Innovators in Religion; 1; Religious Freedom - Roger Williams

let me back up for a minute and tell you a little bit about what i see us trying to do in a series of lectures i tried very hard last spring to think of what ought to be said in a series of fall lectures the committee on wednesday first nights has been saying that one of the things we needed to do this year was take a little look at some things pertaining to our denomination or relationships or aside as an interdenominational church sometimes we don't know the feeling that we're a non denominational church and that we don't do that quite have a connection with some of the routes that are very important to us in the denominations not that we should be obsessed with these but we ought not to feel cut off from them either so it occurred to me that something needed to be done in relation to where our relationship with over the two nominations at least of which were part and i decided that the yeti you one of the easiest vehicles for me was to try to get a look at these by

some biography and then in a process that i can't begin to explain to you but i just sort of materialized i chose almost at random three people how that represented in a sense people i knew something about who had some kind of interesting history that i thought would be of interest to us people whose names i have heard tossed about for a long time and yet when i really came to sign what is it that these people did or war i found it very difficult to put my finger on why i chose these three and then i found out about them and i have said if i had known last spring when i chose these three men how difficult it would be to round up enough material on them i think i would've chosen somebody else trying to find three people who were in their times some want innovators and religion are people who either stood for something or i began something that was unique and their timing indeed have something to say to

arms i discovered as i went along that interestingly enough i had chosen three people who had a lot in common now they're each of them in a different century art each of them an entirely different set of circumstances but they had great a great many things in common three people i picked were roger williams admire and johnson and frank la block the yemen it they viewed roger williams had a good baptist sound to him and that this would make sense admire judge has got a very wonderful missionary sound and they're frank law but i decided talk on because i thought i could lay once and for all the answer to the question are you any relation to find love again and also because he's got a great missionary background too the young i discovered as i went along that these men have a great deal more in common than i thought for one thing i discovered amazingly enough that all of

them were linguists i hadn't realized that when i began i discovered interestingly enough also that all three men had had the experience of starting off and won the nomination of background and moving during their life to becoming something else the nomination leigh and so are all things i thought i knew about them really were true because every one of these men has shifted in his denomination they also had a number of other things in common and i decided that after opening up like that that's what i should do would be say to some of you since i hope your endless and all three of these say how many parallels you can make art in the lives of these three men seem say what the things are that they all share is it's amazing how many things they do have in common i have another very strong feeling about a biography that i want to share the beginning and this is i'm trying to capture the flavor of a person and in a sense it's good to know what the facts of the

situation are and then there's an emotional flavor that you get or don't get out of them and that really greater than the sum total of the facts about it and i'm out trying to capture the man and also something out of the flavor of yemen and his meaning a lady in florida to my written semi picture of roger williams another just arrived in the mail this morning saying she's a descendent of roger williams and she was interested in hearing me talk about and she sent me one of the first pictures very good lithograph france that i have seen as totally disillusioned me this man didn't look anything like what her picture looks like so i'm saying as my picture may not be roger williams as you have imagined him in your mind but for wild will you let me try to draw a picture of him and to share my picture with you and then later if you want we can talk privately about how your picture my picture matter don't match i'd like to begin by saying that any man is a product of the time in which she lives

and in order to understand roger williams you have to know a little bit about the period and the spirit of the times in which he did his work our roger williams lifespan is sixteen oh three to sixteen at four roughly eighty years almost a hundred years right there in the seventeenth century and then sixteen hundreds as was a period of an enormous change in religion great and dramatic shifts in world world and national governments and in a lot of the common man the bar was the revolution that loser had started was begun in the middle fifty hundreds and by sixteen hundred this protestant stressed that he had begun had overturned society in the holy roman catholic empire what happened was the idea of a universal christendom with the pope as its head had been dealt a death blow it was as if the likud and suddenly been removed from a pot and everything kind of exploded

