Note 54 — Chapter III

Cotton Mather, in his Magnalia, b. ii. ch. iv. relates the following incident, as having occurred during this visit. Though the extract shows his strong prejudices, it may be worth an insertion as an illustration of the temper and manner of those times. “There were at this time in Plymouth two ministers, leavened so far with the humors of the rigid separation, that they insisted vehemently upon the unlawfulness of calling any unregenerate man by the name of good-man such a one, until by their indiscreet urging of this whimsey, the place began to be disquieted. The wiser people being troubled at these trifles, they took the opportunity of Governor Winthrop’s being there, to have the thing publicly propounded in the congregation; who, in answer thereunto, distinguished between a theological and a moral goodness: adding, that when juries were first used in England, it was usual for the crier, after the names of persons fit for that service were called over, to bid them all, Attend, good men and true; whence it grew to be a civil custom in the English nation for neighbors living by one another to call one another good-man such a one, and it was pity now to make a stir about a civil custom, so innocently introduced. And that speech of Mr. Winthrop’s put a lasting stop to the little, idle, whimsical conceits, then beginning to grow obstreperous.”

If the preceding statement is true, it may be charitably viewed as an indication of the scrupulous conscientiousness of Mr. Williams, who thought, perhaps, that names are sometimes things, and was unwilling that the term good man should be indiscriminately applied to all men. If he yielded to Gov. Winthrop’s explanation, it proves, that he was not so obstinate in trifles, as he has been represented.