Roger Williams

Thanks rsr, I should have had the courtesy to start a new topic myself.

Bro. Dallas

 

to reply to frogman:

on the matter of the sending of Williams

I believe it was Sir Edmund Cooke (or Cocke depending on the document) who "sent" Williams, or at least sponsored his trip to the New World. Williams was a bit of a protege for Cooke, who discovered Williams taking down sermons verbatim in his own form of short-hand at age 8 or so. Anyhoo, Williams was sent to be a Puritan minister in the Mass.Bay Colonly but had some rather, shall we say, radical beliefs and was thrown out. He was actually offered a pastorate in Boston, which he turned down.

Read his The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for the Cause of Conscience Discussed and you'll see some brillant discussions of Religious Liberty and early baptist doctrines.

On Williams' baptist doctrine

Williams only stayed a baptist for 4 months then he became a seeker and went to minister to the native americans in NE who the Puritans had all but abandoned. A pioneer in Baptist circles and missionological beginings in the Americas. I can't say if he stayed a baptist all his life, he was pretty radical in his approach to Christianity.

If anything Williams was a Baptist at heart simply because he affirmed traditional Baptist beliefs. His starting of the first Baptist church in America is a significant thing for we Baptists. He hung out with some pretty radical people in his day (Anne Hutchinson was one.)

On the person of John Clark

I think Dr. Clark is indeed a better barometer by which to measure early Baptist heritage in America. After founding the RI colony of Newport, Clark started a church where he remained pastor for 40 years. Indeed an example worthy of noting.

great discussion. I think the early American baptists such as Williams, Clark, Stearns, Backus, and Leeland gave us a substantive base for why Baptists have flourished in America. We can surely look at their lives and see many good Christian qualities exampled.

 

Thanks for the information. Just wanted you to know I wasn't ignoring the post.

I agree that Clark is the best study for Baptist principles. Not to say Williams wasn't saved, but he obviously, imho, wasn't a Baptist.

But he is the one who gets the emphasis. I have just sometimes wondered why.

Bro. Dallas