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he legislated on the just principle , charged upon him as a dangerous heresy , by his fellow-emigrants , who banished him from Salem in 1634 , ' < that the magistrate has nothing to do in matters of the first table . " This work , The Bloody Tenent , as I was called upon to mention on the public occasion to which you have
referred , appears to me to substantiate the claim of Roger Williams to the high praise of having understood and asserted , as early as 1644 , all which an enlightened Christian and politician can now maintain respecting the just origin and proper objects of civil government , and the distinct provinces of this world and the world to come . He
certainly proceeds firm and erect where Milton , in 1659 , also addressing the Parliament on the assumption of " civil power in ecclesiastical causes , ** and again , in 1673 , in his treatise " Of True Religion /* sadly stumbled , on the
case of the Papists . Of these , Milton poorly says , " If they ought not to be tolerated , it is for just reason of state more than of religion , " but of whose hi idolatrv " he adds . << f a magistrate % i idolatry /* he adds f a magistrate
, can hardly err in prohibiting and quite removing , at least the public and scandalous use thereof . ** In 1673 he declares , that " Popery , as being idolatrous , is not to be tolerated , either in public or in private . ** I think , too , that Roger Williams would not have treated so complaisantly as Mr . Locke has done , that miserable counterfeit of
religious liberty , * the Act of Toleration . " Mr . Backus complained in 1777 , when writing his History , that he could not procure , in America , a copy of the Bloody Tenent , and , besides that which I have mentioned , I am
aware of only one in England , which is in the possession of my friend Dr . Evans . There do not appear to be any of Roger Williams ' s Works in the Red-Cross Street Library . Those in the British Museum are the following , all printed at London : " Key to the Language of America /* 12 mo . 1643 .
" Mr . Cotton ' s Letter examined and answered / ' 4 to . 1644 . " The Hireling Ministry none of Christ ' s / ' 4 to . 1652 . " The Bloody Tenent yet more Bloody by JVJr . Cotton ' s endeavour to
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wash it White in the Blood of the Lambe /* 4 to . 1652 . The author was now again in England , and writes , in April 1653 , " from Sir Henry Vane ' s , at Belleau , in Lincolnshire , " where he " stayed some ten weeks . " Under these circumstances , but for the experience I have , gained during the last five years , I might , perhaps , be inclined to recommend to some
person , who would gratify himself by preserving the mind and memory of such a man , and who has the leisure which I know not when I can command , to republish The Bloody Tenenty if not the defence , in rejoinder to Mr . Cotton , prefixing suck a Me * moir as would make the volume
comprehend all that can now be discovered respecting the character and history of Roger Williams . But as such a scheme , should the whole of those pieces fee still sufficiently interesting , is not likely to be encouraged , so as to save an editor from pecuniary loss , the only
plausible project is a short Memoir , from which a biographer could scarcely incur any expenditure , but of time and attention , which , I trust , many would be ready to bestow on a worthy object . Such a biographer may command what * ever assistance is in my power *
In the mean time , should any of your readers possess either of the four pieces of Roger Williams , which are in the British Museum , especially the first , I shall be much obliged to them for an opportunity of consulting the work at home .
J . T . RUTT . P . S . Of the " Letter to a Clergyman , " ( p . 364 , ) " by G . Coade , Jun ., Merchant at Exeter , " it appears that " the first edition came out in 1744 , " as noticed by a former possessor of the second edition now before me . On
the first leaf he has written the following information : " Mem . By the same ingenious author of this admirable letter , was published a first , second and third edition of the horrid , immous , cruel V ^ V « VJtTjFX M V ^* VKAX . ' ** V ^« . M * V * A M . MM . M B ^ A ^ r + * m +-r ** SM . XW ^ X *
* J persecution of the Methodists at Exeter , in the year 1744 ; excited by the clergy , winked at by the magistrates , and perpetrated by the mob ! One Lnmngton was then Bishop of Exeter , who , with one Syles , Archdeacon
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On a Memoir of Roger Williams . £ 0 H
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 401, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/21/
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