The following letter of Mr. Williams to Governor Leverett, of Massachusetts, is very interesting and characteristic: “To the Governor at Boston, present. Per neighbor Samuel Whiffel. “_Providence, 11, 8, 75, (so accounted.)_ “Sir, “Yours of the 7th I gladly and thankfully received, and humbly desire to praise that Most High and Holy Hand, invisible and only wise, who casts you down, by so many public and personal trials, and lifts you up again with any (_lucida intervalla_) mitigations and refreshments. _Ab inferno nulla redemptio_: from the grave and hell no return. Here, like Noah’s dove, we have our checker work, blacks and whites come out and go into the ark, out and in again till the last, whom we never see back again. “The business of the day in New-England is not only to keep ourselves from murdering, our houses, barns, &c. from firing, to destroy and cut off the barbarians, or subdue and reduce them, but our main and principal _opus diei_ is, to listen to what the Eternal speaketh to the whole ship, (the country, colonies, towns, &c.) and each private cabin, family, person, &c. He will speak peace to his people; therefore, saith David, ‘I will listen to what Jehovah speaketh.’ Oliver, in straits and defeats, especially at Hispaniola, desired all to speak and declare freely what they thought the mind of God was. H. Vane (then laid by) wrote his discourse, entitled “A Healing Question,” but for touching upon (that _noli me tangere_) State sins, H. Vane went prisoner to Carisbrook Castle, in the Isle of Wight. Oh, Sir, I humbly subscribe (_ex animo_) to your short and long prayer, in your letter. The Lord keep us from our own deceivings. I know there have been, and are, many precious and excellent spirits amongst you, (if you take flight before me, I will then say you are one of them, without daubing,) but _rebus sic stantibus_, as the wind blows, the united colonies dare not permit, _candida et bona fide_, two dangerous (supposed) enemies: 1. dissenting and non-conforming worshippers, and 2. liberty of free (really free) disputes, debates, writing, printing, &c.; the Most High hath begun and given some taste of these two dainties in some parts, and will more and more advance them when (as Luther and Erasmus to the Emperor, Charles V., and the Duke of Saxony,) those two gods are famished, the Pope’s crown and the Monks’ bellies. The same Luther was wont to say, that every man had a pope in his belly, and Calvin expressly wrote to Melancthon, that Luther made himself another Pope; yet, which of us will not say, Jeremiah, thou liest, when he tells us (and from God) we must not go down to Egypt?