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A few quotes from
Baptists in America of the 17th and 18 centuries.
1640
"An enforced uniformity of religion throughout a nation or civil
state, confounds the civil and religious, denies the principles of
Christianity and civility, and that Jesus Christ has come in the
flesh." Roger Williams (founder of First Baptist Church in America), The
Bloody Tenet of Persecution.
1640
"When they [the Church]
have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the
garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever
broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made
His Garden a wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He
will ever please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of
necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all
that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the
wilderness of the World." Roger Williams, "Mr. Cotton's Letter Lately Printed, Examined and
Answered," The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, Vol.
1, 108.
1773
"Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the
state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but,
quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are
beyond the competence of the state." Isaac Backus, colonial Baptist from New England, An Appeal to
the Public for Religious Liberty.
1790
"The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever.
... Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking
freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend
for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is
despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest
to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks,
Pagans and Christians." John Leland, "A
Chronicle of His Time in Virginia," The Writings of the Later Elder
John Leland, published in 1845.
1791
"These establishments metamorphose the church into a creature, and
religion into a principle of state, which has a natural tendency to
make men conclude that Bible religion is nothing but a trick of
state." John Leland, "Right of Conscience
Inalienable, and Therefore, Religious Opinions Not Cognizable By The
Law," The Writings of the Later Elder John Leland, published in
1845.
1804
"Experience...has informed us that the fondness of magistrates to
foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions
ever did." The Writings of the Later
Elder John Leland, published in 1845.
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