Where Has Roger Williams’ Seekerism Gone?

A Reassessment of Williams’ Relation to the 17th Century Sect

Jason C. Dykehouse
PhD Candidate/Adjunct Faculty
Baylor University, Department of Religion
2209 Stewart Drive
Waco, TX 76708

(254) 752-2279
jason_dykehouse@baylor.edu

Roger Williams is a man of disputed legacy. For students of church and state, his

work may or may not have profoundly influenced the founding fathers of this nation in

their establishment of fundamental religious liberties.1 For students of the English

Revolution and reforms, he may or may not have been functioning as a “Seeker.” For

many Baptists, he is both a founder of the first Baptist congregation in the Americas and

its first backslider. For many familiar with and sympathetic to the story of the United

States, he has achieved an almost heroic stature and is presented as a person who

unwaveringly defended the supposedly inalienable human rights of religious liberty and

democracy.2 Many Americans have no idea who he was.

Nevertheless, one can recognize in Williams’ work a voice similar to the tenor of

the Bill of Rights and the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence regarding

religious liberty and the people’s sovereignty.3 Contrary to most puritan colonial leaders

of seventeenth century New England, Williams argued for a secular governing institution

that lacked any spiritual role in the community. Such a secular government would be
independent of religious institutions and the beliefs of religious leaders. Providence

Plantations, which he settled in 1636, would provide the setting for a governing system

akin to what he sought. According to the official charter of 1663 granted by Charles II,

that colony was a “lively experiment” of religious liberty, and quite distinct from puritan

Massachusetts. The religious freedoms we enjoy are comparable to those demanded by

Williams. In the intellectual arena, Williams lives on. After the rise of fundamentalism

during the previous century, the Roger Williams Fellowship was established in 1935 at

the annual meeting of the Northern Baptist Convention by some pastors and laity who

perceived a need for an open and free discussion of religious ideas. 4 It is not surprising

that when religious liberties have become encroached upon, Roger Williams is often

taken up as a defender of a natural human right of religious liberty. This use of Williams’

ideas, however, might do to him an injustice. In many respects, the religious liberties we

enjoy in this nation are couched in the language of humanism and deism. Williams,

however, was an obdurate theist. For Williams, rights are not inalienable—as this nation

might have us believe—but rather they are derivative and secondary. Whereas the tenor

of our Constitution presents our democracy and liberties as a pinnacle of romantic

optimism, Williams was a pessimist. A democratic and religiously free society was not

an ideal; it remained pitiable. A lasting legacy of Williams might be that he serves as a

reminder that religious liberties are merely foundational to seeking God; they should be

defended not because of some status as natural rights, but because they fulfill the

preliminary requirement to initiate a quest for God in a corrupt world. 5

With this point in mind, it is the task of this paper to discuss whether or not Roger

Williams belongs among the group of dissenting religious individuals during the English

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Civil War and Revolution who were known as “Seekers.”6 What was Williams’

intellectual relation to Seekerism? Was Williams a Seeker? Biographical dictionary

entries on Williams from opposite ends of the previous century reflect a near reversal of

consensus regarding the question. In 1917, an entry presented Williams with neither

doubt nor discussion as a Seeker.7 By 1999, however, no mention of Williams as a

Seeker—indeed no mention of Seekerism—is provided in a similar entry, which

effectively negates Williams’ Seekerism. 8 Of course, a dictionary entry, which is

necessarily brief, is not always a gauge of scholarly consensus on the pertinent issues.

Nevertheless, and more specifically, we may witness the shift in the literature from

presenting Williams as a “Seeker to the end”9 and glorified “founder” of Seekerism on

both sides of the Atlantic,10 to presenting him as a Seeker with little or no discussion of

the primary sources,11 and, ultimately, to an increased caution (if not avoidance) in

assigning Seekerism to Williams. 12 Caution (if not its unfortunate and frequent corollary,

silence) seems to be the current standard. Some monographs on the life and thought of

Roger Williams from the last two decades make no mention of Williams’ supposed

Seekerism. What happened to it? What caused this reversal in presentation? We might

find the cause in a combination of the recent, partial dismantling of the historicity of any

Seeker sect, the paucity and nature of the primary sources aligning Williams with

Seekerism, and the fact that Williams never identified himself (as far as we know) as a

“Seeker.” Despite this formidable combination, I hope to present an argument that will

serve to revive the significance of Seekerism in relation to Roger Williams. In order to

do so, we will first need to describe Seekerism, compare it with the religious positions of

Williams, and review the primary sources identifying him as a Seeker.

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Seekerism

Perhaps the most fundamental position held by all Seekers roughly

contemporaneous with the English Revolution is that the churches and their offices had

become defunct and would continue to be defunct despite reformations until some

miraculous renewal occurred. Seekers typically held that this renewal would coincide

with the restoration of an apostolic ministry.13 In 1665, the Seeker William Allen

concluded, “we must be content to wait until God shall raise up some such, whose

authority…he shall attest with visible signs of his presence, by gifts of the Holy Ghost,

and divers miracles as at the first erection of Gospel Churches and ordinances.”14 Allen’s

advice to anticipate a miraculous, apostolic renewal may be viewed as representative of

Seeker expectation.

As Seekers would generally believe all churches and religious organizations to be

defunct, it would be difficult to describe a Seeker as part of a religious organization,

though the secondary literature through much of the previous century often utilizes terms

such as “communities” and “membership” in its descriptions of Seekerism. 15 Recent

treatment of the subject suggests that such terminology betrays a reliance on the

categorization that 17th century heresiographers utilized in order to subsume many

disparate individuals under the descriptor “Seeker.”16 The sects and options available to

a person in the first half of the 17th century increased at a baffling pace, and though many

of these options included an organizational complexity sufficient to warrant a categorical

label, the so-called “Seekers” were those religious individuals who rebuffed religious

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organization. “Masterless men” moved easily from one critical group to another. 17

Older institutions and beliefs came into question and newer communities arose, each of

which would successively be found defective. The so-called Seekers were those religious

individuals who were historically realistic concerning the multiplicity of conflicting

opinions, which informed the wise that they should drift, seek, and wait.18 The

proliferation of sects, a perceived corruption of the churches, the bitter and often violent

clashes of ideology, and the emergence of self-identified new apostles suggest that the

climate was right for the number of Seekers to increase. 19 England was religiously

turbulent. William Erbery explicated the Seeker praxis and hope: “[Persons should] sit

still, in submission and silence, waiting for the Lord to come and reveal himself to

them….And at last, yea within a little, we shall be led forth out of this confusion….”20

To be a Seeker, then, was to be a skeptic, but one who retained a millenarian hope in

regard to renewal of the Church. A Seeker ascended to a skeptical, intellectual position,

yet remained religious due to the anticipation of an imminent church renewal. Thus,

Seekerism did not constitute a necessarily recognizable radical group.21 Camaraderie

among religious skeptics hardly qualifies as a sect’s manifest, though there is no reason

to conclude that Seekers neither identified with each other nor congregated from time to

time.

