Furnace: Roger Williams in EnglandXlibris Corporation, 2006 M06 16 - 481 pages LONDON, 1612. A dealer in cloth is being burned at the stake in a macabre ceremony of theological cleansing. He would be an ordinary man but for his willingness to die in extraordinary pain for his religious convictions. In the festive crowd stands a boy of nine--too young, some would say--to begin to comprehend the meaning of this judicial murder. But the impact of this burning will alter the boys life and sent him on an unrelenting quest for answers from his society. He is Roger Williams, future founder of Rhode Island, the sanctuary for those who would worship as they please. But it is still thousands of miles and a score of years before his thinking will take flight into the doctrine of soul liberty. The author evokes the stages of self-awareness as the young Roger gropes with doubts about the validity of a church-state collaboration. His orthodox father threatens to throw him into the street, and neither his parish church nor his schoolmasters are of any help in his search for a just and reassuring God. The random death of a beloved friend from the plague of 1623 so shocks him that he ascends an empty pulpit to admonish the Almighty. This rash confrontation does not go unnoticed by the bishops spies. From this moment he is a marked man in the eyes of the Anglican Church. But Roger has his friends as well. There is Chief Justice Edward Coke who exposes him to the world of power and who protects him from the fallout of his rashness; his brother Sydrach who introduces him to the strong waters of Dutch liberalism; and young sensible Mary Barnard who helps him back on his path after a disastrous love affair and who accompanies him across the ocean to a rendezvous with destiny. To Roger Williams belongs the honor of being the foremost advocate in the New World of the separation of church and state. For his stance in defense of religious liberty he was reviled and even exiled from his home in Massachusetts Bay colony. But how did the founder of Rhode Island colony as a refuge for non-conformists get to be the sort of person he was? This journey from a childhood at odds with father, schoolteachers and the church to the maturity of a self-possessed champion of religious freedom is carefully chronicled in this fictional autobiography. Because religious experience, more than abstract ideas, permeate the book, it makes no pretense to being a theological tract. It is instead a lucid and compelling account of a young mans climb to greatness in the confines of 17th century Jacobean England. The statue of Roger Williams stands next to Calvins in Geneva, but the central figure of this fast-paced, almost cinematic, novel, is no creature of stone. His mistakes were all too many, his self-betrayals all too frequent, but he clearly emerges as the complex, courageous apostle of non-conformity whom few of his contemporaries could tolerate, let along understand. History casts Roger Williams passionate defense of religious freedom in an age of intolerance as a landmark in the evolution of 17th century thought and practice, but this is a posthumous recognition, and the boy attending the fateful burning in 1612 could hardly anticipate where his path would lead. FURNACE takes us through the many intense confrontations that molded his revolutionary stand on the separation of church and state and helps us better to understand the relationship of our own church and state in the light of his spiritual journey |
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Page 19
... light barged onto the stone floor . " Fare thee well ! " Out of some impulse deep , deep within me I then did something no English schoolboy in his senses would think of doing . I laid hold of his cassock and gave it a violent shake ...
... light barged onto the stone floor . " Fare thee well ! " Out of some impulse deep , deep within me I then did something no English schoolboy in his senses would think of doing . I laid hold of his cassock and gave it a violent shake ...
Page 21
... light ? " Sydrach ? " Sydrach made a low , grumbling sound . “ Tell me again about the time you rang the hand bell outside Newgate . Did you see the faces of the prisoners ? What were they feeling , the ones who were going to hang that ...
... light ? " Sydrach ? " Sydrach made a low , grumbling sound . “ Tell me again about the time you rang the hand bell outside Newgate . Did you see the faces of the prisoners ? What were they feeling , the ones who were going to hang that ...
Page 30
... you must seek in the fires of hell ! " Through the deafening cheering a single voice shouted , “ Light the torch ! " And the black pitch was lit and applied as prescribed around the circle . The custom . The faggots smoldered 30 FURNACE.
... you must seek in the fires of hell ! " Through the deafening cheering a single voice shouted , “ Light the torch ! " And the black pitch was lit and applied as prescribed around the circle . The custom . The faggots smoldered 30 FURNACE.
Page 33
... definitely to one side, smoldered on. I dropped to my knees in wordless prayer. The sky overhead parted for an instant, and a shaft of golden light softly dropped a halo over the stake. • 2 . IN A CITY I WAS BORN IN London: 1612-1623 33.
... definitely to one side, smoldered on. I dropped to my knees in wordless prayer. The sky overhead parted for an instant, and a shaft of golden light softly dropped a halo over the stake. • 2 . IN A CITY I WAS BORN IN London: 1612-1623 33.
Page 37
... light throw the creature and his nightly crew unceremoniously out the window. This was another dream, wasn't it? I closed my eyes to see if he was inside of me. Aye, he was inside. Very much inside. His hot black fur was stuck to the ...
... light throw the creature and his nightly crew unceremoniously out the window. This was another dream, wasn't it? I closed my eyes to see if he was inside of me. Aye, he was inside. Very much inside. His hot black fur was stuck to the ...
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answer arms Bartholomew Legate bells Bible breath Catherine chair church corner cried dance dear desk door Drake dream Elizabeth Hatton eyes face Father Spenser feet fingers floor gave God's hand Hatfield Broad Oak Hatton House head hear heard High Laver horse Jane knew Lady Barrington Lady Hatton Lady Masham laughed London looked Lord Lord Coke Mama Mary Mary Barnard matter Mayhap merchant taylor mind never night Papa Papa's Pietr prayer pulpit Rachel reached Roger Williams Sepulchre's sermon shouted side silence Sir Edward Sir Edward Coke Sir William smile Smithfield someone Star Chamber steps stood stopped street sure Sydrach talk Teach tell thank Thee things Thou thought Tomocomo took turned Uncle Pem voice waited walk wall window woman words دو