 Guilty of preaching religious liberty in England, separatist leader Roger Williams fled to Boston on FEBRUARY 5, 1631.
He pastored briefly before being banished in 1636 by Puritan leader
John Cotton, who himself had been persecuted by Anglicans in England.
Befriended by the Indians of Narragansett, Williams founded Providence
Plantation, Rhode Island - the first place where church government was
not controlled by state government.
In 1639, Williams organized the first Baptist Church in America.
His "notorious disagreements" with John Cotton over the Massachusetts
General Court censoring religious speech led Williams to publish "The
Bloody Tenet of Persecution for Conscience Sake" and "Mr. Cotton's
Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered" in 1644.
In it, Roger Williams first mentioned his now famous phrase, "WALL OF SEPARATION":
"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 anti-type, 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."
Rev. Roger
Williams was alluding to the Scriptural pattern that when God's people
sin, He judges them by allowing the church to be trampled by an ungodly
government:
"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 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...When I looked that it should bring
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?...
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."
The understanding was
that if God's people repent "He will restore His garden" by having it
"WALLED in peculiarly unto Himself from the world."
The
spiritual descendents of Roger Williams were Baptists of Danbury,
Connecticut, a State which had the Congregational Protestant Christian
denomination established as the official State Church from 1639 to 1818.
With religion under each individual States' jurisdiction until 1947,
the Danbury Baptists complained about their discriminated status in the
Congregationalist controlled State of Connecticut in letter to
Jefferson, October 7, 1801:
"Our sentiments are uniformly on
the side of religious liberty - That religion is at all times and
places a matter between God and individuals - That no man ought to
suffer in name, person or effects on account of his religious opinions -
That the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than
to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor."
Agreeing with the Baptists in his personal reply, Jefferson wrote, January 1, 1802:
"Gentlemen...Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies
solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for
faith or his worship,
that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions,
I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American
people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof,' thus building a WALL OF SEPARATION between Church and
State.
Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of
the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with
sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to
restore man to all his natural rights.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and Creator of man." |
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