Attempts to define the beliefs of the “sect” with more precision often result in the

exclusion of those known to have been Seekers. Oliver Cromwell understood this

problem in defining Seekerism and reduced the beliefs shared by them to two: an

inability to find comfort in and allegiance to any particular church or religious group and

a millenarian belief that an age of greater religious understanding was at hand; otherwise,

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he reported, they were characterized by doctrinal diversity. 22 Richard Baxter, a Puritan

who often wrote outlandishly against various heresies, provides a fuller set of beliefs.23

According to him, the Seekers held that the validity of the scriptures was unproven,

miracles were necessary for faith, and existing worship and ministers were null and void;

with these elements of the true Church being lost, Seekers sought them and acquired the

title “Seeker” by that process.24 If Baxter’s definition were the standard, Roger Williams

would immediately be excluded from the Seeker manifest; he was a biblical theist with a

tremendous appreciation for the validity of Scripture. Cromwell’s definition, on the other

hand, may be more embracing of the intellectual range reflected by various Seekers, yet

might fail in its generality. Primary source definitions of Seekerism are poor.

Numerous individuals have been identified as Seekers, either by their

contemporaries or by modern historians of the English Revolution, and their doctrinal

diversity may serve to show the range of opinions held by various Seekers. 25 Oliver

Cromwell himself might have been a Seeker—he at least had Seeker sympathies.26 An

associate of William’s, John Milton, is sometimes likened a Seeker, as is William

Walwyn (although he rejected the label and has also been called a Leveler).27 John

Saltmarsh,28 an influential and prolific writer for the Seeker cause, was described by

Richard Baxter as one of the “two great Preachers at the Head Quarters” of the New

Model Army after the defeat of Charles’ forces. His writings clarify some Seeker

conclusions about the status of the Church, yet much of what Saltmarsh believed seems

to fall under what Cromwell considered doctrinal diversity. Although Saltmarsh held the

position that people were free to believe the truth as revealed through the “Word of God

in the Scriptures” and through the “Spirit of Christ which appeared as a light within their

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hearts” (as many Seekers might concur), he did maintain a doctrine of predestination. He

advocated a civil administration in which the kingdom was to be restored to its medieval

condition whereby the Crown, Parliament, and people were free to exercise their

respective rights. What seems more unlike Seekerism is his finding. He claimed that he

had discovered the original apostolic worship and that it was purely spiritual. For

Saltmarsh, the true church was not dependant on the restoration of an apostolic ministry,

but rather on Christ’s return in spirit to true Christians.29 William Erbery, described as a

“champion of the Seekers,” was also a chaplain in the New Model Army. He preached

universal redemption (contrast Saltmarsh), and led others in the army ranks in criticism of

churches.30 He quoted Jacob Boehme, who predicted that the spiritual “Age of the Lily”

was at hand, and he believed that God is in our flesh (compare Saltmarsh) and that the

Army had the duty to act in politics. He waited to see “God in the army of the saints,

wasting all oppressing powers in the land…by the mouth of the sword” (contrast

Saltmarsh). God would appear in the last days not in the ministers, but in the civil and

martial powers. Church (actually God) was in the State. Erbery successfully stirred

people to action. In the last year of his life, however, he gave up on the holy

righteousness of his martial cause, and decided that the people of God should not meddle

in state matters. By the end of his life, his certainty regarding the proximity of the end

times was fleeting. His shift is representative. Seekers were giving up on waiting and

giving in to other traditions or giving up all together.31 Time tends to dull radical

expectation, and radical leaders tend, in time, to reveal themselves as false. Seekerism

generated and was generated by radical dissent. It is little wonder that so-called Seekers

would maintain significant ideological differences amongst themselves.

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 The preceding should serve to highlight various strains of Seekerism. A Seeker

might be Calvinist in regard to predestination, or might hold to universal salvation. A

Seeker might require a restored apostolic age (which seems to be the main) or anticipate

an age of the spirit. On occasion, a Seeker might consider God to be acting through

martial forces (if Erbery is representative). Nevertheless, the constant in Seekerism

should remain highlighted: the church remains defunct and a new age is dawning.

Obviously, this constant has enabled heresiographers to classify disparate individuals

under a broad umbrella of “Seekerism.”

The Life Of Williams Compared to Seekerism, Generally.

One can see in the life of Roger Williams a mode that is generally congruous with

Seekerism as illustrated above. Born in or about 1603, Williams immigrated to

Massachusetts in 1631 with his wife, Mary. 32 Between 1631 and 1635, he resided in

Salem, and after a time in Plymouth, he returned to Salem, where he took on the role of

teacher of the Salem church. It was here that he came into irrevocable philosophical

conflict with the puritan leadership of Massachusetts. The leadership ultimately banished

him from the colony. 33 In a letter written to John Cotton Jr. in 1671, Williams provides

the cause of his disappointment with the Bay churches and his reasons for leaving

Plymouth. He states he was in communion with colony churches until he “found them

both professing to be a separated people in New England (not admitting the most Godly

to Communion without a covenant) and yet Communicating with the parishes in the

Old.”34 For Williams, supposed puritan hypocrisy and religious exclusivity motivated his

leaving. The puritan leadership has provided its version of the events as well, explaining

that two clashes lead to his banishment: first, Williams had a “violent and tumultuous

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carriage against the patent” (which authorized the colonists both to “erect a government

of the church” and to “gain natives first to civility, then to Christianity” after acquiring

their land); second, Williams “vehemently withstood” the magistrates’ “trial of the

fidelity of the people…by offering them an oath of fidelity,” without which none could

hold office.35 For the puritan colonial leadership, fierce obstinacy against particular

legalities was the cause of his banishment. What is also possible is that as early as 1635,

