Which colonies were tolerant

Twelfthly, lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a state or Kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, either of Jew or Gentile. She insisted that salvation was not earned, but a gift of God. To those who charged her, this teaching undermined the moral order. Further, she insisted that the Holy Spirit directly inspired her understanding of scripture, and she taught gatherings of women in her home, as well as gatherings of women and men.

Hutchinson AH , you are called here as one of those that have troubled the peace of the commonwealth and the churches here; you are known to be a woman that hath had a great share in promoting and divulging of those opinions that are causes of this trouble, and to be nearly joined not only in affinity and affection with some of those the court had taken notice of and passed censure upon, but you have spoken diverse things as we have been informed very prejudicial to the honour of the churches and ministers thereof[.

JW: Why for your doings, this you did harbor and countenance those that are parties in this faction that you have heard of. AH: If you please to give me leave, I shall give you the ground of what I know to be true. Being much troubled to see the falseness of the constitution of the church of England, I had like to have turned separatist[. Was the Turk antichrist only?

The Lord knows that I could not open scripture; he must by his prophetical office open it unto me. So after that being unsatisfied in the thing, the Lord was pleased to bring this scripture out of the Hebrews.

He that denies the testament denies the testator, and in this did open unto me and give me to see that those which did not teach the new covenant had the spirit of antichrist, and upon this he did discover the ministry unto me; and, ever since, I bless the Lord, he hath let me see which was the clear ministry and which the wrong.

Since that time I confess I have been more choice and he hath left me to distinguish between the voice of my beloved and the voice of Moses, the voice of John Baptist and the voice of antichrist, for all those voices are spoken of in scripture.

Now if you do condemn me for speaking what in my conscience I know to be truth, I must commit myself unto the Lord.

AH: How did Abraham know that it was God that bid him offer his son, being a breach of the sixth commandment? AH: By the voice of his own spirit to my soul. I will give you another scripture, Jer.

But after he was pleased to reveal himself to me I did presently like Abraham run to Hagar. And after that he did let me see the atheism of my own heart, for which I begged of the Lord that it might not remain in my heart, and being thus, he did show me this a twelvemonth after which I told you of before.

Therefore, I desire you to look to it, for you see this scripture fulfilled this day and therefore I desire you that as you tender the Lord and the church and commonwealth to consider and look what you do. You have power over my body but the Lord Jesus hath power over my body and soul; and assure yourselves thus much, you do as much as in you lies to put the Lord Jesus Christ from you, and if you go on in this course you begin, you will bring a curse upon you and your posterity, and the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

As Catholics and Protestants struggled in England, so too was this struggle enacted in the colonies. Virginia and Massachusetts passed anti-Catholic legislation adapted here into modern English. In Maryland, the government of Lord Baltimore, a Catholic, had set in place a policy of religious toleration. The Puritan government was not tolerant and disenfranchised the Catholics in Whereas it was enacted at an Assembly in January , that according to a statute made in the third year of the reign of our sovereign Lord King James of blessed memory, that no popish recusants should at any time hereafter exercise the place or places of secret councilors, register, comiss: surveyors or sheriff, or any other public place, but be utterly disabled for the same, And further it was enacted that none should be admitted into any of the aforesaid offices or places before he or they had taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy…And that it should not be lawful under the penalty aforesaid for any popish priest that shall hereafter arrive to remain above five days after warning given for his departure by the Governor or commander of the place, where he or they shall be, if wind and weather hinder not his departure.

This Court, taking into consideration the great wars and combustions which are this day in Europe, and that the same are observed to be chiefly raised and fomented by the secret practices of those of the Jesuitical order, for the prevention of like evils amongst ourselves, its ordered, by the authorities of this Court, that no Jesuit or ecclesiastical person ordained by the authority of the pope shall henceforth come within our jurisdiction….

