Ecclesiastical Authority in the Land of Roger Williams

D R. JOHN CLARKE may not have realized all he was asking in 1662 when he petitioned the officialdom of Charles II to approve "a livelie experiment" in religious freedom for the white settlers in Rhode Island. Clarke and those for whom he spoke promised secular benefits not in spite of but as the direct result of separating religion from the state: soul liberty would conduce to "a most flourishing civill state" by inspiring a "true pietye" that would "lay in the hearts of men the strongest obligations to true loyaltye" to the crown.1 The long history of religious wars in Europe made the hypothesis appealing, but the short record of political turmoil already accumulated in Rhode Island suggested that success was dubious, for all Clarke's optimism. Moreover, he said nothing