Quaker History

ROGER WILLIAMS VS. "THE UPSTARTS:" THE RHODE ISLAND DEBATES OF 1672 By Leon R. Camp* When Lydia Wardell walked stark naked into the church at Newbury during Sunday morning service, the prudent Puritans hurried her out of town. When Deborah Wilson, a "young Woman of a very modest and retired Life, and of a sober Conversation,"1 also felt divine inspiration to parade through Salem in a similar state of undress, the town elders took her to Court. Even in 1672, six years after these events occurred, the public behavior of people in the newfaith called "Quakers" still disturbed many New Englanders. The incidents mentioned above were so well known that they became a major point of dispute in one of the earliest of New England religious debates.2 In these debates, held in Newport and Providence, Rhode Island, on August 9, 10, 12, and 17, John Stubbs, John Burnyeat, and William Edmondson (or Edmundson) of the Quaker faith were challenged by the stalwart self-proclaimed "seeker," Roger Williams. Williams's fourteen points, or "positions," served as the basis of dispute. Argument over the first point, ". . . the people called Quakers are not true Quakers according to the holy Scriptures,"3 *Leon R. Camp is a member of the Department of Speech at Pennsylvania State University. 1 Joseph Besse, Collection of the Sufferings of the People Called Quakers (London , 1753), II, 236. ! The reader should be aware of the differences between the word debate, as used in this paper, and the term disputation. Disputations were in Latin and required the presence of a moderator. All arguments were proposed and read in syllogistic form. The debates referred to in this article were in English (except for BibEcal allusions by the debaters in Latin and Greek), did not have a moderator , and, although the arguments were proposed in syllogistic form, they were not always debated in that manner. Many religious groups held disputations in their churches prior to 1672 in the New England area. It is this writer's belief, however , that the debates referred to in this article may be the first significant religious debate involving open discussion of two major religious groups in New England. For reference on the disputation see William Costello, The Scholastic Curriculum at Seventeenth-Century Cambridge (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), p. 17. For evidence of Williams's earlier participation in a disputation in 1632, involving William Bradford, John Winthrop, and others, see John Winthrop, History of New England (Boston, 1825), I, 41. 3 Roger Williams, George Fox Digg'd Out of His Bunowes, ed. J. Lewis Diman (Providence: Narragansett Club Publications, 1874), V, 66. Subsequent references to this work are cited in the text. It is this writer's belief that the original edition, published by Williams in 1672, a few weeks after the debate, is no longer extant. According to prefatory material, the volume referred to for this article was reprinted from the then available original edition by the Narragansett Club under the editorship of Mr. Diman. The style, punctuation marks, and general appearance of the reprint are similar to Williams's earlier works and writing. In their rejoinder to Williams's debate account (A New England Fire-Brand 69 70Quaker History consumed the first day from nine in the morning until dusk. Williams 's first contention in the debate concerned the origin of the name "Quaker." Although he conceded that the term had been applied in derision , he stated: ... I had cause to judge that the name was given ... to them from that strange and uncouth possessing of their bodyes, with quaking and shaking .. . even in publick assemblyes & Congregation . . . which extraordinary motions I judged to come upon them not from the holy Spirit & Power of God, but from the spirit and power of Satan (p. 41). Williams then launched into a review of the rise of the "new upstart party," slanting his exposition with numerous general references to the Quakers' "Shakings, Motions, & Extasies." Williams agreed that other "holy men," such as David and Moses, had trembled out ofa "holyAwe and Dread of the Majesty of Heaven," but he insisted that the motions of the Quakers lacked true Christian impulse. He concluded by comparing the "Shakings" of the...