In the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and other colonies, Puritans set up new governments with the same source of power – religious authority. These governments claimed that their right to rule was granted to them by the Christian God, and therefore they had absolute power to punish people for their thoughts, beliefs, words, actions, and even their bad luck. People were humiliated, shunned out of town, fined, beaten, mutilated, tortured, and killed. These acts of punishment weren’t for violating civil laws, but interpretations of divine laws.
In 1636, this punishment happened to Roger Williams. In the winter of 1636, Roger Williams was banished from his home in Salem for preaching “new and dangerous ideas” such as religious freedom and spiritual equality. With his arrest imminent, he fled. His goal was to reach New Amsterdam (New York) where he would be free to practice his religion. Instead, he was offered refuge by the Narragansett in a place called Moshassuck. Roger renamed it Providence and, before long, several English families were living there.
To protect their individual freedom to follow what faith was right for them, Williams and his followers chose to create a government that had limited powers. This was a radical new idea. The laws of this government would only address civil matters. This government would derive its authority from the people who lived there. It would have the power to decide issues such as taxes, public works projects, property laws, and military affairs, and would have no authority at all over religious or spiritual matters. And, because they needed a fair way to make decisions without drawing on a religious belief that not everyone believed in, they chose to use democracy…..
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/church_state_historical.htm
“that these dead shall not have died in vain– that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” (U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863)