because without the ultimate authority of the pope to keep them in line individual states emerged grabbing for themselves some of the power which the pope had held in his hands before and that happened partly because of the protestant reformers like loser but it also happened because the setting was right you were there were ambitious kings who were just chomping at the bit waiting to get free from the yolk of rome and there were the pressure of merchants and nobles who were moving toward a new role in the society in which they live and the power that had been centered in the church now became standard in the rulers it moved from the church to the state in england this was a time late fifteen hundred early sixteen hundreds when henry gates was on the throne england never had a great grief or religiously former like loser in germany are nobody supported henry his great was achieved by just simply taking over the reins of the country from

rome establishing the church of england as the state church and taking on big himself a good deal of the property and the party that had been the roman church's then if you remember your history books the struggles that took place after this saturn was with whether the country would continue to be church of england or as in the case of mary queen of scots returned to being a catholic country again or back again to being church of england but the protestant movement had begun in a sense and underlings the us who was two generations after henry at the us struggles going on and although the church of england was the the church the established church there were enough three forms and enough leeway that the protestant groups began to get a foothold in england this is the time of the rise of the puritans these are the men and women who were influenced in their thinking by john calvin they

were a group who felt the church of england have not gone far enough from rome to purify of his catholic elements and they were innocent protesting but within the framework of the church they're puritans because they're trying to purify it plans to remove from within the church of england and in addition the middle of a seventeenth century saw the rise of the quakers rejected the idea of a state church of any kind and rejected any sort of religion which was prescribed by law they fought bitterly and they were mercilessly persecuted for their insistence that the church and state ought to be separate and then after this there comes a period when the stuart kings came to the throne persecuted all these non conformists groups they fled out to holland they began the migrations to america and those who remained in england continue to pressure for religious liberty and the controversy erupted in the body revolution parliament under control of the puritans years from well established a commonwealth that lasted a decade or two and then the kings were

restart again but never again with the same kind of power absolute monarchy is they'd had before the country was organized really under a kind of a modified constitution was them in which the rights of the people that merchant class of the gentry we're protected against the rights of the case the case did not rule by divine right anymore they ruled partly by the consent of the people it's important to note that many of the struggles for civil liberties which were fought out in this period in england were transplanted as the puritans fled to america and became the struggles that took place in america to now this was what was going on in his very least the time when roger williams came into his home williams was born probably around sixteen hundred and three in london his father was a middle class merchants probably a tailor it's important to note is that had not the merchant class began to come up things would have been

different for roger williams his parents were loyal anglicans they were members of saints supporters parish and he grew up in the years of controversy between the puritans and the established church of england it was not with pleasure that his parents know that his tendencies were less church of england and more toward the puritans from his early youth roger was interested in legal matters and he attended a little chamber as the court of the star in westminster hall where he practiced taking down speeches in shorthand it was partly because of his short and proficiency that he came to the attention of sir edward cole who was eventually to become a leading figure and the defense of the powers of parliament and the people against the royalists koch became williams patron got him a scholarship to the charter house school and two years later he entered pembroke college in cambridge where he received his bachelors degree and sixteen twenty seven although he was sympathetic to the separatist cause he took his orders in the anglican church and yours are good old baptist roger williams

starting out as a nine he became a chaplain in the home of a puritan member of parliament parliaments are we imagine there's an interesting tradition that he fell in love with one of the young match and girls but that the romance with squelched by her parents' partly because of social class reasons what we know is that instead of marrying mismatch and he married this matches made mary bar in sixteen twenty nine and the following year mary and roger sale together for america williams had already adopted some of the liberal views in relation to church and state were going to get him into trouble after he got america the couple embarked on the ship leon out of bristol in december sixteen thirty the boys talk and sixty five days to get to america they landed in narragansett and felt the worry of sixteen thirty one and a february day in narragansett just sounds might call

his arrival was duly noted by governor winthrop in boston who describes williams who is now thirty as a young minister godly and zealous having precious gift and i quote that because his opinion change before peripheral we need to stop here and talk a little bit about the kind of calmly into which williams was coming went up and his followers arrived in america and sixteen thirty they moved to a place called salat which later became boston they were puritans but if you remember the puritans means they were church of england people who were trying to purify and this group never lost their connections with the church of england but they desired a relationship that would put them under the church of england's control the statement they established in massachusetts has its basis a biblical foundation the colony immediately enacted legislation saying that for time to come no man shall be admitted into the freedom of the body politic but such as are members of some of the church's within the same

