Religious Liberty: In Maryland and Rhode Island (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Religious Liberty: In Maryland and Rhode Island

First, then, what did Williams teach on the sub ject of religious liberty? Candid criticism must admit that so far as his words go, he unmistakably preached absolute full freedom of conscience from civil inter ference, although here and there we notice a slight shading of opposite color. In his Bloody Tenent Made More Bloody (written as a defense of his Bloody Tenent of Persecution published in he writes: As it would be confusion for the Church to censure such matters and acts of such persons as belong not to the Church; so it is confusion for the State to punish spiritual offences, for they are not within the sphere of civil jurisdiction. The Civil State and magistrate are merely and essentially civil, and, therefore, cannot reach (without transgressing the bounds of civility) to judge in matters spiritual, which are of another sphere and nature than civility is.

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