Roger Williams

“ Soul-killing the chiefest murder. No magistrate can execute true justice in killing soul for soul but Christ Jesus, who by typical death in the law typed out spiritual in the gospel.
Truth. I answer, It is a truth: the mischief of a blind Pharisee’s blind guidance is greater than if he acted treasons, murders, &c.; and the loss of one soul by his seduction, is a greater mischief than if he blew up parliaments, and cut the throats of kings or emperors, so precious is that invaluable jewel of a soul above all the present lives and bodies of all the men in the world! ”

“ The ordinances and discipline of Christ Jesus, though wrongfully and profanely applied to natural and unregenerate men, may cast a blush of civility and morality upon them, as in Geneva and other places—for the shining brightness of the very shadow of Christ’s ordinances casts a shame upon barbarism and incivility—yet withal, I affirm, that the misapplication of ordinances to unregenerate and unrepentant persons hardens up their souls in a dreadful sleep and dream of their own blessed estate, and sends millions of souls to hell in a secure expectation of a false salvation. ”

“ I desire all men, and these worthy authors of this model, to lay their hands upon their heart, and to consider whether this compulsion of men to hear the word, as they say, whether it carries men, to wit, to be of no religion all their days:—worse than the very Indians, who dare not live without religion according as they are persuaded.
The civil state can no more lawfully compel the consciences of men to church to hear the word, than to receive the sacraments. ”

“ Dear Peace, Habakkuk’s fishes keep their constant bloody game of persecutions in the world’s mighty ocean; the greater taking, plundering, swallowing up the lesser. Oh! happy he whose portion is the God of Jacob! who hath nothing to lose under the sun; but hath a state, a house, an inheritance, a name, a crown, a life, past all the plunderers’, ravishers’, murderers’ reach and fury! ”

“ God’s people may err from the very fundamentals of visible worship.
Truth. To this distinction I dare not subscribe, for then I should everlastingly condemn thousands, and ten thousands, yea, the whole generation of the righteous, who since the falling away from the first primitive Christian state or worship, have and do err fundamentally concerning the true matter, constitution, gathering, and governing of the church. And yet, far be it from any pious breast to imagine that they are not saved, and that their souls are not bound up in the bundle of eternal life. ”

“ Men judge it matter of high complaint, that the records of parliament, the king’s children, the Tower of London, the great seal, should be committed to unworthy keepers! And can it be, without high blasphemy, conceived that the Lord Jesus should commit his sheep, his children, yea, his spouse, his thousand shields and bucklers in the tower of his church, and lastly, his great and glorious broad seals of baptism and his supper, to be preserved pure in their administrations—I say, that the Lord Jesus, who is wisdom and faithfulness itself, should deliver these to such keepers? ”

“ Now if godliness be the worshipping and walking with God in Christ, is not the magistrate and commonweal charged more by this tenet with the worship and ordinances of God, than the church? for the magistrate they charge with the external peace in godliness, and the church but with the internal.
I ask further, what is this internal peace in all godliness? whether intend they internal, within the soul, which only the eye of God can see, opposed to external, or visible, which man also can discern? or else, whether they mean internal, that is spiritual, soul-matters, matters of God’s worship? ”

“ All persecutors of Christ profess not to persecute him.
Search all scriptures, histories, records, monuments; consult with all experiences; did ever Pharaoh, Saul, Ahab, Jezebel, Scribes and Pharisees, the Jews, Herod, the bloody Neros, Gardiners, Bonners, pope, or devil himself, profess to persecute the Son of God, Jesus as Jesus, Christ as Christ, without a mask or covering?
No, saith Pharaoh, the Israelites are idle, and therefore speak they of sacrificing. David is risen up in a conspiracy against Saul, therefore persecute him. Naboth hath blasphemed God and the king, therefore stone him. ”

“ Hence it is that so many glorious and flourishing cities of the world maintain their civil peace; yea, the very Americans and wildest pagans keep the peace of their towns or cities, though neither in one nor the other can any man prove a true church of God in those places, and consequently no spiritual and heavenly peace. The peace spiritual, whether true or false, being of a higher and far different nature from the peace of the place or people, being merely and essentially civil and human. ”

“ 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 anti-christian 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. ”