in order to become a freed man or a citizen each person had to make a confession of his faith in the doctors which were approved of by the clergy joint pass that test become a citizen if he were not approved he still had to pay taxes but he received none of their benefits it was a very rigid society and in the year sixteen thirty fourteen persons were punished and banished from the colony not foreseeable crimes which they had committed but because they had exercised free speech and criticizing the elders and the magistrates of the colony following their understanding of the new testament the church and the state in massachusetts were organized with two cardinal features one was that all the churches were equal and status there was no kind of hierarchy no bishop or no spurious any kind the charges were founded at the moment of their incorporation by a verbal covenant

sworn to buy all of the members no one could be a churchmen who would not swear to this covenant and no one could be a minister and leslie were so designated by our congregation who had souls war membership was limited to the visible signs of the people who could both relate their spiritual experiences where to the covenant and this matter they separated themselves not only from the church of england but they divided themselves a majority of the puritans who were presbyterians who did not hold either to this restricted membership or to the joint covenant idea to support his ideal of the colony had a charter issued by king charles to the massachusetts bay colony giving information act as he did in england and that meant they were authorized to suppress heresy and to put subversives to death as was the power of the head well here comes roger williams he was welcomed by winthrop and his fellow puritans

they gave him the title of a master which is very unusual because this was reserved in that time for gentlemen along to celebrate is coming the governor and counsel for playing a general thanksgiving integrate welcome feast was held on february twenty second sixteen thirty one there was general mary making them a lot of speeches and williams was described as pleasing in manner courteous and behavior sound in doctor brought the colony had definite intellectual light he brought them the dignity and he brought them some real spiritual leadership but almost at once he started trouble the reverend john wilson of the church in boston was going back to england on the same boat that had brought williams and the church invited williams to officiate and become a pastor williams declined he declined on the ground of conscience and he said he considered this church and on separated people for him that meant they had not cut off their ties with the church of england they were to separatist group now to understand this position you have to recognize

what williams idea was he was a separatist from any established church because he was in quest of a broader goal he wanted people to have the freedom of choice the freedom not because he felt was the best way for them to live there because he felt that freedom was absolutely necessary for them for salvation he was the real catalyst in his thinking you believe in predestination in men's fault an irresistible grace and the perseverance of the sense he really believed that the kingdom of god could be established on earth and he wanted it not only corrupted but in a pure form and this is what he was after in government and when the church was prescribing this that or the other thing is corrupted this noble ideal he had about the meaning of the kingdom of god on earth his first protest in the new comedy was to protest that settler parties had no right to and for spiritual centers the puritans use the bible as a statute book and the ten commandments as the cornerstone they divided the

ten commandments and to what they call two tables the first four were considered the duties which god knows which a man owes to god the second group were those duties which manholes to man the magistrates acting for both religion and the state and forth both groups what williams began to say was that that they had authority know a party in regard to the first table in which manholes god he wanted to keep the state from contaminating the christian so that is progress toward perfection would not be blocked by any worldly compulsion he felt that the minute you have a compulsion to virtue a minute somebody told you had to be virtuous it increased the quantity of sin when he was arguing was a radical separation between the old and new testaments he insisted that you had become a christian but not a christianized you living under the law and under a compulsion to act in a certain way how he came to this guiding principle for

himself we don't know but under all the social maneuvering joy now see him going was this underlines read this then is what he did williams was invited by the congregation in salem to become a minister there he accepted the call but then the civil authorities in boston interfere it was amazing that they would do so because it violated the principle of the independence of the local congregation but apparently he had aroused their displeasure and they asked the salem church not to choose williams and as a matter of fact they pointed out of williams did pj get to be chosen as a minister of their congregation they would revoke land rights which they had given to the church so they have them over a barrel and the church acquiesced and williams was out of a job he also lost his privilege as a free man and he removed from boston to plymouth where he was apparently well received and for two years he lived in plymouth farming and trading with the indians

