Separation of Church and State

9 Pages 2290 Words

ur Congress, city hall, and all the way to the Supreme Court.
When Roger Williams came to Massachusetts Bay in 1631, he came with ”a reputation for learning and piety” (Miller 163), or religious devotion, and was soon offered a position as a minister in a Boston church. However, although he was a Puritan and believed the Church of England needed purifying, he also believed the new churches needed to be separated from the rule of the Church of England and the civil government. He turned down the ministerial position and later wrote “ ‘I durst not officiate to an unseparated people’ ” (Guastad 64). Because of the Puritan belief that “there had to be one uniform national religious policy” (Miller, 161), Williams moved on to Salem, and then to Plymouth where he became the leader of a separatist group. Williams was in fact, so much a separatist that it later became his demise. As an assistant pastor of a church in Salem, he attacked the church government, and then went on to attack the civil government as well. He was “protesting that magistrates must not punish Sabbathbreakers or violaters of any other religious requirement” (Gaustad 64-65). He was insisting to the New England government that they had no jurisdiction over the church because they had not properly purchased the land it sat on from the Indians. As a result of this outcry by Williams, he was ordered by trial verdict “that the said Mr. Williams shall depart out of this jurisdiction” (Gaustad 65). This event led Williams to a new settlement he named Providence, which he purchased from the Indians. Many separatists, as well as others, came flocking to this newly established land. One settler who helped Williams, in a profound way, establish the groundwork for religious freedom was John Clarke. The labors of these two men, Clarke and Williams, were intense and later rewarded by the Royal Charter obtained in 1663. This Charter declared “…th...