An Historical Discourse - Delivered at the Celebration of the Second Centennial Anniversary of the First Baptist Church, in Providence, November 7, 1839 #261272

Two hundred years have now passed, since was founded in the colony which had become known as the asylum of Oppressed consciences, this Church, the first of the Baptist name which was planted on the continent of America. Al though that event occurred in a small commu nity, in the midst of a savage wilderness, yet it was not shrouded in complete obscurity.e Its founder was among the lights of his age, the friend of Cromwell and of Miltonfir and like his companions, an exile on account of his faith. It was the grief and wonder of the Puritans among whom he first ministered, that a man so learned and so eloquent, so disinterested and so pious, could not submit himself to the laws of their church establishment, but claimed for man as man of every nation and of every creed, the same liberty of conscience which he demanded for himself. Not understanding as he did the nature of the christian dispensation, nor the full meaning of the truth that the weapons of christ ianity are not carnal but Spiritual, not carrying out in all its length the maxim of Chillingworth.