establish civil government on the doctrine of the liberty of conscience , the equality of opinions before the law ." --Bancroft , pt . 1 , ch . 15 , par . 16 . He declared it to be the duty of the magistrate to restrain crime , but never to control the conscience . " The public or the magistrates may decide ," he said , " what is due from man to man ; but when they attempt to prescribe a man ' s duties to God , they are out of place , and there can be no safety ; for it is clear that if the magistrates has the power , he may decree one set of opinions or beliefs today and another tomorrow ; as has been done in England by different kings and queens , and by different popes and councils in the Roman Church ; so that belief would become a heap of confusion ." --Martyn , vol . 5 , p . 340 .
Attendance at the services of the established church was required under a penalty of fine or imprisonment . " Williams reprobated the law ; the worst statute in the English code was that which did but enforce attendance upon the parish church . To compel men to unite with those of a different creed , he regarded as an open violation of their natural rights ; to drag to public worship the irreligious and the unwilling , seemed only like requiring hypocrisy . . . . ' No one should be bound to worship , or ,' he added , ' to maintain a worship , against his own consent .' ' What !' exclaimed his antagonists , amazed at his tenets , ' is not the labourer worthy of his hire ?' ' Yes ,' replied he , ' from them that hire him .'" -- Bancroft , pt . 1 , ch . 15 , par . 2 .
Roger Williams was respected and beloved as a faithful minister , a man of rare gifts , of unbending integrity and true benevolence ; yet his steadfast denial of the right of civil magistrates to authority over the church , and his demand for religious liberty , could not be tolerated . The application of this new doctrine , it was urged , would " subvert the fundamental state and government of the country ." -- Ibid ., pt . 1 , ch . 15 , par . 10 . He was sentenced to banishment from the colonies , and , finally , to avoid arrest , he was forced to flee , amid the cold and storms of winter , into the unbroken forest .
" For fourteen weeks ," he says , " I was sorely tossed in a bitter season , not knowing what bread or bed did mean ." But " the ravens fed me in the wilderness ," and a hollow tree often served him for a shelter . --Martyn , vol . 5 , pp . 349 , 350 . Thus he continued his painful flight through the snow and the trackless forest , until he found refuge with an Indian tribe whose confidence and affection he had won while endeavouring to teach them the truths of the gospel .
Making his way at last , after months of change and wandering , to the shores of Narragansett Bay , he there laid the foundation of the first state of modern times that in the fullest sense recognized the right of religious freedom . The fundamental principle of Roger Williams ' s colony was " that every man should have liberty to worship God according to the light of his own conscience ." -- Ibid ., vol . 5 , p . 354 . His little state , Rhode Island , became the asylum of the oppressed , and it increased and prospered until its foundation principles--civil and religious liberty--became the cornerstones of the American Republic .
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