At this time, as for some five years previous, a youth by the name of Peter Pratt is a frequent inmate of the family at Mamacock. This is none other than the son of Elizabeth Griswold by her second husband. Elizabeth could not keep her son John from fellowship with his father, and it appears that she cannot keep from the same fellowship her son by Peter Pratt. This is not wholly explainable by the fact that Peter admires and is fond of his half-brother, John (see Part I., Chapter IV.). Were not the senior master at Mamacock genial and hospitable, Peter Pratt’s freedom at this house could not be of the character described (by himself), neither would he be likely (as is, by his own account, afterwards the case) to espouse the cause of John Rogers, Sr., so heartily as to receive baptism at his hands, and go so far in that following as to be imprisoned with other Rogerenes.
According to his own statement, this young man was present at the County Court in 1699, when John Rogers appeared there with Mary Ransford and took her for his wife. He seems at that time to have been studying law in New London, and making Mamacock his headquarters. He had every opportunity to know and judge regarding John Rogers at that exact period. To this young man must also have been known the particulars which led to the complaint of Matthew Beckwith, his step-father, concerning John Rogers.[100] Had Peter Pratt disapproved of either of these occurrences it would have prevented his affiliation with this man. Evidently, nothing known or heard by him concerning John Rogers, Sr., has availed to diminish his respect for him or prevent a readiness to listen to his teachings. (He admits that at this period he “knew no reason why John Rogers was not a good man.”)[101]
He makes no mention of this occurrence in his book.
We have seen proof, by statement of Mr. Bownas, that in 1703 John Rogers was still a faithful observer of the Seventh Day Sabbath. But in the Introduction to his Epistle to the Seventh Day Baptists, written, according to date of publication, about 1705, he states that by continual study of the New Testament, he has become convinced that Christ Himself is the Sabbath of His church, having nailed to His cross all the former ordinances (Col. xi, 14), that, therefore, adherence to the Jewish Sabbath, or any so-called sacred day, is out of keeping with the new dispensation. “Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath.”—(Col. xi, 16.) He also states that as soon as he came to this conclusion he gave up the Seventh Day Sabbath and wrote this Epistle to his former brethren of that church.