eventually while he was there he became an assistant to mr ralph smith and governor went up another leaders journey to plymouth to hear him conduct service apparently was alright implement but not all right and salem governor winter wrote in his diary a description of what the service was like on the lord's day there was a sacrament which they depart taken and in the afternoon mr roger williams according to their custom propounded a question which then paster mr smith speak to briefly then mr williams prophesied after which the governor spoke to the question after him the elder and then two or three more of the congregation then the elder desired governor of massachusetts amherst drew wilson to speak to it which they did this account shows interestingly how the civil an ecclesiastical parties were intermingled even in their form of worship this point governor bradford wrote that williams exercised his gifts among us and after some time was admitted a member of the church among us is

teaching well approved during his residence in plymouth williams became interested in the indian language he had an aquarium's within our downside chief said was to stand him in very good stead before long he wrote this my sole desire was to get the natives good god was pleased to give me a painful patients' spirits to live with them and their filthy smoky halls to gain their town the state of climate for two years and his first child a daughter mary was born there sixteen thirty three he returned to salem where he became the assistant to mr skelton was the pastor of the church there is teaching was costly challenge and harassed by enemies both ecclesiastical and simple he was particularly in conflict with that eloquent puritan divine john cochrane the essence of the controversy really came down to the right to the land williams held that the land belonged to the indians the massachusetts bay colony did not

hold its land by title from the king because it wasn't the canes to get now there was no doubt that williams was right from an ethical point of view the massachusetts court consultant the clergy and they drew up three major points at which they found williams guilty of offense and he's teaching they claimed that he charged king james an ally when he claimed to be the first christian came to discover the land they said williams was in error because he charged the kings and others with blasphemy and calling europe or question them because you're a christian and williams had also been inadvertent enough to apply to king charles three passages from the book of revelation which implied that charles was the beast of revelation in august have sixteen thirty four mr skelton died and williams was invited to become the minister of the church the magistrate intervened and i asked the church please not ordain him but the church ignored it and did so their disobedience was termed a great contempt of a party the

following months were filled with controversy and harassment williams is a long and cotton in boston consistently sniped at each other on any issue cottonwood make a pronouncement and williams would oppose him or waves or make a pronouncement and cottonwood show where he was wrong for example the puritans legislated the length of women sleeves the cover of men's hair and they debated their solemn assemblies the amount of lace and brady and ribbons and buttons and buckles which religious folks might wear the courts made an order which said that the intolerable excess of bravery for dress prohibiting anyone who's a state was not more than two hundred pound sterling from wearing great boots from wearing gold or silver lace or buttons sell goods ribbons are scars under penalty of tension links now we haven't gotten hit head on the matter of wearing veils by women in solemn assemblies

house position was that wear veils or not a sign of suggestion they were not commanded by scripture and they had no place women should wear them williams held a perfectly well could now this is silly but i give you some idea of the level of interchange at the very basic level in which these men were sparring i kept getting worse and worse at almost every session of the massachusetts court during williams' residents in salem he was summoned to appear because of misconduct because some sermon or opinion of his subjected him to complete one of the complaints was his position on both taking williams talk that a magistrate ought not to tender an oath to an aunt regenerated man because if he doesn't as he lets the congregation have communion with a wicked man in the worship of god and causes the wicked man to take the name of the lord god and they since he's not just got so again charges were launched formal charges launched against williams scott and some ducks three counts on which he was

one was his saying that we hold the land not by phone patent from the king of the natives other two owners and we ought to repent for receiving a bike packed another was that is not lawful to call wicked person to swear or pray as these are actions of god worship and the third and probably the key thing was that the civil magistrates power extends only to the bodies and goods and outward state of man made no authority over the spiritual state of man now back up all this was williams conviction that the church and the state were separate court that position was intolerable to the massachusetts bay officials that the state had nothing to do with religion than the hole massachusetts bay colony was founded on a wrong promise williams was called before the court in july is opinions were didn't i judged by all both ministers and magistrates to be erroneous and very dangerous not only were they considered high crimes and misdemeanors but the wholesale and church was held responsible for as long as we continue

