antichristian; and the church never took harm by the punishment of heretics."-- Ibid., vol. 5, p. 335. The regulation was adopted by the colonists that only church members should have a voice in the civil government. A kind of state church was formed, all the people being required to contribute to the support of the clergy, and the magistrates being authorized to suppress heresy. Thus the secular power was in the hands of the church. It was not long before these measures led to the inevitable result--persecution.
Eleven years after the planting of the first colony, Roger Williams came to the New World. Like the early Pilgrims he came to enjoy religious freedom; but, unlike them, he saw--what so few in his time had yet seen--that this freedom was the inalienable right of all, whatever might be their creed. He was an earnest seeker for truth, with Robinson holding it impossible that all the light from God ' s word had yet been received. Williams " was the first person in modern Christendom to 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 laborer 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
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