life in danger, made his way to London in September.
He reached London at a critical moment, when strong efforts were made to induce the dissenters as a body to endorse James's declaration for liberty of conscience, by a united address of thanks. At a conference convened for the purpose, Williams urged his brethren to discountenance any arbitrary power of dispensation, which would afford relief by ‘measures destructive of the liberties of their country.’ He carried the meeting with him, and fixed the policy of his party. The revolution of 1688 had no more earnest champion, and, though he never sought prominence as a public man, his accurate knowledge of men was of much service to William III in dealing with Irish affairs. Sir Charles Wolseley (d. 1714) [q. v.], who had known him in Ireland, said he ‘talked like a privy councillor.’
Williams was intimate with Baxter, and supplied for him at the Tuesday merchants' lecture, Pinner's Hall. At length, on the death (December 1687) of John Oakes, he succeeded him as minister of the presbyterian congregation at Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, founded by Thomas Vincent [q. v.] He held this charge till death. His preaching is said to have been unpolished, for he was never a man of letters, and his want of exact theological training was the main cause of the suspicions of his orthodoxy which led to embittered disputes among the London dissenters, raging for seven years. His congregation stood by him throughout, and he kept them in strict order. Theophilus Dorrington [q. v.] prints a peremptory letter threatening public excommunication to ‘a rich widow’ who had left his meeting for that of John Shower [q. v.] (Dissenters Represented … by themselves, 1710, p. 1; reprinted in Lewis's English Presbyterian Eloquence, 1720, p. 134).
On Baxter's death Williams and Thomas Woodcock (d. 1695), an ex-fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, were rival candidates for the Pinners' Hall lecture; the votes were equal, and Williams was elected by lot. He took up Baxter's controversy [see Howe, John, 1630–1705] against alleged antinomianism in the works of Tobias Crisp, D.D. [q. v.], and was attacked by a colleague in the lectureship, Thomas Cole (1627?–1697) [q. v.] The publication of his ‘Gospel Truth,’ 1692, 12mo (with the prefixed commendation of sixteen presbyterians), founded on his lectures, was the signal for general controversy at an unlucky moment, the presbyterian and most of the congregational ministers of London having just entered (1690) into a union, under ‘Heads of Agreement,’ drawn up by Howe. Nathaniel Mather [q. v.] wrote against Williams. A second edition (also 1692) of Williams's book was countersigned by forty-nine presbyterians (see Williams's letter to John Humfrey [q. v.], Add. MS. 4276, fol. 148). Hereupon Isaac Chauncy [q. v.] withdrew (17 Oct. 1692) from the ‘union,’ having laid before it a paper of exceptions to Williams's argument, signed by six congregationalists. In December 1692 a new series of doctrinal articles was added to the ‘Heads of Agreement,’ and published as ‘The Agreement in Doctrine among the Dissenting Ministers in London,’ 1693, 4to. It failed to satisfy the London congregationalists, who in 1693 left the ‘union’ (which was not broken in other parts of the country) and started a ‘fund’ of their own. Williams, who was freely accused of Arminian views and of Socinian positions on the atonement, wrote ‘A Defence’ (1693, 4to) against Chauncy and others. He further published ‘Man made Righteous,’ 1694, 12mo (lectures at Pinners' Hall). Refusing to resign the Pinners' Hall lectureship, he was dismissed (August 1694) by a vote of the subscribers. With him left William Bates, D.D. [q. v.], who had held office since the institution (1672) of the lecture, Howe, and Vincent Alsop [q. v.] These, with Samuel Annesley [q. v.] and Richard Mayo [q. v.], were appointed to a new lectureship (same day and hour) at Salters' Hall (cf. History of the Union, 1698).
Villainous attacks were now made on Williams, who was accused (1695) of immorality. He courted investigation, and for eight weeks a committee of presbyterian ministers sat in Annesley's meeting-house at Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, examining into the minutest particulars of Williams's conduct from boyhood. The committee reported to the general body, who on 8 April 1695 found Williams ‘intirely clear and innocent.’ Grateful to Edmund Calamy, D.D. [q. v.], for an important piece of evidence procured by his means, Williams made him his assistant at Hand Alley. On the failure of the attack upon Williams's morals, the charge of socinianising on the atonement was persistently pressed by Stephen Lobb [q. v.] Lobb invoked the authority of Edward Stillingfleet [q. v.], who, on being appealed to, thought Williams more orthodox than Lobb (cf. Stillingfleet, Works, 1710, iii. 2, 272). Lobb then quoted Jonathan Edwards, D.D. [q. v.], as against Williams; Edwards wrote (28 Oct. 1697) to Williams, taking his side. He was never suspected of heterodoxy on the person of Christ, and it is