to give this dissatisfaction ela just happened at that time that the church was petitioning for some land on marblehead neck which they said belong to say what the court refused to grant a petition because of their choosing williams as their teacher while he stood under question of authority was giving content and so severe is pressure being brought to bear williams was asked to retract and get satisfaction by word or sign or act or else he could expect sentence them an assailant did not there to support that he was given until the general court session in october to change his mind he went home and returned in october general court where he disputed his opinions again with a group of ministers who had been selected to reduce him from his errors they found facing them a man who was not only not ready to submit to them but who entered into lightly disputation with them completely convinced that they and not the wrong they had no recourse but to sentence him and this they did he was sentenced to depart out of their

jurisdiction within six weeks all the ministers but one approve the sentence in addition the churches salem was brought to its knees made too openly displayed him to admit his heiress and the church wrote a humble stayed in its objection to the magistrate acknowledging their fault and ever had anything to do with roger williams so far this portion of the story goes it ends with williams worn out and desperate standing before the unknown but standing there in the face of the court and his conviction and the strength of his convictions he is ready not only to be bound and banished for them but he is willing to die for them rather than to recant a because his health was poor he was given until spring to leave so he returned to salem community where some of his friends and supporters continued to come to his home to hear him teach this was too much for the magistrate and they get a complaint he was drawing people to dangerous doctrines so the court

without notice to williams changed his sentence resolve to send them to england by ship and they found a ship in the harbor ready to sail on january eleventh they summoned him to court in boston but he would not go to the magistrate set a small salute to salem with orders to apprehend him and carry him on board a ship and send him off to england when they got to his house they found he had gone three days earlier beating his wife and children in the house and plunged into the woodruff arts sounds like a detective story doesn't he plays into the far as denver fourteen weeks he lived in the far east and the bitter winter of new england he said quote later being denied the common air to breathe in and the civil court habitation up on the same earth without any mercy or human compassion exposed to winter miseries and a howling wilderness he reports that in this period he did not know what that your breath might be

but then he found hospitality among the indians to shopping in the spring for friends came to join him and they embark by canoe to another spot beyond the jurisdiction of the massachusetts bay in the plymouth colony as they passed the headlands known as the indian and fox points in any of the lancet report and here they landed in on the slope of that hill found the settlement which he named after god's greatest problems onto me in my distress by dea david sixteen thirty eight certain land which he had previously purchased were dated to him he divided the land so that the four men with him had equal shares the state and the purpose for his new column in the following words i desired it might be a shelter for persons distressed for conscience and the summer of sixteen thirty six mrs williams and their two children join in there in providence a colony formed a government in which they were bound only in civil matters be subject to the rule of the majority winthrop in his journal reports one of the first

contest with carters and multiple colony where he says at providence also the devil was not idle for whereas at their first coming together of mr williams in the restive make an order that no man should be molested for his conscience now men's wives and children and service claiming the liberty thereby to go to all religious meetings though never so often other words he's saying that some rights that belong only to a few individual men in the colony to be the people who were the freedom and i now belong to everybody and williams college the church was formed at providence and sixteen thirty eight mr holman a member of the salem church was elected to re baptized williams and then williams having been baptized he baptized holman and ten other people he became the pastor of the church for a few months but withdrew interestingly enough because he became convinced he had no right to administer the ordinances of the church because he felt that through ministry

was derived from apostol like succession and he not being in the succession could not perform the office of pastor although his relations with boston were anything but amiable williams went to boston and i acted for them not once but many times once in a dispute with the quad indians that magistrate asked him to be their interpreter an aged and concluding a treaty with the indians williams was still earning his living is time to spend a night at home and abroad on land and water at the hole un or for bread he writes and their first son was born two years after nineteen sixteen thirty relations continue to deteriorate between providence in the massachusetts bay colony and in sixteen thirty eight a law was passed for getting any inhabitants of providence from coming within the boston city limits this meant that they were denied opportunities to trade with either the english or the indians in that for in

