"One age of darkness succeeded another, till God, in His benign providence, raised up champions, who began and conducted the Reformation. From the time of the Reformation to the first settlement in America, knowledge gradually spread in Europe, but especially in England and in proportion as that increased and spread among the people, [ecclesiastical and civil tyranny] seemed to have lost their strength and weight. The people grew more and more sensible of the wrong that was done them by these systems and determined at all the hazards to rid themselves of it. It was this great struggle that peopled America."