doe, if you bee stronger then them which they have to deale withall, and they looke with the same eye your selves doe, thinking the multitude will beare downe all, and perswade themselves (as well as they may) that you tolerate and maintaine them in other of their daily practices, as lying, Sabbath-breaking, taking of many wives, grosse whoredomes, and fornications, so you will doe also, in their stealing, abusing of our Children, and the like, for you have your diligent ledgers amongst them that inculcate daily upon this, how hatefull wee are unto you, calling us by other names of their owne devising, bearing them in hand, wee are not English men, and therefore the object of envy of all that are about us, and that if wee have any thing to doe with you, the very naming our persons shall cast our case bee it what it will, as it is too evident by the case depending betweene Willi…m Arnauld and Iohn Warner, that no sooner was the name of Mr. Gorton mentioned amongst you, but Mr. Dudley disdainefully asking, is this one, joyned to Gorton, and Mr. Winthrop unjustly upon the same speech, refused the oath of the witnesse calling him knight of the post: are these the wayes and persons you trade by towards us? are these the people you honour your selves withall? the Lord shall lay such honour in the dust, and bow downe your backes with shame and sorrow to the grave, and declare such to bee Apostatisers from the truth, and falsifiers of the word of God onelyonly to please men, and serve their owne lusts, that can give thankes in their publique Congregations for their unity with such grosse abominations as these. Wee must needes aske you another question from a Sermon now preached amongst you, namely how that bloud relisheth you have sucked formerly from us, by casting us upon straights above our strength, that, have not beene exercised in such kinde of labours, no more then the best of you in former times in removing us from our former conveniences, to the taking away of the lives of some of us, when you are about your dis…ed up dainties, having turned the juice of a poore silly Grape that perisheth in the use of it, into the bloud of our Lord Jesus by the cunning skill of your Magicians, which doth make mad and drunke so many in the world, and yet a little sleepe makes them their owne men againe, so can it heale and pacifie the consciences at present, but the least hand of God returnes the feares and terrour againe, let our bloud wee say present it selfe together herewith, you hypocrites when will you answer such cases as these, and wee doe hereby promise unto you, that wee will never looke man in the face if you have not a fairer hearing then ever wee had amongst you, or can ever expect; And bee it knowne to you all, that wee are your owne Countrymen, whatever you report of us, though the Lord hath taught us a language you never spoake, neither can you heare it, and that is the cause of your alienation from us; for as you have mouthes and speake not, so have you eares & heare not; so we leave you to the judgement and arraignment of God Almighty. The joynt act, not of the Court Generall, but of the peculiar fellowship, now abiding upon Mshawomet.
Randall Holden, This they owned in Court though onelyonly Holdens hand were to it.
Postscriptum.
VVEE need not put a seale unto this our warrant, no more then you did to yours. The Lord hath added one to our hands, in the very conclusion of it, in that effusion of bloud, and horrible Massacre, now made at the Dutch plantation, of our loving Country-men, women, and children, which is nothing else, but the compleate figure in a short epitomie of what wee have writ, summed up in one entire act, and lest you should make it part of your justification, as you do all such like acts, provided they bee not upon your owne backes, concluding them to be greater sinners then your selves, wee tell you (nay) but except you repent, you shall likewise perish.
For wee aske you who was the cause of Mistresse Hutchinson her departure from amongst you, was it voluntarie? No, shee changed her phrases according to the dictates of your tutors, and confessed her mistakes, that so shee might give you content to abide amongst you, yet did you expell her and cast her away; no lesse are you the originall of her removall from Aquethneck, for when shee saw her children could not come downe amongst you, no not to conferre with you in your own way of brotherhood; but be clapt up, and detained by so long imprisonment, rumors also being noised, that the Island should bee brought under your Government, which if it should, shee was fearefull of their lives, or else to act against the plaine verdict of their owne conscience, having had so great and apparant proofe of your dealings before, as also the Island being at such divisions within it selfe, some earnestly de…iring it should bee delivered into your hands, professing their unity with you, others denyed it, professing their dissent and division from you, though for what themselves know not, but onelyonly their abominable pride to exercise the like tyranny.
