A distinguished Baptist minister, and one of the first founders of Rhode Island, was a physician in London, before he came to this country. Soon after the first settlement of Massachusetts, he was driven from that colony with a number of others; and March 7, 1638, they formed themselves into a body politic, and purchased Aquetneck of the Indian sachems, calling it the Isle of Rhodes, or Rhode Island. The settlement commenced at Pocasset, or Portsmouth. The Indian deed is dated March 24, 1638. Mr. Clarke was soon employed as a preacher; and, in 1644, he formed a church at Newport, and became its pastor. This was the second Baptist church which was established in America.

In 1649, he was an assistant and treasurer of Rhode Island colony. In 1651, he went to visit one of his brethren at Lynn, near Boston, and he preached on Sunday, July 20; but, before he had completed the services of the forenoon, he was seized, with his friends, by an officer of the government. In the afternoon, he was compelled to attend the parish meeting, at the close of which he spoke a few words. He was tried before the Court of Assistants, and fined twenty pounds; in case of failure in the payment of which sum he was to be whipped. In passing the sentence, Judge Endicott observed, “You secretly insinuate things into those who are weak, which you cannot maintain before our ministers; you may [pg 388] try and dispute with them.” Mr. Clarke accordingly wrote from prison, proposing a dispute upon the principles which he professed. He represented his principles to be, that Jesus Christ had the sole right of prescribing any laws respecting the worship of God which it was necessary to obey; that baptism, or dipping in water, was an ordinance to be administered only to those who gave some evidence of repentance towards God and faith in Jesus Christ; that such visible believers only constituted the church; that each of them had a right to speak in the congregation, according as the Lord had given him talents, either to make inquiries for his own instruction, or to prophesy for the edification of others, and that at all times and in all places they ought to reprove folly and open their lips to justify wisdom; and that no servant of Jesus Christ had any authority to restrain any fellow-servant in his worship, where injury was not offered to others. No dispute, however, occurred, and Mr. Clarke, his friends paying his fine without his consent, was soon released from prison, and directed to leave the colony. His companion Obadiah Holmes shared a severer fate; for, on declining to pay his fine of thirty pounds, which his friends offered to do for him, he was publicly whipped in Boston.

Mr. Clarke died at Newport, April 20, 1676, aged about 66 years, resigning his soul to his merciful Redeemer, through faith in whose name he enjoyed the hope of a resurrection to eternal life.

His life was so pure, that he was never accused of any vice, to leave a blot on his memory. His noble sentiments respecting religious toleration did not, indeed, accord with the sentiments of the age in which he lived, and exposed him to trouble; but at the present time they are almost universally embraced. His exertions to promote the civil prosperity of Rhode Island must endear his name to those who are now enjoying the fruits of his labors. He possessed the singular honor of contributing much towards establishing the first government upon the earth, which gave equal liberty, civil and religious, to all men living under it.