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A false religion out of the church will not hurt the church, any more than weeds in the wilderness hurt an enclosed garden, or poisons hurt the body when they are not taken, and antidotes are received against them.
Roger Williams
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The civil state is bound before God to take off that bond and yoke of soul oppression, and to proclaim free and impartial liberty to all the people of the three nations to choose and maintain what worship and ministry their souls and consciences are persuaded of; which act, as it will prove an act of mercy and righteousness to the enslaved nations, so is it of a binding force to engage the whole and every interest and conscience to preserve the common freedom and peace; however, an act most suiting with the piety and Christianity of the Holy Testament of Christ Jesus.
Roger Williams
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God needeth not the help of a material sword of steel to assist the sword of the Spirit in the affairs of conscience.
Roger Williams
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God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.
Roger Williams
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Such parents or children as aim at the gain and preferment of religion do often mistake gain and gold for godliness, godbelly for the true God, and some false for the true Lord Jesus.
Roger Williams
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Having bought truth dear, we must not sell it cheap, not the least grain of it for the whole world.
Roger Williams
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It is but little of the world yet that hath heard the lost estate of mankind and of a Savior, Christ Jesus; and as yet the fullness of the gentiles has not come, and probably shall not until the downfall of the Papacy.
Roger Williams
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'Tis but worldly policy and compliance with men and times (God's mercy overruling) that holds your hands from the murdering of thousands and ten thousands, were your power and command as great as the bloody Roman emperors' formerly was.
Roger Williams
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The sovereign power of all civil authority is founded in the consent of the people.
Roger Williams
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No man ever did, nor ever shall, truly go forth to convert the nations, nor to prophesy in the present state of witnesses against Antichrist, but by the gracious inspiration and instigation of the Holy Spirit of God. … I know no other True Sender, but the most Holy Spirit.
Roger Williams
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There is a moral virtue, a moral fidelity, ability and honesty, which other men, besides church members, are, by good nature and education, by good laws and good examples nourished and trained up in; so that civil places and trust and credit need not be monopolized into the hands of church members (who sometimes are not fitted for public office), while all others are deprived and despoiled of their natural and civil rights and liberties.
Roger Williams
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Civil government is an ordinance of God, to conserve the civil peace of a people, so far as concerns their bodies and goods.
Roger Williams
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The magistrates of whom Paul wrote were natural, ungodly, persecuting, and yet lawful magistrates, to be obeyed in all lawful civil things.
Roger Williams
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That cannot be a true religion which needs carnal weapons to uphold it.
Roger Williams
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Reflect upon your own spirit, and believe Him that said it to His overzealous disciples, 'You know not what spirit you are of.'
Roger Williams
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The ministry or service of prophets and witnesses, mourning and prophesying in sackcloth, God has directly commissioned and upheld all during the reign of the beast and antichrist of Rome. This witness is probably near finished, and the bloody storm of slaughter is yet to be expected and prepared for.
Roger Williams
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All men of conscience or prudence ply to windward, to maintain their wars to be defensive.
Roger Williams
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If the civil magistrate be a Christian, a disciple or follower of the meek Lamb of God, he is bound to be far from destroying the bodies of men for refusing to receive the Lord Jesus Christ: for otherwise he would be ignorant of the sweet end of Christ's coming, which was to save the bodies and souls of men.
Roger Williams
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All civil states with their officers of justice in their respective constitutions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not judges, governors, or defenders of the spiritual or Christian state and worship.
Roger Williams
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Opinions offensive are of two sorts: some savoring of impiety, and some of incivility.
Against the first, Christ Jesus never called for the sword of steel to help the sword of the spirit, that two-edged sword that comes out of the mouth of the Lord Jesus...
The second sort, to wit, opinions of incivility, doubtless the opinions as well as practices are the proper object of the civil sword...
Roger Williams
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The first grand design of Christ Jesus is to destroy and consume His mortal enemy antichrist. This must be done by the breath of His mouth in His prophets and witnesses. Now, the nations of the world have impiously stopped this heavenly breath and stifled the Lord Jesus in His servants. Now, it shall please the civil state to remove the state bars set up to resist the holy spirit of God in His servants (whom yet finally to resist is not in all the powers of the world), I humbly conceive that the civil state has made a fair progress in promoting the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Roger Williams
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Enforced uniformity confounds civil and religious liberty and denies the principles of Christianity and civility. No man shall be required to worship or maintain a worship against his will.
Roger Williams
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Men's consciences ought in no sort to be violated, urged, or constrained. And whenever men have attempted any thing by this violent course, whether openly or by secret means, the issue has been pernicious, and the cause of great and wonderful innovations in the principallest and mightiest kingdoms and countries...
Roger Williams
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An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.
Roger Williams
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The natives are very exact and punctual in the bounds of their lands, belonging to this or that prince or people, even to a river, brook, &c. And I have known them make bargain and sale amongst themselves for a small piece or quantity of ground ; notwithstanding a sinful opinion amongst many, that christians have right to heathen's land.
Roger Williams
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Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Roger Williams
Creative Commons
Born:
1603
Died:
1684
(aged 81)
Bio:
Roger Williams was a Puritan, an English Reformed theologian and later a Reformed Baptist, who was an early proponent of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.
Known for:
A Key Into the Language of America (1643)
The Bloody Tenent Yet More Bloody (1652)
Experiments of Spiritual Life and Health (1652)
Most used words:
civil
jesus
god
state
christ
sword
nations
religion
holy
worship
spirit
peace
souls
lord
conscience
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