Williams was denying the civil magistrate’s right to govern any ecclesiastical affairs. 36

As various primary sources attest, Williams’ escape from Massachusetts

instigated a forceful period in his spiritual life. He settled the community of Providence

(later part of Rhode Island colony), but no church of any sort was established for some

years.37 In 1639, however, he was converted to Anabaptism. Being (re)baptized, he

baptized ten others, and established the first Baptist community in the Americas. Within

four months, however, he shifted again and gave up his baptist faith. As early as 1639,

his intellectual position may be likened to Seekerism. John Cotton, a Massachusetts Bay

puritan with whom Williams would argue vigorously through publications,38 reported

that Williams:

…fell off from his ministry, and then from all church fellowship, and then
from his baptism…and then from the Lord’s Supper and from all
ordinances of Christ dispensed in any church way, till God shall stir
up…some…new apostles, to recover and restore all the ordinances and
churches of Christ out of the ruins of anti-Christian apostasy.39

Nathaniel Morton provides an intriguing (and rarely cited) note on Williams’ religious

position after his slide from Anabaptistry. He reports that Williams had “mis-led” the

baptist community and was “out of the way himself”; that “he did not find that there was

any upon earth that could administer baptism”; that the Providence re-baptism was a

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“nullity”; and that “they must lay down all, and wait for the coming of new Apostles.”40

The report, admittedly, dates three decades after the events it describes, but it reinforces

the view that Williams held a Seeker-like position shortly after his stint in Anabaptistry.

Of this mistake, Williams writes, “Concerning Baptism and laying on of hands, God’s

people have been ignorant for many hundred years, and I cannot see it proved that light is

risen, I mean the light of the first institution in practice.”41 For Williams, the apostolic

light was lost from all churches and was yet to be found. Providence was both a small

bastion of freedom from puritanical governance, and another example of a failed

religious organization.

The following few years witnessed the codification of Williams’ mature views on

religious liberty and the relationship between church and state, and the beginning of what

would be his ultimate disposition: his dissatisfaction with and separation from any

institutionalized religion. In 1643, he returned to England and in the following year

published The Bloudy Tenent, in which he argues for religious liberty and toleration. His

fiery demeanor is said to have mellowed, and though he does not seem to doubt his own

correctness, his tolerance for other opinions increased.42 Society and church were, after

all, in a pitiful state, which, for Williams, necessitated tolerance and “a magnanimously

suspended judgment” until the new apostolic age became evident.43 No evidence exists

that he ever surrendered this position.

One might do well to accept from the preceding data alone that Williams would

fall under the umbrella of Seekerism, but two clarifications should be made. First, If

Williams was a Seeker, he was not of the universalist variety (e.g. Erbery). 44 For a

biblical theist, toleration does not equate to universalism.45 Secondly, many Seekers

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might reject in principle the validity of outward manifestations of church (e.g.

Saltmarsh), yet Williams held fast to the doctrines of repentance, resurrection, eternal

judgment, and faith in God. He professed Christ Jesus. He held to the literal truth of the

message of the Bible. Moreover, he hoped for the restoration of other specific

“foundations” of the faith: Baptism and the laying on of hands. 46 The church was

defunct, but not perpetually; recognizable elements would return in proper fashion. Thus,

Williams’ attitude was akin to what being a Seeker, a religious skeptic, meant: seeking in

order to find. In his response to George Fox (and thus to the increasing numbers of

Quakers living in Providence), Williams stated that if his “soul could find rest in joining

unto any of the Churches professing Christ Jesus now extant, I would readily and gladly

do it.”47 Like many restless individuals, some of whom were Seekers, Williams had his

own individual and distinguishing peculiarities and beliefs; a sect minimally defined

takes in many, but explains few. Such is the status of the problem of Williams’

Seekerism.

The Primary Data, Once Again.

If we knew that Roger Williams called himself a Seeker or provided an outright

denial of that label, there would be no need for this paper. If he ever did either or these,

however, that record does not survive. What we do have is the testimony of his

contemporaries, who write from positions outside that of Williams. Namely, these are

Robert Baillie and Richard Baxter. Their statements will be treated in their contexts

before attempting to determine Williams’ relation to Seekerism.

In Robert Baillie’s tirade against Anabaptistry and all its supposed evils, he makes

mention of Williams’ Seekerism. For Baillie, a Presbyterian, Williams’ spiritual course

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is one example of the erroneous path of Seekerism, to which Anabaptistry naturally leads.

After discussing the sect of the Anabaptists, and its general failings, he turns to correlate

sects. In beginning the discussion of Seekerism and its adherents, he writes:

Yet many of the Anabaptists are now turned Seekers, denying the truth of
any Church…while God from heaven send new Apostles to work miracles
and set up churches which for the space of fourteen hundred years at least
have totally failed in the whole world. Hitherto M[r.] Williams [and
others] are come from their Antipaedobaptism…48

Baillie makes no reference to Williams admitting to Seekerism, but rather cites a passage

from his Bloudy Tenent with a Seeker-like position.49 In a letter written in 1644, Baillie

identified Williams’ Seeker-like position, stating:

“Sundrie of the Independent partie are stepped out of the church, and
follows my good acquaintance Roger Williams; who sayes, there is no
church, no sacraments, no pastors, no church-officers, or ordinance in the
world, nor has there been since a few hundred years after the Apostles.”50

Again, Baillie does not reflect admittance on Williams’ part regarding Seekerism, but

does reflect that he is a “good acquaintance,” and that the sect closest to Williams’

position is none other than Seekerism. Taken together, these writings of Baillie represent

Williams as reinforcing Seekerism with parallel if not equivalent positions.51

Richard Baxter, a most peculiar puritan, wrote much on the sundry evils of

numerous sects. For him, antichrists abound. Baxter lauded Thomas Edwards, who

presented England as festering from wounds of diverse sects.52 In his defense of infant

baptism, he recounts, much like Baillie, the manifold corruptions stemming from

Anabaptistry:

And as Anabaptistry hath been no greater a friend to mens salvation with

us, so every man knows that it is the ordinary in-let to the most horrid
Opinions. How few did you ever know that came to the most monstrous
Doctrines, but it was by this door? And how few did you ever know that

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 entered this door, but they were on further; except they dyed or repented
shortly after? 53

