Rhode Island began filling with Separatists, some of whom were following the lead of their English brethren and becoming Baptists. The mercurial Williams went with this logical flow toward Baptist convictions and repudiated his original baptism as an infant. He was influenced in his decision by Catherine Scott, a sister of the controversial Anne Hutchinson, who had also been banished from Massachusetts for her “antinomian” views in 1638. (“Antinomians,” to their critics, rejected God’s moral law in a dangerous quest after the leadings of God’s Holy Spirit.) That year, Williams joined with a
...more
