The Rogerenes. John R. Bolles
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.
The Rev. Mr. Saltonstall began his ministry in New London in 1688, at the age of twenty-two. This was about twelve years after the prosecutions against the Rogers family, for non-conformity, had commenced. In 1691, he was ordained, and continued to preach until 1708, when he was chosen governor of the State and abandoned the ministry altogether. Bred in the narrow school of ecclesiasticism, and of a proud and dominant spirit, the day-star of religious liberty seems not even to have dawned upon his mind.
He was virulent in his enmity to John Rogers from the beginning. The Furies have been said to relent; his rancor showed no abatement.
In 1694, he presented charges of blasphemy against John Rogers, without the knowledge of the latter, and while he was confined in New London jail. We copy the following extract, from a statement made by John Rogers, Jr., writing in defence of his father, which shows how closely he was watched by his adversaries, that they might find grounds of accusation against him.
Peter Pratt, of whom we shall say more hereafter, an author mainly quoted by historians on the subject we are discussing, in a pamphlet traducing the character of John Rogers, and written after his death, had said of his treatment in Hartford: “His whippings there were for most audacious contempt of authority; his sitting on the gallows was for blasphemous words.”
To which John Rogers, Jr., thus replies:—
First, he asserts that his whippings there—viz., at Hartford—“were for most audacious contempt of Authority”; but doth not inform the reader what the contempt was; making himself the judge, as well as the witness, whereas it was only his business to have proved what the contempt was, and to have left the judgment to the reader.
And forasmuch as his assertion is altogether unintelligible, so may it reasonably be expected that my answer must be by supposition, and is as follows:—
“I suppose he intends that barbarous cruelty which was acted on John Rogers, while he was a prisoner at Hartford, in the time of his long imprisonment above mentioned, which was so contrary to the laws of God and kingdom of England, that I never could find that they made a record of that matter, according to Christ’s words, John iii, 20, ‘For every one that doeth evil hateth the light,’ etc.
“But John Rogers has given a large relation about it, as may be seen in his book entitled, ‘A Midnight Cry.’ From pages 12–15, where he asserts that he was taken out of Prison, he knew not for what, and tied to the Carriage of a great gun, where he had seventy-six stripes on his naked body, with a whip much larger than the lines of a drum, with knots at the end as big as a walnut, and in that maimed condition was returned to prison again; and his bed, which he had hired at a dear rate, taken from him, and not so much as straw allowed him to lie on, it being on the eighteenth day of the eighth month, called October, and very cold weather.”
And although myself, with a multitude of spectators, who were present at Hartford and saw this cruel act, can testify to the truth of the account which he gives of it, yet I cannot inform the reader on what account it was that he suffered it, or what he was charged with; for, as I said before, I never could find a record of that matter.
But if it was for contempt of Authority, as Peter Pratt asserts, then I think those that inflicted such a punishment were more guilty of contempt against God than John Rogers was of contempt against the Authority; for God in his holy law has strictly commanded Judges not to exceed forty stripes on any account, as may be seen, Deut. xxv, 3, “So that for Judges to exceed forty stripes is high contempt against God.”
In the next place, he adds that “his sitting on the gallows was for blasphemous words.”
Reply:—
Here again he ought to have informed the reader what the words were, which doubtless would have been more satisfaction to the reader than for Peter Pratt to make himself both witness and judge, and so leave nothing for the reader to do but to remain as ignorant as before they saw his book.
And he might as well have said of the Martyr Stephen that his suffering was for blasphemous words, as what he says of John Rogers, for it was but the judgment of John Roger’s persecutors that the words were blasphemous, and so it was the judgment of the Martyr Stephen’s persecutors that he was guilty of speaking blasphemous words, as may be seen, Acts vi, 13, “This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words,” etc. Whereupon they put him to death.
In the next place, I shall give the reader an account of what these words were for which John Rogers was charged with blasphemy; the account of which here follows:—
He being at a house in New London where there were many persons present, was giving a description of the state of an unregenerate person, and also of the state of a sanctified person; wherein he alleged that the body of an unregenerate person was a body of sin, and that Satan had his habitation there. And, on the contrary, that the body of a sanctified person was Christ’s body, and that Christ dwelt in such a body.
Whereupon, one of the company asked him whether he intended the humane body, to which he replied that he did intend the humane body. Whereupon, the person replied again, “Will you say that your humane body is Christ’s body?” to which he replied, clapping his hand on his breast, “Yes, I do affirm that this humane body is Christ’s body; for Christ has purchased it with His precious blood; and I am not my own, for I am bought with a price.”
Whereupon, two of the persons present gave their testimony as follows: “We being present, saw John Rogers clap his hand on his breast and say, ‘This is Christ’s humane body.’ ” But they omitted the other words which John Rogers joined with it.
And because I was very desirous to have given those testimonies out of the Secretary’s Office, I took a journey to Hartford on purpose but the Secretary could not find them; yet, forasmuch as myself was present, both when the words were spoken, and also at the trial at