The “most horrid Opinions”—or at least some of them—are then listed, including

Separatists, Arminians, Antinomians, Socians, Libertines, Seekers, and Familists. Baxter

enumerates a few adherents to some of these positions. The descent of Williams into

monstrous doctrinal error is then given mention:

How far Mr. Williams in New-England went by this way, that Plantation
[i.e. Providence] can sadly witness; but England far more sadly, who
giving him kindlier entertainment then they, have received far more hurt
by him, when he became the Father of the Seekers in London. 54

A presentation then follows of William Erbery and his “hideous pamphlets”. What is

immediately striking is Baxter’s designation of Williams as the Father of London’s

Seekers, making him a virtual apostle of Seekerism from New England to England’s

capital city. Baxter places Williams squarely among the Seekers, and this mention has

influenced scholars who might go so far as to conclude that Williams was, indeed, the

founder of Seekerism on both sides of the Atlantic.55 Yet, Baxter does not explicitly state

that Williams was a Seeker. Rather, and at least, his words generated Seekers. In this

way (perhaps only in this way) he was “the Father of Seekers in London.” The over-

arching context is a discussion on those who have moved from Anabaptistry to other and

more horrid opinions. For Baxter, Williams was clearly one of these movers, one about

whom communities on both sides of the Atlantic could “sadly witness.” He was not

explicitly a “Seeker.” Perhaps no more than a lack of clarity on the part of Baxter’s

statement prevents us from concluding that Williams was indeed a Seeker.

Thus, the primary sources of Robert Baillie and Richard Baxter that scholars have

used to identify Williams as a Seeker do little more than closely align Williams’ positions

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with those of Seekerism and designate his activities as producing Seekers—perhaps even

the first Seekers in London. Williams’ specific relation to Seekerism, however, remains

elusive.

Seekerism and the Quest of Roger Williams.

In order to press further Williams’ relation to Seekerism, we might do well both

to identify certain elements of Williams’ worldview (his outlook on reality) and to

describe some of his experiences in the course of his spiritual formation. Such an activity

might shed light on the issue of Williams and Seekerism, but it no doubt thrusts the

discussion deeper into the realm of subjectivity and speculation. Therefore, I offer the

following for what it is: a thematic chain—tenuous at best—that might properly unite

Seekerism and Roger Williams.

Christian millenarianism, the belief that a thousand year period of a godly rule

would either precede the return or Christ (postmillennialism) or follow it

(premillennialism), was a dominant and often religiously controlling element in the

worldview of 17th century Englanders. Millenarian expectation was doubtless influential

for Roger Williams.56 Many English puritans on both sides of the Atlantic considered the

roman-like church as constituting antichrist. The puritan task was to remove impure

elements of Christian worship from the English church in order to initiate a glorious

church age; thus, most English puritans were of the postmillennialist variety. The initial

success of puritans and Presbyterians during the English Civil war served to heighten a

millenarian fervor that had been burgeoning for decades. Writing in 1644, Thomas

Brightman reemphasized what had already become a commonly heard position: England

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was reenacting the role of ancient Israel as a covenant people with God.57 His writings

made widespread the concept of “the latter-day glory.” A second millennium was

emerging with the rediscovery of the power of the gospel. Subsequently, Christ would

return. Coupled with the belief that many prophecies in Scripture had yet to be fulfilled,

scientists, churchmen, and fanatics made calculations attempting to ascertain the date for

the beginning of the millennium. Many of these calculations placed the date in the period

between 1640 and 1700.58 Anticipation and delusion proliferated. Diggers, Levellers,

Ranters, Muggletonians, and Fifth Monarchists exacerbated a religiously dissected

population. Seekers aimed at spiritual subsistence during a time of countless aberrations

of Christ’s Church, all the while anticipating that a visibly miraculous renewal would

begin soon. The specific expectation of a renewed apostolic church was a significant part

of postmillennial thought, and for many Seekers it was a staple. It was through this

particular millennial lens that Williams viewed history.

In the writings of Roger Williams, this millennial expectation is apparent in his

frequent use of “seek” and “search”. So long as the millennium lingers on the morrow,

the active quest to find the true church seems to be a marker of religious integrity for

Williams. In the introduction of the 1644 publication, Cottons Letter Examined, 59

Williams uses the word “seek” or its derivatives no less than seven times, and if we admit

a concluding marginal note (“Seekers of Christ are sure of a gracious answere”) then they

occur no less than eight times.60 If Williams was not properly a member of the group

classified as “Seekers,” then he at least was an appropriator of such terminology. He is

said to have given significance to the word “seek” as early as 1636. 61 If this point is

correct, the word was only beginning to take on its significant role in Williams’ rhetoric.

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 In 1639, after at least three years of valuing the quest for Christ’s Church,

Williams took on the role of church founder. He baptized, taught, and organized a

congregation. In near Pauline fashion, he functioned as an apostle, and there can be little

doubt that some within his Providence community may have viewed him as such.

This apostolic role should not be surprising. A decade earlier, while still in

England, Williams claimed to have received direct communication from God regarding

the spiritual life of a member of his chaplaincy. In a letter dated May 2, 1629, he asserted

that the “Lord himself” had told him to urge an aging woman to seek repentance with

God.62 The apostolic impulse in Williams is clear in a 1632 letter to Governor Winthrop

of Massachusetts Bay. In it, Williams communicated his desire that “the Lord please to

grant my desires that I may intend what I long for, the natives souls.”63 According to

Governor William Bradford, Williams regularly prophesied in a fashion that was “well

approved” by the members of the colony in 1632, yet by the Fall of 1633 Williams fell

into what the leaders considered “strange opinions, and from opinions to practice.”64

Soon he would come to irreconcilable differences with the leadership of the

Massachusetts Bay colony. An entry in Winthrop’s journal for July 1639 reports that

Williams “bent himself away, expecting (as was supposed) to become an apostle;

and…now he would preach to and pray with all comers.”65 Williams had founded an

Anabaptist community in Providence, but Williams’ apostolic mode—if we may call it

that—quickly evaporated. Williams came to realize through first-hand failure what many

Seekers would hold to be true, namely, that God’s “business with the antichrist [must be

over] before the Law and word of life be sent forth to the rest of the Nations of the

World, who have not heard Christ…”66 Active evangelism is to be put off until the new

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and miraculous apostolic age. Williams must have experienced a profound shift in

Providence. He not only founded then backslid hastily from the Anabaptist community,

he recognized that his mode and authority as an apostle for Christ’s’ Church was without

warrant.

