On the repeal of all laws requiring attendance on religious worship.
To us, in this century, the justice of each of these principles is self-evident.

But in the seventeenth century there was no country in the world where it was safe to declare them.

For doing so in some parts of Europe, a man would most certainly have been burned at the stake.

For doing so in England, he would have been put in the pillory, or had his ears cut off, or been sent to jail.

That Williams's teachings should seem rank heresy in New England was quite natural.