The Story of Roger Williams

Can you imagine life under the rule of a civil government controlled by the church? A look at Roger Williams’s life can help us see what it would be like.

Roger Williams was born in England around the year 1603. He grew up at a time when religious issues and strong religious feelings rocked the country. In those days, it was costly, even dangerous, to hold opinions that were contrary to the creed of the established church. It didn’t matter how clearly those opinions could be supported by the word of God — if they were contrary to the creed, they were dangerous heresies. In fact, the more evidence found in the Word of God to prove them, the more dangerous they were.

Those were the days of the Anabaptists, the Mennonites, the Separatists, the Pilgrims, and the Puritans — groups which would not conform to the church in England and who were persecuted by it. Thus, Roger Williams grew up seeing the oppression that resulted when the church and state were combined. He came to believe that men should have the freedom to follow their conscience in religious matters. This opinion made him an undesirable citizen in the eyes of the establishment and he was forced to flee England. At that time another man, named Leighton, was punished for publishing a book written against the church. For that act he was committed to prison for life, fined ten thousand pounds, degraded from his ministry, whipped, pilloried, his ears cut off, his nose slit and his face branded with a hot iron.

In the New World

In 1631 Roger Williams landed in Boston. He had come to America to find freedom of belief and worship; instead, he found the church here still connected to the church in England and just as oppressive. He refused to join the church in Boston because it still held communion with the Church of England, from which he had just fled. He thought it his duty to renounce all connection with any church that would stain its hands in the blood of the Lord’s people. Obviously it greatly troubled Roger Williams to find in the New World the same oppressive conditions that had caused him to flee from the Old. Without delay or concern for his own life, he began to speak out boldly against the established church’s persecution of those who dissented for the sake of conscience.

Williams was elected pastor of the congregation in Salem, but later left it to live in the Plymouth Colony where a greater degree of toleration existed, and there he continued to preach and teach in the church. A few years later he was again invited to become the pastor of the Salem church and accepted the invitation, although the magistrates and ministers of the Bay Colony strongly objected. At once his opponents began to denounce his teachings and he was summoned to appear before the Court to answer charges brought against his "heretical" opinions.

Roger Williams was called to answer for his belief that no civil magistrate had the right to enforce religion or religious practices. Such a teaching, of course, was diametrically opposed to the principles on which the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded. Sabbath breakers were severely punished there and everyone was forced to attend church and pay taxes to support it. Williams’s views were regarded by the officials as a very serious matter.

Roger Williams was sentenced to banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony on October 9, 1635. Because no ships could sail for England at that season, his time was extended. During those months, Roger Williams made no attempt to preach or teach in public. Many people, however, who sympathized with him would gather at his house each Sunday to listen to him share his views in private. This, of course, meant they were not in their accustomed places of worship on that day, which didn’t please the officials of the established church. It was also against the law.

Flight to Rhode Island

For some time, Roger Williams had envisioned founding a state in which its inhabitants should enjoy the fullest liberty in matters of conscience. He also wanted to recognize the rights of the Indians, the original inhabitants of the land. Roger Williams’ intention to establish a new state based upon the principles of freedom of conscience and the rights of the Indians greatly alarmed the Puritan leaders. Without further delay they made plans to banish him from their colony. A ship at anchor in Boston harbor was about to set sail, and they decided to send Williams to England on board. A warrant issued by the court at Boston summoned Williams to appear. He replied that he believed his life to be in danger and did not obey the summons. An officer was sent to bring him, but when the officer arrived at Williams’s house, he discovered that he had been gone three days, and no one knew where he had fled.

Leaving his wife and three children, the youngest less than three months old, and having mortgaged his property at Salem to provide his needs, Roger Williams escaped into the wilderness to find refuge among the Indians. There he found the freedom which he could not find in Massachusetts. In later writings, Williams recalls how he was "denied the common air to breathe in ... and almost without mercy and human compassion, exposed to winter miseries in a howling wilderness." For fourteen weeks he endured these miseries of the wilderness "not knowing what bread or bed did mean." During this time, whatever shelter he found was in the dingy, smoky lodges of the Indians. Their hospitality to him in his time of need was something he sought to repay with kindness all the rest of his life.

At Seekonk, on the east bank of the Pawtucket River, Williams broke ground for a habitation and began to plant and build; but before his crop had time to mature, the Plymouth officials learned of his whereabouts and warned him that he was a trespasser on their lands and must move on. With five companions he embarked in a frail canoe and traveled further down the river. At the mouth of the Moshassuck River they landed near a spring and founded a settlement which they called Providence. Williams intended it as a refuge for those distressed of conscience.

As soon as it was known that Roger Williams had started a settlement, men of various beliefs who had also been oppressed by the hierarchy of New England began to gather around him. Williams purchased land from the Indians and other settlements were founded by his followers. These were finally brought into one colony under the title of the Providence Plantations. But before these settlements had time to unify under a common government, news reached them that the Indians of New England were beginning to join together to exterminate all the English in New England. The powerful Pequots proposed to unite with the Mohegans and the Narragansetts to accomplish this purpose. It was a critical time for the small colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth and Connecticut. Rhode Island was in no immediate danger since the Rhode Islanders had paid for their lands and were on good terms with the neighboring Indians.