Does his abrupt departure from the Anabaptist community reflect a

disappointment not so much in the community as in his own place as a prophet and

apostle? Was he expecting miraculous gifts to rain down upon him after his instigation

of the community?67 A glimpse into the psyche of Williams at that time is cloudy at best.

Insight into Williams’ own view as to his purpose from God is provided in writings

dating after the failure of Providence. He admitted that the church he founded was nearer

the first practice of Jesus Christ than other practices, but that he left because he had

“satisfaction neither in the authority in which [such baptism in Providence] is done, [nor]

in the manner.”68 Providence would disintegrate into no less than three congregations; if

any religious tenet bound the residents together it was, according to John Woodbridge in

1671, “That Every man though of any Hedge [i.e. despicable] -religion ought to professe

& practise his owne tenets without molestation or disturbance.”69 The failure of

Providence confirmed for Williams that he was not an apostle. It did not shatter,

however, his millennial hopes; he could testify that the churches were defunct—even his

own—yet life retained a purpose, namely, anticipating apostolic renewal. His

publications from 1644 onward reflect his mature views on the status of the church: one

can and should wait for renewal, because though the churches remain defunct, there

would soon be an emergence from the eclipse of error.70 Unlike Saltmarsh some years

later, Williams could not affirm that he had found what Seekers sought.

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 Realizing the failures of Providence, Williams would not be an apostle, yet his

experiences and worldview helped make him what he would claim to be: an

eschatological witness preparing the way for the restoration of Christ’s Church. His

deep-rooted millenarianism, his knowledge of a variety of church forms, his longing for a

pure church, and his own failure as a religious leader contributed to his self-perception as

just such a witness.71 In his Hireling Ministry, Williams comments on Revelation 6-19,

which he viewed (in a manner not unlike that of Thomas Brightman) as providing a

chronology of the church from the time of Christ to his own age.72 He writes, “we hear

no more of those white-horsemen, that is (as I conceive) of the Apostles or Messengers of

Jesus Christ…[it is] a total routing of the church.”73 In Revelation 5:1-5, the seer weeps

because no one is worthy to open the scroll. In Providence in 1636, Williams had already

commented, “I must…grieve, because…so few beare John Companie in weeping after

the unfolding of the Seales which only Weepers are acquainted with.”74 His associating

himself into the company of witnesses continued after the failure of Providence. In The

Bloudy Tenet yet more bloudy, Williams expresses his Seeker-like belief that

“where the ordinary power of Gods hand in his holy Ordinances is

withdrawn, it is his extraordinary and immediate power that preserveth
and supporteth his people…during the reign of Antichrist in stirring up
and supporting the…Witnesses.”75

If Seekers were generally to sit and wait, then Williams was more than a Seeker; he was

active. He believed in the power of God to rouse witnesses and testified to the defunct

state of the church. Such was the role Williams would take on for the remainder of his

life. We might consider that unless a Seeker became a finder (and as long as humanity

remained pitiable and the church defunct), Williams’ role was an active pinnacle of the

18
generally passive Seekerism. Through discourse and publication, he witnessed to the

(Seeker) reality of a defunct church in need of apostolic renewal.

By the time of his arrival in England in 1643, Williams already understood both

the importance of seeking and his role as an eschatological witnesses of the sad state of

the church. Disembarked with him were his radical separatism, his publishable ideas on

religious liberty, and, undoubtedly, his vocal testimony of the worldview he sustained. It

is a curious datum that, according to James Ernst, “the name Seeker does not appear in

English tracts before 1644….”76 In the same year, Williams had published The Bloudy

Tenet (which contains his mature position on the question of religious authority and the

state of the church) and Cottons Letter Examined (which is introduced with a barrage of

“seeker” language). It is not until after his return to England that we know of a group

called “Seekers.” By 1646, Williams had been back home in Providence for a year, yet,

in England, Thomas Edwards reports that “The sect of the Seekers grows very much, and

all sorts of sectaries turn Seekers; many leaving the congregations of Independents [and]

Anabaptists, and fall to be Seekers, and not only people, but ministers also.”77 Williams’

previous crowd (Anabaptists and Separatists) were turning Seekers by the score. Could

Williams’ witnessing have generated the first Seekers? Perhaps not, but what remains

entirely possible in my view is that those who were or would become Seekers found in

Williams’ thought a worldview that made sense of the times. The absurdity of

sectarianism and vacillating religious authority made Williams’ proposals appear as

wisdom to many religious skeptics who retained hoped in a restoration of Christ’s

Church.

19
 If one is to make inferences regarding the relationship between Roger Williams

and Seekerism, it might be important to notice a curious datum from a principle primary

source. In 1647, Robert Baillie placed Roger Williams first in his list of Anabaptists

turned Seekers.78 I struggle to find in Baillie’s words any particular emphasis given to

Williams apart from his name opening the list, yet is it mere chance that Williams is

listed first? Was he considered by Baillie to be a more influential, well-known, or devout

“Seeker” than others? A greater appreciation of the relationship between Baillie and

Williams and a scrutiny of Baillie’s work might shed light on the issue. We can assert

that Williams, for whatever reason, was listed first.

By 1651, Williams had allegedly made such an impact on England’s Seekers, that

Richard Baxter could designate him “the Father of the Seekers in London.”79 Unlike

James Ernst’s glorification of Williams as the founder of Seekerism on both sides of the

Atlantic, we should note that Baxter identifies Williams only as the father of Seekers in

London. Nevertheless, the coincidence of the rise of Seekerism with Williams’ arrival

and publications, his Seeker-like views, and his radical, separatist activism, might incline

us again toward seeing Williams as intimately related with Seekerism. He was a Seeker-

generator, and he witnessed to their chief tenets. Admittedly, principles of Seekerism

predate Williams’ return to England, yet “Seekers” (as far as primary sources attest) were

new and Williams was soon regarded as one of their eminent—if not founding—

sponsors.80 He is the first listed among Seekers and deemed the patriarch of (at least)

some of them.

Was Williams a Seeker himself or does his relation to Seekerism end with his

words’ ability to generate Seekers? One final datum might further incline us to consider

20
Williams a Seeker himself: his apparent disappointment that Seekers were converting to

Quakerism.81 With the Restoration and the failure of such radically postmillennial

groups as the Fifth Monarchists (1660-61), the closing of the seventeenth century saw

many radicals exchange their millenarian hopes for the quietism of congregationalism or

the internal eschatology of Quakerism. We know that many Seekers ended as Quakers.