addition the new colony was less vulnerable for attack from other sources before carries massachusetts bay plymouth connecticut and new haven joining the confederacy remember the new england confederacy from your schoolbooks it was designed to provide a common defense against the attacks of the dutch coming up the hudson the french are on the north and the indian tribes that were all about going to the west before honestly to mutual restraint in all future concern rhode island was specifically left out it was excluded because it was considered a menace to the theocratic institutions of the other colonies now this confederacy is considered as you know a pioneer adventure and federal government was the first thing i would say united on anything the creation of the confederacy was a great concern of rhode island because they really were left very much in isolation and exposed to indian attacks williams was commissioned to go to england and get a charger that would put the calming on the same basis as the others it's an interesting side lie to williams'

career that because he couldn't go to boston to sail from the ships that were going from boston and he had to leave from what was then called manhattan's which is new york city he worked his credit was extremely good in new york because interestingly enough his linguistic skills had been used to negotiate he's with the indians on long island who had attacked the dutch and williams have come down to manhattan a negotiated peace between the dutch and indians and sail from here to inform on the long sea voyage he developed a book the key to the indian languages which is the first systematic attempt to translate the indian languages into a civilized time and perhaps even more important in the ground to contain if it had much viable information on indian customs and habits and religion and government this was a classic textbook when i was arriving in the midst of the civil war was really the group

was not in a position to alienate the leaders of the other counties but a delegate at a party for ministration to a very small group of people including oliver cromwell and bain who happened to have been an early for an avoidance and because of the influence you have back before he came to america williams finally obtained a charter for his colleagues which gave the towns of problems portsmouth in newport and the designation of the providence plantations in the narragansett bay full power to rule themselves as they shared by three percent agreed to it put a limit that the laws and constitutions of punishments permitted by the charter should conform to the laws of england so far as circumstances should permit but there was an omission of any grant of power in regard to matters of religion and this was the important thing for this was the confirmation of the rights of the individual conscience which williams had fought for on his return he landed in boston bearing letters of support and safe conduct from twelve members of parliament to the governor of

massachusetts all i got him was safe conduct through boston that had little effect on changing anybody's feelings about it in fact a charter only made them more angry if anything with rhode island inhabitants of problems came out to meet your hero however in fourteenth hindus and brought him home and a triumphal procession in may a sixty forty seven there was a general assembly in rhode island in portsmouth where the people entered into an agreement on the basis of the charter which williams had brought them back they chose as their first president john cox all of newport the charter declared that the government was a democratic poll that is to say a government which was held on the voluntary consent of all for the greater part of the free inhabitants the years that followed were characterized by enormous internal rhyme things of the new comedy you can imagine that because it permitted freedom of conscience the colony attracted many contentious persons who were very unwelcome elsewhere inevitably they call it the same for taxes that have developed

around them and all the other from which they've come there were even aborted attempts to make the colony again under the jurisdiction of massachusetts bay and finally there was a move so strongly in his direction that williams went back to england to offset misrepresentations that were being made he left behind his family now grown to six in his home at work for down the bay from providence where he established a trading post for trade with the narragansett indians he was gone in england for nearly three years on this mission and during this period he formulated in his writings even more strongly some of the gardens which were the cornerstones of iconic among them was his belief in his resistance to anything compulsory about religion he was opposed to compulsion for instance on the matter of religious ties he argued there ought to be freedom to maintain whatever form of worship and ministry men prefer and that ministers ought to be supported by voluntary subscriptions not force

contributions in this he laid the foundation for most of the financing of american protestantism williams' return to prominence and labor to build unity in the column he was elected three times the colonies president and survive some of the colony's most serious doctrinal fights one other major crises and signed the coming of the quakers to the new world the first quakers to come to america or two women or arrived in boston and sixteen fifty eight their coming was marked as an invasion worse than a testaments the two women were taken from their ship and move directly to jail the window of his cell was boarded up so they could not talk to anybody now to understand his concern at the massachusetts bay colony had about the quakers you need to be aware that the groups of people who are coming from england were not sober quiet fighters but they were violent products like thomas neuhaus who came into the old south meeting house holding a glass bottle in each hand standing in front of the worshipers he smashed the two bottles and cried to them bus will

