An Account of the Churches in Rhode Island

bestow upon her. In his kind providence, a providence all wise and just, God gave to our ancestors this soil, and the privilege to administer in its waters, for the first time in America, Christian Baptism to believers in Christ, on the profession of their faith in Him, as taught in the New Testament and practised by our Lord and his disciples. And it was also granted to them to give to the world in the simplest and most distinct form, liberty of conscience and illustrations of its exercise. The Charter of this Colony, obtained from Charles II, July 8th, 1663, through the agency of John Clark, then in England, was the first full legal instrument that the world ever saw, wherein the rights of conscience in all matters of religious faith were guaranteed to everycitizen alike, and in which no one was required to submit to any legal restraint, except in civil affairs alone : a charter, the priviliges of which had been shadowed forth in the convictions and sentiments as expressed by our fathers from the earliest settlement of the Colony, as well as in the principles of the charter previously obtained from the Earl of Warwick by Roger Williams, (who was specially commissioned for the purpose,) bearing date March 17th, 1643?4; but they were concentrated in this more ample instrument, the main feature of which is so prominent in the Constitutions of our own day, and they were adopted and proclaimed as a law in this State, January 23d, 1843. This high praise was awarde... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.