Select Works of Roger Williams (9 vols.)
Overview
Gathering the most significant writings of Roger Williams, this collection highlights the legacy of a powerful agitator for religious liberty, and the cofounder of the first Baptist church in America.
Explore the early call for a “wall of separation” between church and state as found in the writings of Roger Williams. This collection features his most famous work on religious liberty and church and state relations, The Bloody Tenent of Persecution, as well as his later defense of the work, The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody. Williams’ ideas are further explored and debated in his voluminous correspondence with John Cotton, John Winthrop, and other religious figures, as well as his open letter to the Westminster Assembly, all included here. These and other works provide insight into seventeenth-century debates within the Church of England, the early efforts towards protecting freedom of conscience in the American colonies, the boundaries between church and state, and much more.
Looking for more works from more early American Baptists? See Select Works of Isaac Backus (9 vols.).
- Collects Roger Williams’ most important writings
- Includes the first dictionary of Native American languages and culture published in English
- Contains letters exchanged between Williams and John Cotton, John Winthrop, and other religious figures
- Opens a window into the development of early North American colonies
- Title: Select Works of Roger Williams
- Author: Roger Williams
- Volumes: 9
- Pages: 3,128
- Christian Group: Baptist
- Resource Type: Collected Works; Topical
- Topic: Theology; Philosophy; History
Partially includedRoger Williams (1603–1683) was born in London. He took holy orders in the Church of England, but became a Puritan while studying at Cambridge. As a separatist, he left England for the New World with his wife Mary in late 1630. Arriving in Boston in 1631, Williams refused a position to minister at the Boston church due to the fact it was not a separated church, and eventually found his way to preaching in the Plymouth church, before deciding it too was not separate enough. In 1635, Williams was convicted of sedition and heresy and banished from Massachusetts for views that were deemed dangerous.
In 1636, Williams and a group of followers began a new settlement called Providence, founded on the separation of church and state, political democracy, and the protection of religious liberty. It became a haven for separatists, Quakers, Jews, and other minorities. Williams came to believe in credobaptism. He was baptized in 1638, and involved in founding the first Baptist church in America. Williams was also deeply interested in learning the culture and language of the Native Americans, and is remembered as an advocate for fair dealings—from questioning the Massachusetts Bay colony’s acquisition of land, to forming lasting friendships and alliances with the Narragansetts, and keeping the peace between Rhode Island and the surrounding Native Americans for 40 years. Williams’ ideas about religious tolerance and the separation of church and state, while not widely accepted by his contemporaries, became foundational principles in the creation of the United States more than a century later.