From these and such like workings having their originall in you, shee gathered unto her selfe and tooke up this fiction, (with the rest of her friends) that the Dutch plantation was the Citie of refuge, as shee had gathered like things from your doctrines before, when she seemed to hold out some certaine glimpses or glances of light, more then appeared elsewhere whilst there was such to approve it, in whom there might bee some hope to exalt the instruments thereof, higher then could bee expected from others, but you know very well you could never rest nor bee at quiet, till you had put it under a Bushell, idest, bounded and measured the infinite and immense word of God, according to your owne shallow, humane, and carnall capacities, which, howsoever may get the highest seates in your Synagogues, Synods, and Jewish Synedrions, yet shall it never enter into the kingdome of God to be a doorekeeper there. Do not therefore beguile your selves in crying out against the errours of those so miserably falne, for they are no other things which they held but branches of the same root your selves so stoutly stand upon, but know this that now the axe is laid to the root of the tree, whereof you are a part, and every tree that brings not forth fruit according to the law of that good things, which the father knowes, how to give to those that aske it, shall bee cut downe, and cast it into the fire: Neither doe you fill up your speeches or tales, (wee meane your Sermons) but that wee affect not the Idolizing of words, no more then of persons or places. For your selves know the word is no more but a bruit or talke, as you know also your great and terrible word Magistrate, is no more in its originall, then Masterly, or Masterlesse, which hath no great lustre in our ordinary acceptation. Therefore wee looke to finde and injoy the substance, and let the ceremony of these things, like vapours vanish away, though they gather themselves into clouds, without any water at all in them, the Lord is in the mean time a dew unto Israel, and makes him to grow like a lillie, casting out his roots and branches as Lebanon.
We say, fill not up your talk as your manner is, crying, that shee went out without ordinances, for God can raise up out of that stone, which you have already rejected, as children, so also ministers and ordinances unto Abraham: You may remember also, that every people and poore plantation, formerly fleeced by you, cannot reach unto the hire of one of your Levites, nor fetch in, one such Dove as you send abroad into our native Country, to carry and bring you news.
Nor can you charge them in that point, for it was for protection or government shee went; And however, hire, in other respects, yet the price of a wife, and safetie of his owne life adjoyned, carryed a Minister along with them of the same rise and breeding together with your owne, to adde unto the blood so savagely and causelesly spilt, with a company of such as you take pleasure to protect, for they are all of one spirit, if they have not hands in the same act; we say their death is causelesse, for wee have heard them affirm that shee would never heave up a hand, no nor move a tongue against any that persecuted or troubled them, but onelyonly indeavour to save themselves by flight, not perceiving the nature and end of persecution, neither of that antichristian opposition and tyrannie, the issue whereof declares it self in this so… and lamentable.
Note, good Reader, that I had order to publish these two Letters of his, as well literatim as verbatim, but because their Orthography was so bad, as it would scarce have been understood, I left it to bee corrected by the Printer, but no word to be changed: And the reason of the word here left out, is, because it was worne out, and so soyled in the originall as wee could not read it, and thought good rather to leave it a blanck, then to put in a word of our own that was not theirs.
In the next place, I present thee here with certaine Observations collected out of both their Letters, by a godly and reverend Divine, whereby the Reader may the better understand them, and indeed try the spirits of these men, whether they be of God or no. Now these his Observations are ranked into three Heads: Viz.
First, their reproachfull and reviling speeches of the Government and Magistrates of the Massachusets, which in Gortons Booke hee pretends so much to honour, because their Government is derived from the State of England; and therefore I desire thee to take the better notice of it.
The second Head of his Observations directs thee to their reviling language, not onelyonly against that particular Government, and the Magistrates of it, but against Magistracy it selfe, and all Civill power.
And in his third Head, thou art directed to take notice of their blasphemous speeches against the holy things of God. All which because they are of great concernment, I beseech the Reader to take a little paines to compare them with Mr. Gortons and his Companies Letters.