Shurtleff, ed. Therefore all and Every person or persons Concerned in the Law aforesaid are required to take notice. In Maryland, during the year last past, our people have escaped grievous dangers, and have had to contend with great difficulties and straits, and have suffered many unpleasant things as well from enemies as from our own people. The English who inhabit Virginia had made an attack on the colonists, themselves Englishmen too; and safety being guarantied on certain conditions being treacherously violated, four of the captives, and three of them Catholics, were pierced with leaden balls.

Rushing into our houses, they demanded for death the impostors, as they called them, intending inevitable slaughter to those who should be caught. But the fathers, by the protection of God, unknown to them, were carried from before their faces: their books, furniture, and whatever was in the house, fell a prey to the robbers. With almost the entire loss of their property, private and domestic, together with great peril of life, they were secretly carried into Virginia; and in the greatest want of necessaries, scarcely, and with difficulty, do they sustain life.

They live in a mean hut, low and depressed, not much unlike a cistern, or even a tomb, in which that great defender of the faith, St. Athanasius, lay concealed for many years.

Dalrymple, ed. The Flushing Remonstrance adapted here into modern English was read and approved by townspeople meeting at the home of Michael Milner on December 27, You have been pleased to send up unto us a certain prohibition or command that we should not receive or entertain any of those people called Quakers because they are supposed to be by some, seducers of the people. For our part we cannot condemn them in this case, neither can we stretch out our hands against them, to punish, banish or persecute them, for out of Christ God is a consuming fire, and it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

We desire therefore in this case not to judge least we be judged, neither to condemn least we be condemned, but rather let every man stand and fall to his own Master. We are bound by the Law to do good unto all men, especially to those of the household of faith.

And though for the present we seem to be insensible of the law and the Law giver, yet when death and the Law assault us, if we have our advocate to seek, who shall plead for us in this case of conscience betwixt God and our own souls; the powers of this world can neither attack us, neither excuse us, for if God justify who can condemn and if God condemn there is none can justify.

And for those jealousies and suspicions which some have of them, that they are destructive unto Magistracy and Ministry, that cannot be, for the magistrate hath the sword in his hand and the minister hath the sword in his hand, as witness those two great examples which all magistrates and ministers are to follow, Moses and Christ, whom God raised up maintained and defended against all the enemies both of flesh and spirit; and therefore that which is of God will stand, and that which is of man will come to nothing.

And as the Lord hath taught Moses or the civil power to give an outward liberty in the state by the law written in his heart designed for the good of all, and can truly judge who is good, who is civil, who is true and who is false, and can pass definitive sentence of life or death against that man which rises up against the fundamental law of the States General; so he hath made his ministers a savor of life unto life, and a savor of death unto death.

The law of love, peace and liberty in the states extending to Jews, Turks, and Egyptians, as they are considered the sons of Adam, which is the glory of the outward state of Holland, so love, peace and liberty, extending to all in Christ Jesus, condemns hatred, war and bondage. And because our Savior saith it is impossible but that offenses will come, but woe unto him by whom they cometh, our desire is not to offend one of his little ones, in whatsoever form, name or title he appears in, whether Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist or Quaker, but shall be glad to see anything of God in any of them, desiring to do unto all men as we desire all men should do unto us, which is the true law both of Church and State; for our Savior saith this is the law and the prophets.

Therefore if any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our town, and houses, as God shall persuade our consciences.

And in this we are true subjects both of Church and State, for we are bound by the law of God and man to do good unto all men and evil to no man. And this is according to the patent and charter of our Town, given unto us in the name of the States General, which we are not willing to infringe, and violate, but shall hold to our patent and shall remain, your humble subjects, the inhabitants of Flushing.

Skip to main content. Several states, including Massachusetts and South Carolina, had official, state-supported churches. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. Future President James Madison stepped into the breach. This right is in its nature an inalienable right. Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion.

As a Christian, Madison also noted that Christianity had spread in the face of persecution from worldly powers, not with their help. The act is one of three accomplishments Jefferson included on his tombstone, along with writing the Declaration and founding the University of Virginia.