“ And because free men are not free lords of their own estates, but are only stewards unto God, therefore they may not give their free consents to any magistrate to dispose of their bodies, goods, lands, liberties, at large as themselves please, but as God, the sovereign Lord of all, alone. And because the word is a perfect rule, as well of righteousness as of holiness, it will be therefore necessary that neither the people give consent, nor that the magistrate take power to dispose of the bodies, goods, lands, liberties of the people, but according to the laws and rules of the word of God. ”

“ The people of Nineveh turned from the violence that was in their hands: and confident I am, if this nation shall turn, though but with a legal repentance, from that violent persecuting or hunting each of other for religion’s sake,—the greatest violence and hunting in the wilderness of the whole world—even as Sodom and Gomorrah upon a legal repentance had continued until Christ’s day: so consequently might England, London, &c., continue free from a general destruction, upon such a turning from their violence, until the heavens and the whole world be with fire consumed. ”

“ I answer, with admiration, how such excellent spirits, as these authors are furnished with, not only in heavenly but earthly affairs, should so forget, and be so fast asleep in things so palpably evident, as to say that outward civil peace cannot stand where religion is corrupt. When so many stately kingdoms and governments in the world have long and long enjoyed civil peace and quiet, notwithstanding their religion is so corrupt, as that there is not the very name of Jesus Christ amongst them. ”

“ It can reach to punish not only the offenders in bodily life and civil liberties, but also the offenders against spiritual life and soul-liberties.... If the sword of the judge or magistrate be the sword of the Lord, why may it not be drawn forth, as well to defend his subjects in true religion, as in civil peace?... What holy care of religion lay upon the kings of Israel in the Old Testament, the same lieth now upon Christian kings in the New Testament, to protect the same in their churches. ”

“ The danger and mischief of a civil sword in soul matters, which makes the civil magistrates deeply guilty of all those evils which he aims to suppress. That cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it. Persecutors beget a persuasion of their cruelty in the hearts of the persecuted. Antoninus Pius’s golden act.
Peace. I add, that a civil sword, as woeful experience in all ages hath 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. ”

“ God’s people cannot serve a false Christ and the true together.
Now in the former respect, anti-christ can never so enthral God’s people as to separate them from Christ, that is, from the life and grace of Christ, although he enthral them into never so gross abominations concerning worship: for God will not lose his in Egypt, Sodom, Babel. His jewels are most precious to him though in a Babylonish dunghill, and his lily sweet and lovely in the wilderness commixed with briars. ”

“ Hence, I argue from the wisdom, love, and faithfulness of the Lord Jesus in his house, it was impossible that he should appoint such ignorant, such idolatrous, such wicked, and such cruel persons to be his chief officers and deputy lieutenants under himself to keep the worship of God, to guard his church, his wife. No wise and loving father was ever known to put his child, no not his beasts, dogs, or swine, but unto fitting keepers. ”

“ I answer, in this joint confession of the answerer with Luther, to wit, that the government of the civil magistrate extendeth no further than over the bodies and goods of their subjects, not over their souls: who sees not what a clear testimony from his own mouth and pen is given, to wit, that either the spiritual and church estate, [172] the preaching of the word, and the gathering of the church, the baptism of it, the ministry, government, and administrations thereof, belong to the civil body of the commonweal, that is, to the bodies and goods of men, which seems monstrous to imagine? ”

“ No man should be bound to worship, nor maintain a worship, against his own consent.
Lastly, if any man professing to be a minister of Christ Jesus, shall bring men before the magistrate, as the practice hath been, both in Old and New England, [216] for not paying him his wages or his due: I ask, if the voluntary consent of the party hath not obliged him, how can either the officers of the parish, church, or of the civil state, compel this or that man to pay so much, more or less, to maintain such a worship or ministry? ”

“ God’s people must enjoy their liberty of conscience, and not be forced; but all the subjects in a kingdom or monarchy, or the whole world beside, must be compelled by the power of the civil sword to assemble thus and thus.
Secondly, I demand, who shall judge whether they are God’s people or no? for they say, whether the magistrate consent or consent not, that is, judge so or not, they ought to go on in the ordinances, renuente magistratu.
If the civil magistrate be to build the spiritual or Christian house, he must judge in the matter. ”

