Roger Williams (c.1603-March 1683) was a British-born clergyman who founded the Providence Plantation in Rhode Island. A graduate from Pembroke, 1624, he was ordained in the Church of England, 1628. An enthusiastic Puritan minister, his sermons in favor of religious liberty caused him to be persecuted. In 1630, he fled to the Massachusetts Bay Colony where he pastored in Plymouth, 1632-33, and in Salem, 1634. There his criticism of the state church led to a sentenced of being sent back to England, 1635. He escaped and lived among the Indians, befriending them and learning their language.
In 1636, he founded the town of Providence on the land which the Narragansett Indians gave him. This was the first place ever where the freedom to worship God was separated from the control of the state. In 1639, he organized the first Baptist Church in the new world, with one of the principal foundations being that the state could not interfere with or restrict the free and open worship of God according to the Bible. He sailed to England to obtain a patent for Rhode Island, 1643, and served as the colony's first President, 1654- 57.
Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, January 1, 1802, borrowed phraseology from Roger Williams, who had been driven out of Massachusetts by Puritan leader John Cotton, grandfather of Cotton Mather.
In 1644, Roger Williams published in London "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Conscience Sake" and "Mr. Cotton's Letters, Lately Printed, Examined and Answered," in which he wrote:
<Mr. Cotton...hath not duly considered these following particulars.
First, the faithful labors of many witnesses of Jesus Christ, existing in the world, abundantly proving, that the Church of the Jews under the Old Testament in the type and the Church of the Christians under the New Testament in the antitype, were both separate from the world; and that when they have opened a gap in the hedge, or wall of separation, between the garden of the Church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broken down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, &c. and made his garden a wilderness, as at this day.
And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and that all that shall be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the world and added unto His Church or garden...a separation of Holy from unHoly, penitent from impenitent, Godly from unGodly.> 1603RW001
Rev. Roger Williams was alluding to the Bible passages:
<Isaiah 5:1-7, My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down...
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but found oppression."
Mark 12:1, A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about it, and digged a place for the wine vat, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country.
Proverbs 24:30-31 I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down.
Revelation 2:1-5, Unto the angel of the Church of Ephesus write...thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent...or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick.> 1603RW002
Rev. Roger Williams had written in his Plea for Religious Tolerance, 1644:
<In holding an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state, we must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jew's conversion to Christ....
It is the will and command of God that (since the coming of his Son the Lord Jesus) a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations and countries; and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit, the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of God....
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...
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...
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,....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.> 1603RW103
At the unveiling of the Roger Williams statue at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 9, 1872, Rhode Island Senator William Sprague observed that:
<Roger Williams...successfully vindicated the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, and effected a moral and political revolution in all governments of the civilized world.> 1603RW004
On January 9, 1872, U.S. Senator and former Governor of Rhode Island, Henry Bowen Anthony (1815-1884), delivered a eulogy at the dedication of the Statue of Roger Williams in the U.S. Capital Rotunda (Washington: F & J. Rives & Geo. A. Bailey, 1872):
<He knew, for God, whose prophet he was, revealed it to him, that the great principles for which he contended, and for which he suffered, founded in the eternal fitness of things, would endure forever.
He did not inquire if his name would survive a generation. In his vision of the future he saw mankind emancipated from...the blindness of bigotry, from the cruelties of intolerance. He saw the nations walking forth into the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free.
Mr. President, I had not intended to interpose any remarks, at this time; for although it is always an easy and a pleasant duty for a Rhode Island man to discuss the character, to recount the history, and to celebrate the praises of the great Founder of our State, I have received no intimation, from those who had charge of the subject at home, that anything from me was expected or desired.
And yet, sir, it is hardly possible for a Rhode Island Senator to remain entirely silent, when, in this high presence, the theme is Roger Williams; and I am sure you will not deem it an intrusion or an invasion of the province of my colleague, to whose abler hands this matter has been committed, and who has so well performed the duty assigned to him, if I detain you, very briefly, before the question is put.