He omitted his presidency of the United States. And as framed in Philadelphia that year, the U. The men who fought the Revolution may have thanked Providence and attended church regularly—or not. But they also fought a war against a country in which the head of state was the head of the church. It was the recognition of that divisive past by the founders—notably Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison—that secured America as a secular republic.

For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens. As for Adams and Jefferson, they would disagree vehemently over policy, but on the question of religious freedom they were united. The belief widely held and preached by some of the most prominent ministers in America was that Catholics would, if permitted, turn America over to the pope.

Anti-Catholic venom was part of the typical American school day, along with Bible readings. The First Great Awakening. Religious Pluralism in the Middle Colonies. Church and State in British North America. The Church of England in Early America. Divining America Advisors and Staff.

Patricia U. If the American experiment in pluralism at times suggests the metaphor of a pressure cooker rather than a melting pot, this should come as no surprise to observers of the Middle Colonies. The mid-Atlantic region, unlike either New England or the South, drew many of its initial settlers from European states that had been deeply disrupted by the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars that followed in its wake.

African Americans and the indigenous Indians, with religious traditions of their own, added further variety to the Middle Colony mosaic. But no two-word phrase can capture the essence of those who set the mold for Middle Colony religious culture. To see why this is so, we must look a little closer.

The Dutch were the first Europeans to claim and settle lands between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, a region they named New Netherland. Yet half of the inhabitants attracted to the new colony were not Dutch at all but people set adrift by post-Reformation conflicts—including Walloons , Scandinavians, Germans, French, and a few English. In New Netherland was conquered by England. Suffolk County at the eastern end of Long Island, settled by migrating New Englanders, was the stronghold of Congregationalists.

French Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in , established their own town at New Rochelle in Westchester County, for decades keeping local records in French.

From its earliest years a port of entry for assorted newcomers, the city increasingly came to reflect its polyglot heritage. A woodblock of shows a skyline etched by church spires—eighteen houses of worship to serve a population of at most 22, New Jersey, if slower to develop, also embraced a variety of religious groups.

By the colony had forty-five distinct congregations; unable to afford churches, most met in houses or barns. And because clergymen were few, lay leaders frequently conducted services, with baptism and communion being offered only by the occasional itinerant minister.

All denominations in New Jersey expanded rapidly over the eighteenth century. A church survey in lists the active congregations as follows:. William Penn, an English gentleman and member of the Society of Friends, founded the colony of Pennsylvania in the early s as a haven for fellow Quakers.

Such groups as the Amish, Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Mennonites, and later the Moravians made small if picturesque additions to the heterodox colony. The most influential religious bodies beside the Quakers were the large congregations of German Reformed, Lutherans, Anglicans, and Presbyterians. Episcopal church established by Welsh settlers G Presbyterian church established by a Scotch-Irish community G Three churches established in the mid s Lancaster County, Pennsylvania photographed in Courtesy National Archives.

Delaware, first settled by Scandinavian Lutherans and Dutch Reformed, with later infusions of English Quakers and Welsh Baptists, had perhaps the most diverse beginnings of any middle colony. Yet over the eighteenth century Delaware became increasingly British, with the Church of England showing the most striking gains before the Revolution.

Adding further diversity to the region were inhabitants some missionaries considered ripe for conversion to Christianity—African Americans, who may have comprised 15 to 20 percent of the population of New York City and parts of New Jersey, and the native Indians. African Americans appear on the roles of almost every religious denomination, if usually in small numbers.

Congress, Yet slave owners throughout the Middle Colonies, as in the South, feared that admitting slaves to church membership would make them proud and rebellious. A number of Middle Colony clergymen expressed concern for the souls of Native Americans, if primarily to counter the success of rival French Canadian Jesuits in drawing some tribes to Roman Catholicism.

But when the Indians resisted surrendering their native ways as a prerequisite to conversion, most missionaries lost heart. It was not until the s, with the arrival of the Moravians—a sect less focused on sin and uniquely respectful of native cultures—that any Middle Colony mission made significant inroads among the local Indians.