the lord break you all in pieces they the quakers who came here were very frequently groups of various certain fanatics who were obedient only to an inner authority such as libya wardell startled the congregation at newbury by walking up the aisles of the meeting house stark naked and deborah wilson who went about in the streets in a similar manner in order to bear witness the quakers were savagely persecuted massachusetts the massachusetts bay colony hanged a woman and three man man they've branded others others had their ears popped many were cruelly wet they were imprisoned and they were fined the united colonies endeavored to grow worse rhode island to take part in this persecution and they threatened to cut off all trade with rhode island if that harbored quakers a colony of rhode island replied saying that they wanted not to be compelled to exercise any civil power over men's consciences so long as human

orders in point of civility are not corrupted and buy a ticket while rhode island received the quakers williams and the people they're generally were opposed to their excesses and what they thought where their peculiar doctrines and practices williams was opposed to them because he regarded amazon scriptural on natural and injurious to good morals they scorned the usage of civil society said and glorified and we got to disregard the decency is of life he was aghast for instance of the quakers should talk about the saints being united with the essence of god wills was far too much a puritan to allow for god who was the immortal invisible infinite eternal omnipotent an omniscient to be even touched by anything is puny as man indeed he said we know oh no more about god in a fly knows what it is he felt that anybody who tried to speak with absolute finality about god was dangerous to the spirit sixty

seventy two george fox the founder of the quakers was in newport and william sent him an immediate challenge to debate fourteen propositions in providence the child did not reach fox and time he left williams kind always that this was to avoid debate and so he took on fox's followers at one point rolling himself thirty miles in order to do the debate the debate continued for three days and noisy and boisterous manner and if you read it as more characterized by severe language and confusion that is a credit to either side wins or an enormous treatise called george fox and dig out of his prose and one of the points that williams was making in his relation to the quakers and into others was that the saws enemy was not just in it could also be a virtue the gathering of the writers use the bible he said as a massachusetts bay to support their aims rather than into allowing themselves to be led by what was there

were used to all surrounded by his family he continued to travel to narragansett and preach to the indians there he kept up along and affectionate correspondence with governor bradford who apparently had everything that leaves stood for and loved him as a person in a letter a year before his death williams describes himself as being old week and ruptures was lain in both be he gave away most of his estate's to people in the colony and his old age he and his wife were totally dependent upon their children he died in may of sixteen at four and was buried with all the solemnity which the little colony could muster on a piece of his own land just a short distance from the place where he had landed forty seven years before it is very hard to convey in any kind of get an honest way the genius that was roger williams he was a gifted or scholarly when you compare it with other men of his time milton was a great writer and civil liberties in england at this time and roger williams is not a militant he was not alerted clergyman like time

he was the great statesman like when three he never seems to have been an ambitious man in terms of his own successor power he cared nothing for these he never work for himself or for wheat rewards or honors he was certainly not the first person who conceived of religious liberty government by one vote position and in doing so he has left an indelible mark on the american character perhaps because he came in a greatly formative period he didn't enforce the fearless of the american revolution they got their principles elsewhere but his presence was a constant reminder that freedom was not a dream that it could become an operative in human society in matters religious is a reminder to us that no one can be sure that he has the ultimate religious truth sure enough that he dare impose his views upon the conscience and the lives of other men he remains the hero of all

those who resist the pressure to force the conscience to accept things which it can either by and i think there must be a lot of college students these days who are standing right where roger williams do it this time perhaps he is even more heroic in the midst of all the spoils he was always aware of his own fallibility and on importance without ever using that as an excuse to leave the struggle if you call those men great who have devoted their lives and selfishly to a noble cause it's been watching williams can be considered great and this is his legacy us pray together or god may we who stand in a spiritual heritage of so great a man who has gone before us be aware of the legacy which

comes to us of a freedom which has been given freely to us and which we have not learned of a conscience which we have used in the face of opposition from others other sense of the spiritual importance of every aspect of our common and daily life duval help us from his life to be both inspired and we may serve as he served in place name we pray fb