My colleague has well said that it was a happy idea to convert the old Hall of the House of Representatives into the Pantheon of America. The idea originated with my distinguished friend who sits upon my right, [Mr. MORRILL, of Vermont,] then a leading member of the House, as he is now of the Senate. It was indeed a happy idea to assemble in the Capitol the silent effigies of the men who have made the annals of the nation illustrious; that here, overlooking our deliberations, inspiring our counsels, and animating us by their example, they may seem to guard the greatness which they founded or defended.
And I do not deem this proceeding an idle form, but rather a high ceremonial of the Republic; and I anticipate, with a patriotic pleasure, that it will be repeated, from time to time, until every State shall have sent her contribution to this assemblage of heroes and patriots and statesmen and orators and poets and scholars and divines of men who, in every department of greatness, have added luster to the American name.
And as often as this scene shall recur, when Virginia shall send to us the statue of Washington, which cannot be too often repeated in the Capitol; and with it that of Thomas Jefferson or of Patrick Henry;
when North Carolina shall send us Nathaniel Macon,
and South Carolina shall send us Sumter or Marion,
and Georgia shall send us Oglethorpe;
when Kentucky shall send us Daniel Boone and Henry Clay,
and Tennessee shall send us Andrew Jackson,
and Illinois shall send us Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas,
and Missouri shall send Thomas H. Benton;
when New York shall send us Peter Stuyvesant and Alexander Hamilton;
when Connecticut shall send us Roger Sherman and Jonathan Trumbull I believe they are here already, I know that the blood of both is represented in this Chamber by men coming from States that were not born when the names which their Senators worthily bear were first made illustrious;
when Vermont shall send us the stalwart form of that hero who thundered at the gates of Ticonderoga "in the name of the Continental Congress and the great Jehovah;"
when New Jersey shall send us the great grandfather of the Senator who sits on the opposite side of the Chamber [Mr. STOCKTON*] and the uncle of the Senator who sits nearer me, [Mr. FRELINGHUYSEX;]
when Pennsylvania shall send us William Penn and Benjamin Franklin,
and when Massachusetts, pausing in the embarrassment of her riches, looking down the long list of her sons who, in arms, in arts, and in letters, in all the departments of greatness, have contributed to her glory, shall, with hesitating fingers, select two to represent that glory here; then, and on every such occasion.
I trust that the spirit of party will cease, that the voice of faction will be hushed, and that we shall give an hour to the past. We shall be the wiser and better for it.
In all our history no name shines with a purer light than his whose memorial we have lately placed in the Capitol. In the history of all the world there is a no more striking example of a man grasping a grand idea, at once, in its full proportions, in all its completeness, and carrying it out, unflinchingly, to its remotest legitimate results.
Roger Williams did not merely lay the foundation of religious freedom, he constructed the whole edifice, in all its impregnable strength, in all its imperishable beauty. Those who have followed him, in the same spirit, have not been able to add anything to the grand and simple words in which he enunciated the principle, nor to surpass him in the exact fidelity with which he reduced it to the practical business of government.
Religious freedom, which now, by general consent, underlies the foundation principles of civilized government, was, at that time, looked upon as a wilder theory than any proposition, moral, political, or religious, that has since engaged the serious attention of mankind. It was regarded as impracticable, disorganizing, impious, and, if not utterly subversive of social order, it was not so only because its manifest absurdity would prevent any serious effort to enforce it.
The lightest punishment deemed due to its confessor was to drive him out into the howling wilderness. Had he not met with more Christian treatment from the savage children of the forest than he had found from "the Lord's anointed," he would have perished in the beginning of his experiment.
Mr. President, fame, what we call human glory, renown, is won on many fields and in many varieties of human effort. Some clutch it, with bloody hands, amid the smoke and thunder of battle. Some woo it in the quiet retreats of study, till the calm seclusion is broken by the plaudits of admiring millions, of every tongue and of every clime.
