Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH COLONIAL LITERATURE
He wrote several important polemical tracts, attacking the theology at
Massachusetts Bay Colony and advocating for the separation of church and state.
His Christenings Make Not Christians calls out those in the New World who claim
to be practicing Christians, who cling more to form than real practice of charity for
all humans on earth, including Native Americans.
Image 2.5 | The Return of Roger Williams
Artist | C. R. Grant
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | Public Domain
2.5.1 Christenings Make Not Christians
(1645)
A Briefe Discourse concerning that name HEATHEN Commonly given to the
Indians. As also concerning that great point of their conversion.
Shall rst be humbly bold to inquire into the name Heathen, which the English
give them, & the Dutch approve and practise in their name Heydenen, signifying
Heathen or Nations. How oft have I heard both the English and Dutch (not onely
the civill, but the most ded bauched and profane) fay, These Heathen Dogges, better
kill a thousand of them then that we Christians should be indangered or troubled
with them; Better they were all cut o, & then we shall be no more troubled with
them: They have spilt our Christian bloud, the best way to make riddance of them,
cut them all o, and fo make way for Christians.
I shall therefore humbly intreat my country-men of all forts to consider, that
although men have used to apply this word Heathen to the Indians that go naked,
and have not heard of that One-God, yet this word Heathen is most improperly
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