History: The Heritage of Our Baptist Faith

Dr. John Clarke, a physician, came to America from England to escape persecution leveled against Baptists in that land. However, he was forced to leave Boston before he was banished and went to Providence to get advice from Williams. Clarke wrote back to England the following statement, "A year in this hot-bed of religious tyranny is enough for me. I cannot bear to see men in these uttermost parts of the earth not able to bear with others in matters of conscience and live peaceable together. With so much land before us, I for one will turn aside, shake the dust of Boston off my feet and, betake me to a new place. There 1 shall make a haven for all those who, like myself, are disgusted and sickened by a Puritan dictatorship. 1 shall make it a place where there will be full freedom of thought and religious conscience." Clark was sent by the colonists to England in 1651 to obtain a better charter for Rhode Island. Oliver Cromwell would not give it to him, but Charles II did twelve years later in 1663. This charter gave political and religious free­ dom to the people of Rhode Island. Obadiah Holmes came to Newport, the town established by John Clarke. He and two other Baptists from Rhode Island traveled back to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1651 to visit an aged Baptist there. This man had been whipped because of his Baptist convictions. While holding a church service in his house. Holmes and the two friends who came with him were imprisoned. Holmes was retained as an example of what would happen to others for holding to these "pernicious doctrines". This judgment leveled against him said, "You do take upon you to preach and baptize, that you did baptize such as were baptized before, and thereby, did necessarily deny the baptism before administered to be baptism, and did also deny the lawfulness of baptizing infants." He was beaten publicly for his belief. In describing the ordeal he is reported to have said, "When he had loosed me from the post, having joyousness in my countenance, as the spectators observed, I told the magistrates, 'You have struck me with roses' and said 'moreover, although the Lord hath made it easy to me, yet I pray God it may not be laid to your charge.' " Henry Punster (1610 - 1654) was the first president of Harvard College. His resignation came about after twelve years of service because he had come