The Complete Writings Of Roger Williams Volume 3

Ten years after the U. S. Civil War, a group of men in Rhode Island made a conserted effort to rescue the widely scattered writings of Roger Williams. Few sets were printed though, and under the guidance of Perry Miller, 'The Complete Writings of Roger Williams' were brought back in 1963, but still in short numbers. The present collection now makes these volumes available to readers in their original orthography. The theme of religious liberty is dominant in these volumes, running through Williams's correspondence with John Cotton and on through his famous pair of works on 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution.' All of the extant shorter writings and letters of Roger Williams are included in this set, along with two significant works resulting from his engagement with Native Americans: his seminal 'Key into the Language of America and Christenings Make Not Christians.'

Ten years after the U. S. Civil War, a group of men in Rhode Island made a conserted effort to rescue the widely scattered writings of Roger Williams. Few sets were printed though, and under the guidance of Perry Miller, The Complete Writings of Roger Williams were brought back in 1963, but still in short numbers. The present collection now makes these volumes available to readers in their original orthography. The theme of religious liberty is dominant in these volumes, running through Williams's correspondence with John Cotton and on through his famous pair of works on The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution. All of the extant shorter writings and letters of Roger Williams are included in this set, along with two significant works resulting from his engagement with Native Americans: his seminal Key into the Language of America and Christenings Make Not Christians.

This is a facsimile reprint of the 1964 edition published in New York by Russell & Russell, Inc., which was itself an enlarged version of the original produced in 1867 by the Narragansett Club Publications, Providence, RI.

Among those banished was Roger Williams, the advocate of religious liberty who also founded the colony of Rhode Island and established the first Baptist church in America. Williams opposed the Puritans' use of the Bible to persecute radicals who rejected the state's established religion. In retaliation against the use of scripture for violent purposes, Williams argued that religious liberty was a biblical concept that offered the only means of eliminating the religious wars and persecutions that plagued the seventeenth century.

Roger Williams, New England troublemaker and founder of Rhode Island, is seldom included among the great figures in American Reformed theology. Yet Williams's arguments for religious liberty were deeply rooted in Puritan Calvinism. This book explores the "moral theology" that informed Williams's spirited defense of toleration, demonstrating how Reformed theology in Williams's hands allowed him to defend the integrity of religious convictions while also making the case for conversation and cooperation with moral citizens outside his circle of faith. The Columbia Series in Reformed Theology represents a joint commitment by Columbia Theological Seminary and Westminster John Knox Press to provide theological resources from the Reformed tradition for the church today. This series examines theological and ethical issues that confront church and society in our own particular time and place.

Ten years after the U. S. Civil War, a group of men in Rhode Island made a conserted effort to rescue the widely scattered writings of Roger Williams. Few sets were printed though, and under the guidance of Perry Miller, 'The Complete Writings of Roger Williams' were brought back in 1963, but still in short numbers. The present collection now makes these volumes available to readers in their original orthography. The theme of religious liberty is dominant in these volumes, running through Williams's correspondence with John Cotton and on through his famous pair of works on 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution.' All of the extant shorter writings and letters of Roger Williams are included in this set, along with two significant works resulting from his engagement with Native Americans: his seminal 'Key into the Language of America and Christenings Make Not Christians.'