A little more from an old "documentary" (In RI).

         RW stayed in London several more months.
 The battle was on full tilt for Separation or
             State Religion.
 Cotton's tract The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven
 became the Bible of national church forces.
             Then on July 15th
 appeared RW's The Bloody Tenent of Persecution
 for Cause of Conscience, his most far-reaching tract.
             Defending freedom of religion,
 he outlined a political philosophy
 in which government was not divinely engineered,
             but man-made
 to suit the purposes of civilization -
 the common peace and welfare of the people:
             civic virtue
 was a natural attainment, available to all,
 and not an attribute of theological ordinance.
             Spiritual achievement, soul
 liberty, was something yet again, far beyond the reach
 of civil authorities to promote or require, except
             through tolerance.
 
     Since government was by nature humane and civil, "it must 
consequently be of a humane and Civill operation."  Secular 
authorities were bound to promote civic virtue, but it was an 
abomination if they confused good citizenship with religious 
sanctification.  Magistrates or rulers were not stewards of the 
Lord but civil servants of the people; their duty toward religion 
was to protect the right of the citizen to freedom of worship, 
not to determine whether the citizen's religion was true or false. 
These demands for a secular state Williams grounded solidly on 
his deep faith in the common man and the power of reason in a 
free people; and on page after page he drove home the 
revolutionary democratic doctrine that governments derived 
their powers solely from consent of the governed:  "From this 
Grant I infer...that the Soveraigne, originall, and foundation of 
civill power lies in the people...  And if so, that a People may 
erect and establish what forme of Government seemes to them 
most meete for their civill condition: It is evident that such 
Governments as are by them erected and established, have no 
more power, nor for no longer time, then the civill power or people 
consenting and agreeing shall betrust them with.  This is cleere 
not only in Reason, but in the experience of all commonweales, 
where the people are not deprived of their naturall freedome 
by the power of Tyrants."
        - Brockunier, Irrepressible Democrat

  
         On September 17th (Constitution Day)
 1644 RW disembarked (boldly)
             in Boston,
 and presented the magistrates with a letter
 signed by prominent lords and commoners
             (Northumberland, St. John,
 Masham, Barrington, etc.) praising RW's
 "Indian labours" and expressing sorrow
             over the disagreements
 with the Bay colonists.  RW requested
 safe passage to the border;
             it was granted.
 At Seekonk, fourteen canoes
 full of friends from Providence
             escorted RW,
 "hemmed in the middle", across
 to home.  With him from London came
             Gregory Dexter,
 the radical printer from Stationer's Hall.
 Condemned by censors in parliament
             for certain tracts,
 he followed RW overseas.  His final
 London publication:

  
       Almanack for Providence Plantations in New England for 1644.

  
         (February 4 - I'm thinking of Naguib Mahfouz
 in a Cairo hospital, with a neck wound -
             and Sheik Rahman
 on trial for bombing New York - and Egypt
 fissuring, decaying
             between imperial strings,
 and a secular state full of rich mafiosi,
 and priestly politicians
             tyrannizing the slums -

                                                    2.4.95