30 Phil, Chapter 23, Roger Williams, Touchstone 57: Separation of Church and State.

More than a historical or religious treatise, the Bloody Tenet by Roger Williams is a seminal work. It launched a full-throttle assault on the prevailing norms of religious and political intolerance that plagued both Old and New England. In it, he passionately argued for the separation of church and state insisting that governments had no role in regulating thought or belief. One of Williams’ most evocative lines was the call for separation:

“…a hedge or wall of separation between the Garden of the Church and the Wilderness of the world.”