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" Coke’s influence was direct, Bacon’s more subtle, but Williams built upon the grounding both provided him, adding his own insights and his own conclusions, leaving a legacy of his own. It would be he, not Thomas Jefferson, who first called for a “wall of separation” to describe the relationship of church and state which both he and Jefferson demanded. It would be he who created the first government in the world that built such a wall. And it would be he who first defined the word “liberty” in modern terms, and saw the relationship between a free individual and the state in a modern way. "

John M. Barry , Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty


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John M. Barry quote : Coke’s influence was direct, Bacon’s more subtle, but Williams built upon the grounding both provided him, adding his own insights and his own conclusions, leaving a legacy of his own. It would be he, not Thomas Jefferson, who first called for a “wall of separation” to describe the relationship of church and state which both he and Jefferson demanded. It would be he who created the first government in the world that built such a wall. And it would be he who first defined the word “liberty” in modern terms, and saw the relationship between a free individual and the state in a modern way.