Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 108.

I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on March 5, 23, in Austin, Texas.

We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the

beginning without presentism. First off, a brief item of business, call it an announcement,

for those of you listening in something close to real time. On April 11, 2023, I'll be in Washington,

D.C. for an evening, and I'll have some spare time.

If any Washington area listeners want to do a meetup, get a beer, something like that,

send me a note at the History of the Americans at gmail.com, or through the website, or by direct message on Twitter.

If I get a few takers, I'll find a place, probably fairly convenient to the DuPont Circle area where I'll be staying, and ink it into the calendar.

I hope we can do it.

When last we left Roger Williams, he'd arrived at Boston, been offered the important job of teacher at the Boston

Church, and turned it down with somewhat less than his usual personal charm. The Boston Church was not

separated from the Anglican Church, and Williams said that he durst not officiate an unseparated people.

We discussed the internal logic of separatism up to this point in episode 106,

introduction to Puritan theology, which you would benefit from listening to before this one.

John Winthrop, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was sufficiently troubled

by Williams, whom he personally liked, to write a response and attract titled,

Reasons to Prove a Necessity of Reformation from the Corruptions of Antichrist, which hath

defile the Christian churches, and yet without absolute separation from

them, as if they were no churches of Christ. Winthrop, however, was no theologian. He was the governor

of a colony chartered at the sufferance of King Charles I and did not have the luxury of

following the logic of separation to its relentless conclusion, as Roger Williams would eventually do.

...