Religious Conscience in Colonial New England/Religious Freedom in America and the World: Commentary on "Religious Conscience in Colonial New England"

Half the wars of Europe, half the internal troubles that have vexed European states, from the Monophysite controversies in the Roman Empire of the fifth century down to the Kulturkampf in the German Empire of the nineteenth, have arisen from theological differences or from rival claims of church and state.4 THE RELIGIOUS MOTIVE IN THE ENGLISH COLONIZATION OF AMERICA The English colonization movement in North America was too complex to be attributed to anyone motivating factor. Propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance of the true Knowledge and Worship of God, and may in time bring the Infidels and Savages, living in those parts to human Civility, and to a settled and quiet government.6 Likewise, in "A True and Sincere Declaration of the purposes and ends of the Plantation begun in Virginia" set forth by the Governors and Councilors for the Plantation on December 14, 1609, it is proclaimed that: Baylor University Press, 2004; Thomas Jefferson, An Act for Establishing Religious Freedom and Notes on Virginia, Query XVII, The Different Religions Received into that State? in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson, eds.