Memoir of Roger Williams, the Founder of the State of Rhode-IslandKnowles, James D. (James Davis)
History
Memoir of Roger Williams, the Founder of the State of Rhode-Island
Knowles, James D. (James Davis)
Rhode Island -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Williams, Roger, 1604?-1683
“The wandering generations of Adam’s lost posterity, having lost the
true and living God, their Maker, have created, out of the nothing
of their own inventions, many false and feigned gods and creators.
“More particular,
“Two sorts of men shall naked stand,
Before the burning ire
Of him, that shortly shall appear,
In dreadful flaming fire.
First, millions know not God, nor for
His knowledge care to seek;
Millions have knowledge store, but, in
Obedience, are not meek.
If woe to Indians, where shall Turk,
Where shall appear the Jew?
O, where shall stand the Christian false?
O, blessed then the true.”
The work displays genius, industry and benevolence. It was very valuable
when it was written, and it is still one of the best works on the
subject. It breathes, throughout, a spirit of piety, and it closes in
the following devout strain:
“Now, to the Most High and Most Holy, Immortal, Invisible, and only
wise God, who alone is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the
ending, the first and the last, who was, and is, and is to come;
from whom, by whom, and to whom are all things; by whose gracious
assistance and wonderful supportment in so many varieties of
hardship and outward miseries, I have had such converse with
barbarous nations, and have been mercifully assisted, to frame this
poor Key, which may (through his blessing, in his own holy season,)
open a door, yea, doors of unknown mercies to us and them, be honor,
glory, power, riches, wisdom, goodness and dominion ascribed by all
his in Jesus Christ to eternity. Amen.”
Of the original edition, the copy in the library of the Massachusetts
Historical Society is probably the only one in this country. In the
third and fifth volumes of the Society’s Collections, first series, a
large part of the work was republished. The first volume of the
Collections of the Rhode-Island Historical Society contains a handsome
edition of the Key, with a well written preface, and a brief memoir of
the author.
His next publication was entitled “The Bloody Tenet of Persecution, for
Cause of Conscience, discussed, in a Conference between Truth and Peace,
who, in all tender affection, present to the High Court of Parliament
(as the result of their Discourse) these, (amongst other passages) of
highest consideration. Printed in the year 1644.” It was published
without the name of the author.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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