We also know that Williams’ last publication was an argument against Quakerism (a

movement that appeared and established itself in Williams’ Providence).82 As tempting

as it might be to conclude that Williams’ disappointment with Seekers’ de-conversions is

evidence for his own Seekerism, we must admit that Quakerism was, like all other

churches, another church defunct. His disappointment may have been not so much that

his own converts to Seekerism were switching sides, but that those who had held a

similar externally eschatological worldview—one that anticipated an obvious apostolic

rebirth to occur in the near future—would slip back into and participate in yet another

defunct church. In this regard, the increase in Quakerism itself was disappointing.

Williams could but function as a witness and testify against it. In churchless isolation he

would anticipate apostolic renewal. He would live to see the dissolution of Seekerism,

and he would die with the Church yet elusive.

Restricted to the often-artificial categories utilized by heresiographers of the

seventeenth century, one finds in Seekerism a good fit for Roger Williams’ worldview.

Despite the scant evidence, primary sources and Williams’ own use of “seek”

terminology reinforce this disposition. Undoubtedly, Williams can be perceived as a

“seeker” in a very generic and contemporary sense. In regard to the disparate movement

21
of the seventeenth century that is designated “Seekerism,” which sought renewal of the

true Church through miraculous apostolic intervention, Williams’ own lack of admission

(despite active testimony to a Seeker worldview) must give one pause in simply labeling

him a Seeker. It might be merely coincidental that the earliest evidence of Seekerism as a

heresiographer’s “sect” coincides with the year of Williams’ arrival in England and his

dissemination of a Seeker-like worldview though publication and discourse.

Nevertheless, it seems reasonable that Roger Williams was at least a “Seeker-generator.”

He witnessed to a Seeker worldview and he anticipated apostolic renewal of the Church.

He never gave up a theistic quest. Opponents would associate him with Seekers and

designate him a Seeker patriarch. Today, Williams continues to be likened a Seeker,

though less ardently as in previous decades and centuries. A more nuanced application of

the label is appropriate. Considering Roger Williams to be a Seeker-generator might

serve to associate credibly the legendary figure with Seekerism. Caution remains in

order. Altogether rejecting or ignoring the label, however, seems questionable.

22
 NOTES

1
The separation of church and state directly stems from the attitudes and

influences of thinkers like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison (themselves influenced

by such thinkers as Isaac Backus and John Leland) not from Roger Williams, though a

causal chain can be traced from Williams to John Locke to Thomas Jefferson. For an

ambitious comparison of these figures of religious liberty, see, recently, Timothy L. Hall,

Separating Church and State: Roger Williams and Religious Liberty (Urbana: University

of Illinois Press, 1998). Succinctly, compare Edwin S. Gaustad, "Roger Williams:

Beyond Puritanism," Baptist History and Heritage 24, no. 4 (1989): 11-19 and John

Martin Dawson, "Roger Williams or John Loche?" Baptist History and Heritage 1, no. 3

(1966): 11-14. The views of religious liberty and church and state espoused by Jefferson

are more similar to those of Williams than to those of Loche, who espoused a more

restricted liberty.
2
Compare the popular associations with Williams as a “national folk hero”

provided by Samuel Hugh Brockunier, The Irrepressible Democrat Roger Williams (New

York: The Ronald Press, 1940), pp. 287-89.

3
See Dawson, "Williams or Locke?" and the comparison provided there between

Williams’ declaration of religious liberty and, especially, the Preamble of the Declaration

of Independence.
4
William H. Brackney, “Roger Williams Fellowship (RWF),” in Historical

Dictionary of the Baptists (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 1999), p. 356.

23
 5
C.f. Harold J. Schultz, "Roger Williams: Delinquent Saint," The Baptist

Quarterly 19 (1962): 253-69, Glenn W. LaFantasie, "The Disputed Legacy of Roger

Williams," Church and State 42 (1989): 11, and, especially, Leroy Moore, "Roger

Williams as an Enduring Symbol for Baptists," A Journal of Church and State 7 (1965):

181-89.
6
It is likely anachronistic to attribute some contemporary connotations of the

word “seeker” to the Seekers of seventeenth century England, who were thoroughly

steeped in the Christian tradition and sought truth principally in Christian terms.
7
See Thomas Seccombe, “Williams, Roger,” in The Dictionary of National

Biography, ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sir Sidney Lee (London: Oxford University Press,

1917) 61:445-50.
8
See Glenn W. LaFantasie, “Williams, Roger,” in American National Biography,

ed. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 23:

497-501.
9
Champlin Burrage, The Early English Dissenters, 2 vols. (Camridge: University

Press, 1912) 2:366-67.

10
James Ernst, Roger Williams: New England Firebrand (New York: Macmillan,

1932), p. 227. In a footnote with inadequate references, Ernst states that nine authors (!)

contemporary to Williams collectively “leave little doubt that he was the founder of

Seekerism” (p. 227). Only two of these authors, however, are known to mention

Williams in a Seeker context. Mid-twentieth century authors who assign Seekerism to

Williams heavily cite both Burrage (see previous note) and Ernst.

24
 11
See, e.g., Ola Elizabeth Winslow, Master Roger Williams: A Biography (New

York: Macmillan, 1957), p. 195.

12
The shift to caution might be due in part to the careful review of and corrections

to Ernst’s primary source references provided by Edmund S. Morgon [Roger Williams:

The Church and the State (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967), pp. 53, 152-53].

For a cautious association of Seekerism with Williams, see, e.g., John Garrett, Roger

Williams: Witness Beyond Christendom (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1970), pp. 29, 48.

Garrett identifies Williams’ Seekerism as “so-called” by Williams’ contemporaries.

Compare also Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978),

p. 104 and Hugh Spurgin, Roger Williams and Puritan Radicalism in the English

Separatist Tradition, Studies in American Religion 34 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press,

1989), pp. 30 and 34 (note 42).

