Two brothers for instance who wanted to have the Prayer Book used
in full were calmly told that New England was no place for them,
and they were shipped home again. Later a minister named Roger
Williams was banished from Massachusetts, for he preached that
there ought to be no connection between Church and State; that a
man was responsible to God alone for his opinions; and that no man
had a right to take from or give to another a vote because of the
Church to which he belonged.
It seemed to him a deadly sin to have had anything whatever to do
with the Church of England, a sin for which every one ought to do
public penance. He also said that the land of America belonged to
the natives, and not to the King of England. Therefore the King of
England could not possibly give it to the settlers, and they ought
to bargain for it with the natives. Otherwise they could have no
right to it.
This idea seemed perfectly preposterous to those old settlers, for,
said they, "he chargeth King James to have told a solemn, public
lie, because in his patent he blessed God that he was the first
Christian prince that had discovered this land." They might think
little enough of their King in their hearts, but it was not for a
mere nobody to start such a ridiculous theory as this.
We, looking back, can see that Williams was a good and pious man,
a man before his time, right in many of his ideas, though not very
wise perhaps in his way of pressing them.
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