Some, in contests, which, if not bloody, are too often bitter and vindictive, seek it in the forum, amid "the applause of listening senates," caught up and echoed back by the tumultuous cheers of popular adulation. All these enjoy, while they live, the renown which gilds their memories with unfading glory. The praise which attends them is their present reward. It stimulates them to greater exertions and sustains them in higher flights. And it is just and right.
But there is a fame of another kind, that comes in another way, that comes unsought, if it comes at all; for the first condition for those who achieve it is that they shall not seek it. When a man. in the communion of his own conscience, following the lessons of his own convictions, determines what it is his duty to do, and, in obscurity and discouragement, with no companions but difficulty and peril, goes out to do it when such a man establishes a great principle of human conduct or succeeds in achieving a great amelioration or a great benefit to the human race, without the expectation or the desire of reward, in present honor or in future renown, the fame that shines a glory around his brow is a reflection from the "pure white light," in which the angels walk, around the throne of God.
Such a man was Roger Williams. No thought of himself, no idea of recompense or of praise interfered to sully the perfect purity of his motives, the perfect disinterestedness of his conduct. Laboring for the highest benefit of his fellow-men, he was entirely indifferent to their praises. He knew, for God, whose prophet he was. had revealed it to him, that the great principle for which he contended, and for which he suffered, founded in the eternal fitness of things, would endure forever.
He did not inquire if his name would survive a generation. In his vision of the future, he saw mankind emancipated from the thralldom of priestcraft, from the blindness of bigotry, from the cruelties of intolerance; he saw the nations walking forth in the liberty wherewith Christ had made them free; he saw no memorial of himself, in marble or in bronze, or in the general admiration of mankind.
More than two centuries have passed since he flourished; nearly two centuries have passed since he died, buried like Moses, for "no man knoweth of his sepulcher;" and now the great doctrine which he taught pervades the civilized world. A grateful State sends up here the ideal image of her Founder and her Father. An appreciative nation receives it, and, through her accredited representatives, pledges herself to preserve it among her most precious treasures.> 1603RW005
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1603RW001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Roger Williams, in 1644, "The Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Conscience Sake" and "Mr. Cotton's Letters, Lately Printed, Examined and Answered," published in London. The World Book Encyclopedia, 18 vols. (Chicago, IL: Field Enterprises, Inc., 1957; W.F. Quarrie and Company, 8 vols., 1917; World Book, Inc., 22 vols., 1989), Vol. 14, p. 6931.
1603RW002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Roger Williams. Isaiah 5:1-7; Mark 12:1; Proverbs 24:30-31; Revelation 2:1-5. The World Book Encyclopedia, 18 vols. (Chicago, IL: Field Enterprises, Inc., 1957; W.F. Quarrie and Company, 8 vols., 1917; World Book, Inc., 22 vols., 1989), Vol. 18, pp. 8780-8781. Lynn R. Buzzard and Samuel Ericsson, The Battle for Religious Liberty (Elgin, IL: David C. Cook, 1982), p. 51.
1603RW103. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Roger Williams, 1644, Plea for Religious Tolerance.
1603RW004. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Roger Williams. January 9, 1872, Rhode Island Senator William Sprague at the unveiling of the Roger Williams statue at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. Lynn R. Buzzard and Samuel Ericsson, The Battle for Religious Liberty (Elgin, IL: David C. Cook, 1982), p. 51. John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution-The Faith of Our Founding Fathers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, A Mott Media Book, 1987, 6th printing 1993), pp. 215, 243.
1603RW005. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Roger Williams. January 9, 1872, Senator Henry Bowen Anthony delivers the Eulogy of Roger Williams in Congress. Stephen Abbott Northrop, D.D., A Cloud of Witnesses (Portland, Oregon: American Heritage Ministries, 1987; Mantle Ministries, 228 Still Ridge, Bulverde, Texas), p. 16.