13
The basic beliefs of Seekers are similar to those of an obscure group at the turn

of the 17th century, the Legatine-Arians, who began with the leadership of Walter,

Thomas, and Bartholomew Legate and held that all churches were corrupt, yet considered

themselves the new apostles of the true Church. Some scholars have suggested that the

Legatine-Arians were the founders of what became Seekerism. As early as 1590, Henry

Barrow offered a counter-argument to the position that the church was defunct. The

Seekers of the mid-seventeenth century inherited a belief in a defunct church that had

already been in the milieu for decades, if not longer. See Watts, The Dissenters, esp. p.

185.
14
From William Allen, A Doubt Resolved or Satisfaction for the Seekers, (1655).

25
 15
See, e.g., Rufus Jones, “The Seeker Movement,” in Mysticism and Democracy

in the English Commonwealth (Cambridge: Harvard, 1932), pp. 58-104, which remains

one of the most substantial discussions on Seekerism—especially in regard to use of

primary sources (unfortunately mostly unreferenced)—despite its datedness on some

issues.
16
The “sect” status of Seekers is denied by J. F. McGregor [“Seekers and

Ranters,” in Radical Reformation in the English Revolution, ed. J. F. McGregor and B.

Reay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 122], who suggests that Seekers (and a

sect identified as Ranters) “are largely artificial products of the Puritan heresiographers’

methodology; convenient categories in which to dispose of some of the bewildering

variety of enthusiastic speculation.” It has become questionable whether the Seekers can

be given “sect” status; see also, e.g., R. J. Acheson, “'Happy Seeker, Happy Finder': The

Seekers,” in Radical Puritans in England (London: Longman, 1990), p. 61.

17
McGregor [“Seekers and Ranters,” 191] notes that “[a]gain and again in

spiritual autobiographies of the time we read of men who passed through

Presbyterianism, Independency, and Anabaptistry before ending up as Seekers, as

Ranters…or as Quakers.” See also Acheson, “Happy Seeker,” p. 61.

18
Simon Henden is illustrative of the Seeker position: considering all the sects

available to a person at the time, he concludes that the “wisest” man in Europe “the more

accurately he examines, the greater occasion he may find to question all.” See Simon

Hendon, The Key to Christian Prophecies (1652) and the discussion in Acheson, "Happy

Seeker," p. 62.

26
 19
An Independent separatist apparently with the name “Praisegod Barbon” (or

“Praise-God Barebone”) may have inadvertently caused the number of Seekers to

increase. In 1646, he preached against baptism (apparently infant and adult) claiming

that practitioners had no special warrant and commission from Heaven as John the

Baptist did. Praisegod Barbon believed that that warrant would soon be given.

Accepting such a conclusion was a Seeker position. His message helped wreck at least

one Baptist community in London. For discussion of the event, see McGregor, "Seekers

and Ranters," p. 123 and Acheson, "Happy Seeker," p. 63.

20
Quoted in Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas

During the English Revolution (London: Penguin Books, 1972), pp. 192-3.
21
C.f., Hill, Upside Down, p. 14.
22
See McGregor, "Seekers and Ranters," p. 127.
23
Indeed, Baxter identifies six “sects” of Seekers. Some of these sub-sects are

strongly antinomian in sensibilities; others engulf individuals who are merely confused.

See Richard Baxter, A Key for Catholics (London: 1659), pp. 331-34 and McGregor,

"Seekers and Ranters," p. 126.

24
Acheson, “Happy Seeker,” p. 61. See also the bibliography cited there and

Richard Baxter, Plain Scripture Proof of Infant Church Membership and Baptism

(London: 1651).
25
John Saltmarsh valued the Seeker sect by 1646 as “fourth in importance only to

Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists” (quoted in Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, 99);

of course, we might devalue the sect to sixth if we add recusants and those maintaining a

Laudianesque church of England. For a fuller mention of individual Seekers than I

27
present in this paper, see Hill, Upside Down, 190-99, and Jones, “The Seeker

Movement,” pp. 58-104.

26
He seems to have given his blessing upon his daughter’s acceptance of the

Seeker position—if not betrayed his own position—when he wrote, “…she seeks after (as

I hope also) that which will satisfy. And thus to be a seeker is to be of the best sect next

to finder….” See, esp., Acheson, “Happy Seeker,” 63.

27
Contrast Thomas Edwards, Gangraena (1646) 1:128, Hill, Upside Down, p.

191, and McGregor, “Seekers and Ranters,” p. 125.

28
For a summary of the influence of Saltmarsh on the Revolution, see Leo F. Solt,

“John Saltmarsh: New Model Army Chaplain,” JEH 2 (1951): 69-80.

29
See John Saltmarsh, Sparkles of Glory (1647), pp. 21-22, and, for his views on

Seekers who did not accept what he found, see, especially, pp. 294-95. For fuller

discussion on Saltmarsh and helpful references, see Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, pp. 97-

99.
30
For a description of Erbery, see Hill, Upside Down, pp. 192-97, and the

bibliography cited there.

31
In the less millenarian environment of the 1650’s, Richard Baxter states “when

people saw the diversity of sects in any place, it greatly hindered their

conversion….[Many] would be of no religion of all” (quoted in Hill, Upside Down, p.

192).
32
The best work on Williams’ formative years is that of Raymond Camp [Roger

Williams, God's Apostle of Advocacy: Biography and Rhetoric, Studies in American

Religion 36 (Lewiston, New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1989)]. Half of Camp’s

28
work focuses on Williams’ formative years in England, his development of rhetorical

skills, and his setting among puritans under a Laudian church.

33
The verdict of the Bay court was deportation to England. Williams escaped

that verdict by fleeing in mid-winter into the wilderness and living among Native

American friends.
34
See “Roger Williams to John Cotton Jr., 25 March 1671,” in Glenn W.

LaFantasie, ed. The Correspondence of Roger Williams (Hanover, New Hampshire:

University Press of New England, 1988) 2:630.

35
See John Cotton, The Bloudy Tenet Washed White in the Blood of the Lamb

(1647), pp. 27-29. On Williams’ arguments against the validity of the patent, see Camp,

God’s Apostle, pp. 125-29.

36
See Governor Winthrops Journal, 1:162-63. C.f. also, e.g., Isaac Backus, A

History of New England with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians

Called Baptists, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (Newton, Massachusetts: Backus Historical Society,

1871), p. 53.
37
We do not have information as to why no church was established. For various

possibilities, especially in regard to a fractionalized population in Providence, see

Schultz, “Delinquint Saint,” p. 259.

38
The relationship between the two (according to the rhetoric of their

publications) seems cordial, yet vigorously argumentative. The two seemed to have held

a mutual respect for each other.