“ Breach of civil peace may arise when false and idolatrous practices are held forth, and yet no breach of civil peace from the doctrine or practice, or the manner of holding forth, but from that wrong and preposterous way of suppressing, preventing, and extinguishing such doctrines or practices by weapons of wrath and blood, whips, stocks, imprisonment, banishment, death, &c.; by which men commonly are persuaded to convert heretics, and to cast out unclean spirits, which only the finger of God can do, that is, the mighty power of the Spirit in the word.
Light only can expel fogs and darkness. ”

“ Now after the Lord Jesus had propounded that great leading parable of the sower and the seed, he is pleased to propound this parable of the tares, with admirable coherence and sweet consolation to the honest and good ground; who, with glad and honest hearts, having received the word of the kingdom, may yet seem to be discouraged and troubled with so many anti-christians and false professors of the name of Christ. ”

“ But what can those instances of Pharaoh’s evil in hindering the Israelites worshipping of God, and Artaxerxes giving liberty to Israel to worship God and build the temple, what can they prove but a duty in all princes and civil magistrates to take off the yoke of bondage, which commonly they lay on the necks of the souls of their subjects in matters of conscience and religion? ”

“ Truth. Our sister Patience, whose desired company is as needful as delightful. It is like the wolf will send the scattered sheep in one: the common pirate gather up the loose and scattered navy: the slaughter of the witnesses [364] by that bloody beast unite the independents and presbyterians.
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. ”

“ All lawful magistrates in the world, both before the coming of Christ Jesus and since, (excepting those unparalleled typical magistrates of the church of Israel) are but derivatives and agents immediately derived and employed as eyes and hands, serving for the good of the whole: hence they have and can have no more power than fundamentally lies in the bodies or fountains themselves, which power, might, or authority is not religious, Christian, &c., but natural, human, and civil.
A believing magistrate no more a magistrate than an unbelieving. ”

“ A civil influence dangerous to the saints’ liberties.
The parliaments of England have by right free choice of their speaker: yet some princes have thus far been gratified as to nominate, yea, and implicitly to commend a speaker to them. Wise men have seen the evil consequences of those influences, though but in civil things: how much far greater and stronger are those snares, when the golden keys of the Son of God are delivered into the hands of civil authority!
Peace. You know the noise raised concerning those famous acts of Asa, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, Josiah. ”

“ Have not all truth’s witnesses heard such reproaches? You pretend conscience: you say you are persecuted for religion: you will say you are martyrs?
Oh! it is hard for God’s children to fall to opinion and practice of persecution, without the ready learning the language thereof. And doubtless, that soul that can so readily speak Babel’s language, hath cause to fear that he hath not yet in point of worship left the gates or suburbs of it.
Peace. ”

“ Secondly. Thine enemies, though they speak and rail against thee, though they outrageously pursue, imprison, banish, kill thy faithful witnesses, yet how is all vermilioned over for justice against the heretics! Yea, if they kindle coals, and blow the flames of devouring wars, that leave neither spiritual nor civil state, but burn up branch and root, yet how do all pretend an holy war! ”

“ Although I desire to hear the voice of God from a stranger, an equal, an inferior, yea, an enemy; yet I observe how this excellent man cannot but confess how hard it is for any man to do good, to speak effectually to the soul or conscience of any whose body he afflicts and persecutes, and that only for their soul and conscience’ sake. ”

“ Peace. It is plausible, but not reasonable, that God’s people should (considering the drift of these positions) expect more liberty under a Christian than under a heathen magistrate. Have God’s people more liberty to break the command of a Christian than a heathen governor? and so to set up Christ’s church and ordinances after their own conscience against his consent, more than against the consent of a heathen or unbelieving magistrate? ”

“ Every religion prefers its own priests and ministers before all other.
Truth. I must deny that position: for light of nature leadeth men to hear that only which nature conceiveth to be good for it, and therefore not to hear a messenger, minister, or preacher, whom conscience persuades is a false messenger or deceiver, and comes to deceive my soul: as millions of men and women in their several respective religions and consciences are so persuaded, conceiving their own to be true.
Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites, and their hearing of his message, examined. ”

“ Fifthly, I argue thus: the souls of all men in the world are either naturally dead in sin, or alive in Christ. If dead in sin, no man can kill them, no more than he can kill a dead man: nor is it a false teacher, or false religion, [178] that can so much prevent the means of spiritual life, as one of these two:—either the force of a material sword, imprisoning the souls of men in a state or national religion, ministry, or worship: or, secondly, civil wars and combustions for religion’s sake, whereby men are immediately cut off without any longer means of repentance. ”