Roger Williams
Roger Williams
Roger Williamswas a Puritan, an English Reformed theologian, and later a Reformed Baptist who was an early proponent of religious freedom and separation of church and state, and a supporter of members of the Free Will Baptist movement...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionTheologian
prayer soul liberty
There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth or a human combination or society. It hath fallen out sometimes that Papists, Protestants, Jews, and Turks may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these two hinges: that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ships prayers or worship, nor be compelled [restrained] from their own particular prayers or worship, if they practice any.
spiritual mean soul
This scripture [Romans 13:1-6] is wrested from the scope of God's Spirit, and the nature of the place, and cannot truly be interpreted to mean that the power of the civil magistrate may be exercised in spiritual or soul matters.
worship stink
Forced worship stinks in God's nostrils
religious heaven church
Even if the civil magistrate is so gifted as to prophesy in the church, yet in the sphere of his civil duties he is forbidden to call down fire from heaven, that is, to procure or inflict any corporal punishment upon offenders in religious doctrine or practice, remembering Christ's admonition that He came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.
unity church christ
We find not in the Gospel, that Christ hath anywhere provided for the uniformity of churches, but only for their unity.
jesus men soul
How frequent, how constant ought we to be, like Christ Jesus our example, in doing good, especially to the souls of men and especially to the household of faith (yea, even to our enemies), when we remember that this is our seed time, of which every minute is precious, and that as our sowing is, so shall be our eternal harvest.
healthy medical healthy-food
Health requires healthy food.
church weapons needs
That cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it.
men isolation ought
Men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained.
wall garden church
When they [the Church] 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 broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a wilderness as it is 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 all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.
hurt worship break
A false worship will not hurt the civil state if the worshipper breaks no civil law.
inspiration men spirit
No man ever did, nor ever shall, truly go forth to convert the nations, nor to prophesy in the present state of witnesses against Antichrist, but by the gracious inspiration and instigation of the Holy Spirit of God.... I know no other True Sender, but the most Holy Spirit.
christian land rivers
The natives are very exact and punctual in the bounds of their lands, belonging to this or that prince or people, even to a river, brook, &c. And I have known them make bargain and sale amongst themselves for a small piece or quantity of ground ; notwithstanding a sinful opinion amongst many, that christians have right to heathen's land.
believe men hurtful
It is less hurtful to compel a man to marry someone whom he does not love than to follow a religion in which he does not believe.