39
Emphasis mine. Quoted in Watts, The Dissenters, p. 104.
40
Nathaniel Morton, New Englands Memorial (1669), pp. 80-81.

29
 41
See Williams, Bloudy Tenet, 20; note also John Cotton, Washed White, p. 117.
42
Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, p. 138.
43
Cyclone Covey, The Gentle Radical: A Biography of Roger Williams (New

York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 2; see also pp. 220-21.

44
That Williams was Calvinist rather than Arminian is apparent from his writings.

See also, e.g., Schultz, "Delinquent Saint," p. 264 and Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, p. 30.
45
Williams utilizes Matthew 13:30,38, where the wheat (children of the kingdom)

and tares (children of the wicked one) grow together until the harvest. See Williams,

Cottons Letter, p. 40. Specifically, Williams is likening to the tares the puritans who

purge those of unorthodox positions.

46
See Williams, Cottons Letter, p. 40.
47
See George Fox digged out of his Burrows, p. 103, and Schultz, "Delinquent

Saint," p. 260.
48
Robert Baillie, Anabaptism, the True Fountaine of Independency, Antinomy,

Brownisme, Familisme, and Most of the Other Errours, Which for the Time Doe Trouble

the Church of England, Unsealed (London: 1647), pp. 96-97.

49
Baillie, Anabaptism, p. 117 cites Williams, Bloudy Tenet, p. 20; see note 39

above.
50
Robert Baillie, “Letter for Mr. D[Ickson],” in The Letters and Journals of

Robert Baillie A.M.: Principal of the University of Glasgow, ed. David Lang (Edinburg:

1842), p. 212; c.f. also pp. 191-92.

51
C.f. Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, p. 34 (n. 42).
52
See Thomas Edwards, Gangraena (1646).

30
 53
Baxter, Plain Scripture Proof, p. 147.
54
Baxter, Plain Scripture Proof, p. 147.
55
See, as above, Ernst, Firebrand, p. 227.
56
The best integration of the puritan millenarian worldview with the life and

works of Roger Williams is that of W. Clark Gilpin [The Millennarian Piety of Roger

Williams (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1979)]. A reliable discussion of the

convoluted history of Christian millenarianism that includes a brief section on the

millenarianism of 17th century England and New England may be found in Stanley J.

Grenz, The Millennial Maze (Downers Grove, Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 2001).
57
See Thomas Brightman, A Revelation of the Apocalyps (London: 1644), esp. p.

162 and Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, pp. 11-12.

58
See Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, p. 9 and the bibliography cited there.
59
John Cotton was among the puritans who sailed from the Old World and

transplanted the postmillennialist ideas of overcoming antichrist. There is little doubt he

was influenced by the anticipation of a latter-day glory. He argued that the (first)

resurrection mentioned in Revelation 20:5-6 referred to the Protestant Reformation. The

relocation of the puritans to New England enabled the establishment of true churches. As

Williams worked to correct their optimistic view of the church, he was, in this sense, a

puritan of the puritans.

60
See Roger Williams, Cottons Letter Examined (London: 1644) in Perry Miller,

ed. The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, 7 vols. (New York: Russell & Russell Inc.,

1963) 2:316-18; see also p. 381. A general study on 17th century usage of “seek” in

31
religious discourse would be beneficial (if not necessary) for determining if Williams’

use of the term might be reliable evidence of his Seekerism.

61
See, without references, Garrett, Witness, p. 48.
62
The letter is discussed in Camp, God’s Apostle, pp. 86-93.
63
See, with some discussion, “Letter to Governor Winthrop between July and

December 1632” in LaFantasie, ed., Correspondence, 8-10 (= Miller, ed., Complete

Writings 1:38-39). See also Williams’ missionary mode in respect to Native Americans

he knew as compared to that of Winthrop in Timothy L. Wood, “Kingdom Expectations:

The Native American in the Puritan Missiology of John Winthrop and Roger Williams,”

Fides et Historia 32 (2000): 39-49.

64
Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, pp. 35-36.
65
See Winthrop’s Journal 1:309.
66
See “Christians make not Christians” in Miller, ed., Complete Writings, 7:31-41

(esp. pp. 39-40).

67
According to a Seeker sympathizer (if not a leader of the Seekers), unless the

ministry is truly apostolic it is giftless; see John Jackson, A Sober Word to a Serious

People (London, 1668), p. 32 and discussion in Spurgin, Puritan Radicalism, p. 99.

68
See “Williams to John Winthrop, Dec. 10, 1649” in Miller, ed., Complete

Writings 4:188.
69
See “Letter from John Woodbridge” in N. H. Keeble and Geoffrey F. Nuttall,

eds., Calendar of the Correspondence of Richard Baxter (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1991), 2:106.
70
C.f. Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, p. 58.

32
 71
Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, esp. p. 62.
72
Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, p. 82.
73
Roger Williams, Hireling Ministry (1652), p. 158.
74
See “Letter to John Winthrop in October 1636” in Allyn Bailey Forbes and

Stewart Mitchell, eds. Winthrop Papers, 5 vols. (Boston: Massachusetts Historical

Society, 1929-1947), 3:241. C.f., also, Brightman, Revelation, pp. 197-98.

75
Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenet yet More Bloudy (London: 1647), p. 394;

see also Gilpin, Millenarian Piety, pp. 59-60.

76
Ernst, Firebrand, 227. I have not found an earlier reference to the sect. We do

not know the origins of Seekerism, but see note 13 above. McGregor [“Seekers and

Ranters,” p. 123], suggests that the vigor of dispute during the 1630s regarding the

validity of the national church and the religious ordinances that it handed down is the

likely impetus that produced the first “Seekers.”

77
Edwards, Gangraena, 2:11.
78
Baillie, Anabaptism, the True Fountaine of Independency, Antinomy,

Brownisme, Familisme, and Most of the Other Errours, Which for the Time Doe Trouble

the Church of England, Unsealed (1648), p. 96.

79
Baxter, Plain Scripture Proof, p. 147.
80
C.f. Brockunier, Irrepressible, p. 151.
81
On Williams’ disappointment with the rise of Quakerism, see Gilpin,

Millenarian Piety, pp. 172-73, the bibliography cited there, and Spurgin, Puritan

Radicalism, pp. 98-99.

82
Roger Williams, George Fox digged out of his burrows (1676).

33
34