[Roger Williams (ca.
1603-83), religious leader and one of the founders of Rhode Island, was the son
of a well-to-do London businessman. Educated at Cambridge (A.B., 1627) he
became a clergyman and in 1630 sailed for Massachusetts. He refused a call to
the church of Boston because it had not formally broken with the Church of
England, but after two invitations he became the assistant pastor, later
pastor, of the church at Salem. He questioned the right of the colonists to
take the Indians' land from them merely on the legal basis of the royal charter
and in other ways ran afoul of the oligarchy then ruling Massachusetts. In 1635
he was found guilty of spreading "new authority of magistrates" and
was ordered to be banished from the colony. He lived briefly with friendly
Indians and then, in 1636, founded Providence in what was to be the colony of
Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. His religious views led him to become
briefly a Baptist, later a Seeker. In 1644, while he was in England getting a
charter for his colony from Parliament, he wrote the work from which this
dialogue is taken. During much of his later life he was engaged in polemics on
political and religious questions. He was an important figure in the
intellectual life of his time, though the direct influence of his writings is
considered by Professor Brockunier to have been slight: "Earliest of the
fathers of American democracy, he owes his enduring fame to his humanity and
breadth of view, his untiring devotion to the cause of democracy and free
opportunity, and his long record of opposition to the privileged and
self-seeking"]
….TRUTH. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either
professing doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is
to persecute him, and such a person (whatever his doctrine or practice be, true
or false) suffereth persecution for conscience.
….PEACE. I add that a civil sword (as woeful experience in all ages has
proved) is so far from bringing or helping forward an opposite in religion to
repentance that magistrates sin grievously against the work of God and blood of
souls by such proceedings. Because as (commonly) the sufferings of false and
antichristian teachers harden their followers, who being blind, by this means
are occasioned to tumble into the ditch of hell after their blind leaders, with
more inflamed zeal of lying confidence. So, secondly, violence and a sword of
steel begets such an impression in the sufferers that certainly they conclude
(as indeed that religion cannot be true which needs such instruments of
violence to uphold it so) that persecutors are far from soft and gentle
commiseration of the blindness of others....
….On the other
side, to batter down idolatry, false worship, heresy, schism, blindness,
hardness, out of the soul and spirit, it is vain, improper, and unsuitable to
bring those weapons which are used by persecutors, stocks, whips, prisons,
swords, gibbets, stakes, etc. (where these seem to prevail with some cities or
kingdoms, a stronger force sets up again, what a weaker pull'd down), but
against these spiritual strongholds in the souls of men, spiritual artillery
and weapons are proper, which are mighty through God to subdue and bring under
the very thought to obedience, or else to bind fast the soul with chains of
darkness, and lock it up in the prison of unbelief and hardness to eternity....
….PEACE. The … proper means of both these powers [civil and ecclesiastical] to
attain their ends.
First, the proper means whereby
the civil power may and should attain its end are only political, and
principally these five.
First, the erecting and establishing what form of
civil government may seem in wisdom most meet, according to general rules of
the world, and state of the people.
Secondly, the making, publishing, and establishing
of wholesome civil laws, not only such as concern civil justice, but also the
free passage of true religion; for outward civil peace ariseth and is
maintained from them both, from the latter as well as from the former.
Civil peace cannot stand entire, where religion is
corrupted (2 Chron. 15. 3. 5. 6; and Judges 8). And yet such laws, though
conversant about religion, may still be counted civil laws, as, on the
contrary, an oath cloth still remain religious though conversant about civil
matters.
Thirdly, election and appointment of civil officers
to see execution to those laws.
Fourthly, civil punishments and rewards of transgressors
and observers of these laws.
Fifthly, taking up arms against the enemies of civil
peace.
Secondly, the means whereby the
church may and should attain her ends are only ecclesiastical, which are
chiefly five.
First, setting up that form of church government
only of which Christ hath given them a pattern in his Word.
Secondly, acknowledging and admitting of no lawgiver
in the church but Christ and the publishing of His laws.
Thirdly, electing and ordaining of such officers
only, as Christ hath appointed in his Word.
Fourthly, to receive into their fellowship them that
are approved and inflicting spiritual censures against them that o end.
Fifthly, prayer and patience in suffering any evil
from them that be without, who disturb their peace.
….TRUTH. Here are divers considerable passages which I shall briefly examine,
so far as concerns our controversy.
First, whereas they
say that the civil power may erect and establish what form of civil government
may seem in wisdom most meet, I acknowledge the proposition to be most true,
both in itself and also considered with the end of it, that a civil government
is an ordinance of God, to conserve the civil peace of people, so far as
concerns their bodies and goods, as formerly hath been said.
But from this grant
I infer (as before hath been touched) that the sovereign, original, and
foundation of civil power lies in the people (whom they must needs mean by the
civil power distinct from the government set up). And, if so, that a people may
erect and establish what form of government seems to them most meet for their
civil condition; it is evident that such governments as are by them erected and
established have no more power, nor for no longer time, than the civil power or
people consenting and agreeing shall betrust them with. This is clear not only
in reason but in the experience of all commonweals, where the people are not
deprived of their natural freedom by the power of tyrants.
And, if so, that
the magistrates receive their power of governing the church from the people,
undeniably it follows that a people, as a people, naturally consider (of what
nature or nation soever in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America), have
fundamentally and originally, as men, a power to govern the church, to see her
do her duty, to correct her, to redress, reform, establish, etc. And if this be
not to pull God and Christ and Spirit out of heaven, and subject them unto
natural, sinful, inconstant men, and so consequently to Satan himself, by whom
all peoples naturally are guided, let heaven and earth judge....
PEACE. Some will here ask: What may the magistrate then lawfully do with his
civil horn or power in matters of religion?
TRUTH. His horn not being the horn of that unicorn or rhinoceros, the power
of the Lord Jesus in spiritual cases, his sword not the two-edged sword of the
spirit, the word of God (hanging not about the loins or side, but at the lips.
and proceeding out of the mouth of his ministers) but of an humane and civil
nature and constitution, it must consequently be of a humane and civil
operation, for who knows not that operation follows constitution; And therefore
I shall end this passage with this consideration:
The civil
magistrate either respecteth that religion and worship which his conscience is
persuaded is true, and upon which he ventures his soul; or else that and those
which he is persuaded are false.
….The God of Peace,
the God of Truth will shortly seal this truth, and confirm this witness, and
make it evident to the whole world, that the doctrine of persecution for cause
of conscience, is most evidently and lamentably contrary to the doctrine of
Christ Jesus the Prince of Peace. Amen.
1. From Roger Williams, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution ... ("Publications of the Narragansett Club" [Providence, R.I.], Vol. III [1867]).