Icebergs in Our History - The Doctrine of Discovery

Fronse,

That is a great question. The short answer is yes. And the longer answer is that the link between the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny is a progression.  I attempted to address this question a few months ago on my blog. Following is a paragraph from that post that most directly addresses your question.  Below I will post a link to the blog post the paragraph comes from as well as a link to another more in-depth article I wrote regarding the Doctrine of Discovery.

"Over the years the centuries, the Protestant church also adopted the Doctrine of Discovery and began to use it for its own benefit.  In 1630, in the colony of Boston, John Winthrop preached a sermon in which he referred to the colony as a “City on a Hill” and reminded them that they must be obedient to God so that "the Lord our God may blesse us in the land whether wee goe to possesse it."  Through the lens of the Doctrine of Discovery, the colonies beginning to see their presence in North America as a God-blessed, even a God-ordained, event out of which comparisons to Old Testament Israel and their journey to a "Promised Land" could be drawn. Over the next hundred years or so this thinking matured into an understanding that not only was this new nation a "City on a Hill" but it also had a “Manifest Destiny” to discover, occupy, and rule this continent from "sea to shining sea."

Here is a link to the article - "2015 New Year's Reflection: American Exceptionalism and an Invitation to Lament"
http://wirelesshogan.blogspot.com/2015/01/lament-american-exceptionalism.html​ 

And here is a link to another more in-depth article I wrote regarding the Doctrine of Discovery:
"The Doctrine of Discovery- A Buried Apology and an Empty Chair"
http://wirelesshogan.blogspot.com/2014/12/doctrine-of-discovery.html

Mark Charles