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The Great Controversy
the first state of modern times that in the fullest sense recognized
the right of religious freedom. The fundamental principle of Roger
Williams’s colony was “that every man should have liberty to worship
God according to the light of his own conscience.”—Ibid., vol. 5, p.
354. His little state, Rhode Island, became the asylum of the oppressed,
and it increased and prospered until its foundation principles—civil and
religious liberty—became the cornerstones of the American Republic.
In that grand old document which our forefathers set forth as their
bill of rights—the Declaration of Independence—they declared: “We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” And the
Constitution guarantees, in the most explicit terms, the inviolability of
conscience: “No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification
to any office or public trust under the United States.” “Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof.”
“The framers of the Constitution recognized the eternal principle
that man’s relation with his God is above human legislation, and his
rights of conscience inalienable. Reasoning was not necessary to
establish this truth; we are conscious of it in our own bosoms. It is
this consciousness which, in defiance of human laws, has sustained
so many martyrs in tortures and flames. They felt that their duty to
God was superior to human enactments, and that man could exercise
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no authority over their consciences. It is an inborn principle which
nothing can eradicate.”—Congressional documents (U.S.A.), serial
No. 200, document No. 271.
As the tidings spread through the countries of Europe, of a land
where every man might enjoy the fruit of his own labor and obey the
convictions of his own conscience, thousands flocked to the shores
of the New World. Colonies rapidly multiplied. “Massachusetts,
by special law, offered free welcome and aid, at the public cost, to
Christians of any nationality who might fly beyond the Atlantic ‘to
escape from wars or famine, or the oppression of their persecutors.’
Thus the fugitive and the downtrodden were, by statute, made the
guests of the commonwealth.”—Martyn, vol. 5, p. 417. In twenty
years from the first landing at Plymouth, as many thousand Pilgrims
were settled in New England.