They
Intended That The New Nation Should Be Pre-Eminently Composed Of A
God-Fearing People; But They Intended Also That They Should Be A
People Free In Everything - Free To Choose Their Own Forms Of
Worship.
They intended that the nation should be a Protestant
people; but they intended also that no man's conscience should be
coerced in the matter of his own religion.
It was hard to
reconcile these two things, and to explain to the citizens that it
behooved them to worship God - even under penalties for omission;
but that it was at the same time open to them to select any form of
worship that they pleased, however that form might differ from the
practices of the majority. In Connecticut it is declared that it
is the duty of all men to worship the Supreme Being, the Creator
and Preserver of the universe, but that it is their right to render
that worship in the mode most consistent with the dictates of their
consciences. And then, a few lines further down, the article skips
the great difficulty in a manner somewhat disingenuous, and
declares that each and every society of Christians in the State
shall have and enjoy the same and equal privileges. But it does
not say whether a Jew shall be divested of those privileges, or, if
he be divested, how that treatment of him is to be reconciled with
the assurance that it is every man's right to worship the Supreme
Being in the mode most consistent with the dictates of his own
conscience.
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